Penis transplant

It won't revolutionise anything, such dramatic medical statments always.
For one it won't do anything useful, it can't reproduce or have erections.
Then there is the anti transplant medication which can induce diabetes and all kinds of other diseases.
It isn't anything like a heart transplant, in that case you are doing a transplant despuite all the risks of the procedure and other medication to directly prevent certain death without it.
This procedure would be a non functioning cosmetic procedure on a healthy and usually young person which could non directly lead to their much earlier medication related illness and death.

@HPFA

There was a massive case a while ago about someone using her dead husband's frozen sperm but I can't remember what the end result was.

Do you mean Diane Blood? She won the case and has two sons, both conceived after their father, her husband's death.

www.telegraph.co.uk/family/relationships/exclusive-diane-blood-family-life-20-years-won-right-use-dead/

Erkk - should have said "family" after second use of donor.

[quote Delphinium20]**@HPFA I don't see that transplanting testicles would ever be a thing because it would raise such huge issues. Why would a wife or parents agree to their loved one's sperm being used to create a child they would never see? I can't see this being a thing at all.

Sadly, I can see this. When men proclaim that child birth via surrogacy is a human right, and then state egg donor conceived children are a human right, then I won't be surprised to hear them make the argument that donor sperm/egg harvested from an organ donation is ethical.

Deceased organ donors don't choose their body part's recipients. They don't know if their penis goes to said wounded soldier allowing him to pee or to a woman who wants to be a man.

I agree wholeheartedly that this is unethical-imagine a child conceived this way and denied access to an entire family and even knowledge of a parent. What about that child's biological parent's spouse and maybe siblings and extended family who don't know they exist? How can the deceased donor consent to this or would they know it's possible before consenting to being a donor? Would this decrease organ donations for hearts, lungs, and other organs?[/quote]
In the UK currently permission for "novel" transplants is not covered by the normal system - instead a specific request has to be made to the family.

www.organdonation.nhs.uk/helping-you-to-decide/about-organ-donation/consent/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI28eqxsus7AIVQbTtCh2LuwHiEAAYASAAEgLX4PD_BwE

I can't see it ever happening - quite apart from the technical difficulties. To be anywhere close to ethical you would have to have a pre-existing permission from the donor AND get permission from the donor. The chances of both of those occurring must be very small.

There was a massive case a while ago about someone using her dead husband's frozen sperm but I can't remember what the end result was.

I can't passed someone wanting a second hand penis! I would always be wondering where it has been. Also can it get erect or is it just flacid?
As other posters have said just because we can doesn't mean we should. Where are the medical ethics committees reviewing these ideas?

I didn't get any further than reading the headline and thinking "zombie penis".

@HPFA I don't see that transplanting testicles would ever be a thing because it would raise such huge issues. Why would a wife or parents agree to their loved one's sperm being used to create a child they would never see? I can't see this being a thing at all.

Sadly, I can see this. When men proclaim that child birth via surrogacy is a human right, and then state egg donor conceived children are a human right, then I won't be surprised to hear them make the argument that donor sperm/egg harvested from an organ donation is ethical.

Deceased organ donors don't choose their body part's recipients. They don't know if their penis goes to said wounded soldier allowing him to pee or to a woman who wants to be a man.

I agree wholeheartedly that this is unethical-imagine a child conceived this way and denied access to an entire family and even knowledge of a parent. What about that child's biological parent's spouse and maybe siblings and extended family who don't know they exist? How can the deceased donor consent to this or would they know it's possible before consenting to being a donor? Would this decrease organ donations for hearts, lungs, and other organs?

I have always thought that behind the scene pushing this agenda is the medical community

There is a strand of people in medecine who want to do things because they've never been done before - sometimes this leads to breakthroughs and amazing health benefits, sometimes, not. Which is why medical ethics is a whole thing of itself, I suppose.

But seriously, this will inevitably happen. I even wonder if a transwoman and a trans man will come to some sort of swap agreement.

That article is strange. "it would be hard-pressed to deny access to penile transplantation to transgender men solely on the basis of their gender identity while making it available to cisgender men.”

The recipients wouldn’t be discriminated against because of their gender identity. They would be disqualified for the (still speculative) operation because of their actual biology, their sex.

Well said Nauticant

I'll repeat what I tend to post when these outlandish medical treatments are suggested. This is not so much about operations happening as to get the concept of such operations into the public domain as something that is achieveable and real but just waiting for a few technical details to be resolved. It's to lull people into the belief that bodies are effectively neuter made up from a kit of interchangeable parts.

Thus we are to accept that there's no real difference between male and female bodies while the basis for this is insane science fiction medical procedures which do not exist.

As anyone who frequents the litterbox may have noticed, DuneCat had to be PTS recently due to advanced cancer. I had many discussions with the vet about the varieties of treatment on offer (steroids, steroids plus palliative chemo, more agressive chemo aimed at shrinking the tumour which would require inpatient treatment and transfusions which my cat would not have tolerated well).

At the back of my mind as the vet described some of the more invasive, intensive therapies, was a little voice saying "just because you can doesn't mean you should."

I feel like my vet and I put more intensive ethical discussion into the treatment of a cat than some of these surgeons do into treatment of actual people.

it would be hard-pressed to deny access to penile transplantation to transgender men solely on the basis of their gender identity while making it available to cisgender men.

Errr wouldn't a simple application of ethics stop this in its tracks? I will be so bold as to say those pushing for this haven't got a background in medical ethics.

We know men can't have blood transfusions from women who have been pregnant, we know there are difference between the sexes. We know it takes more than a uterus transplant to grow a baby....

What do they even want to do with these penises, would it get erect?

This is God complex stuff. Phalloplasty with a patients own tissue can go very very badly for them, this is frankenscience.

If money is the main factor, the 'who pays' then becomes a question. In the US, companies pay the insurance for their employees and the costs are exorbitant, not just healthcare, but claims. There will be a point when costs become too high. It will be interesting to watch developments. The surgical fraternity are at the stage where 'we can do it' outruns success ratees (as happens with botched phalloplastys) then who decides.

One of the factors NICE was set up, to take the pressure off governments when making difficult decisions

@Gncq this!

I have always thought that behind the scene pushing this agenda is the medical community or at least the ones that stand to make loads of money....is that too cynical of me. Although looking at twitter, clearly we are, as people/society really fucked up at the moment and all going a little nuts.......

I feel awful for the people having it done, completely unnecessary treatment.

Well, context is king. For the soldier who'd lost his penis along with part of his abdomen the ability to pee alone might be worth the risk and complications.

As an elective surgery to treat body dismorphia it's fucking monsterous.

Yes. If and when they get to the point of being able to reconnect nerves, a lot of people will be queuing up in joy.

Aesthetics are an interesting factor - I think most of us know that penises come in a range of sizes and appearance and presumably the recipient would want something at least comparable to what they previously had, or maybe they might want an upgrade? Whereas for a kidney or heart transplant all that is needed is a functioning organ of the same tissue type. Does the penis need to be tissue typed as well? I suppose it must.

As someone who’s had a couple of severed nerves from surgery, this is just fantastical thinking.

I have a small area on my thumb where I nearly sliced a section off whilst cooking, and a flap was hanging off. I didn't attend A&E, just bandaged it in place and it healed fine. But it has been forever numb.
I have no idea how effective nerve reattachment is.

I also think this will encourage demands for uterine transplants.

Expanding on what the poster above has just said, if doctors can simply attach one nerve to another and make them work, surely they could do so much more than just penis transplants? I know people who have nerve damage, in one particular case very substantial damage, who would be thrilled to have a doctor reattach their nerves so they worked.

‘ They take out the main nerve(s) to the clitoris and reattach the nerve ending to the skin tube (or in this case, the dead person's penis) so theoretically sexual feeling is acheived when the skin tube is touched, but in reality I understand phaloplasty leads to a loss of sexual feeling.’

As someone who’s had a couple of severed nerves from surgery, this is just fantastical thinking.

I think some of these surgeons are thinking very little about the patient - it is all about what is technically possible and having their name at the forefront of surgical developments.