Why the US Pig Heart Transplant Was Different From the 1997 Assam Doctor Dhani Ram Baruah's Surgery

Guwahati: Surgeons in the US performed a one of its kind surgery by successfully transplanting the heart of a genetically modified pig into a 57-year-old patient on January 10.

Several news reports in India criticized the University of Maryland Medical School for neglecting the contributions of Doctor Dhani Ram Baruah.

According to the reports, Doctor Dhani Ram Baruah was the first person to have successfully carried out this experimental surgery 25 years ago at his own clinic in Sonapur on the outskirts of Guwahati.

However, the reports that were published during the time of his surgery in 1997 portrayed him as a lunatic scientist and described the xeno-transplant (inter-species organ transplant) as a "gimmick" thereby tarnishing his image.

The procedure followed by surgeons at the University of Maryland differs from that of Dhani Ram Baruah and hence it would not be appropriate to draw comparisons between the two.

Doctor Baruah's surgery was found to be unethical and was slammed by the medical and scientific communities for his decisions to not forensically document the transplant and perform the procedure without concrete scientific backing.

The one performed in the US had been backed up by decades of research and it is being hailed as a landmark achievement.

Dhani Ram transplanted a pig's heart on a 32-year-old terminally ill patient in January 1997. He claimed that he carried out the procedure as the dying patient had failed to respond to conventional surgery and he was left with no other option.

He also clarified that he had taken permission from the patient and his family.

Unfortunately, the man died a week later after his body developed several infections which happened to be a result of hyperacute rejection – meaning the body rejected the transplant.

The man's demise led to a major controversy and it also resulted in his arrest. He was found guilty of unethical procedure and culpable homicide under the Transplantation of Human Organs Act 1994 and subsequently spent a total of 40 days behind bars.

However, this setback did not stop him from pursuing his experiments and he continued with his work despite facing taunts.

He claimed to have developed a genetically engineered vaccine that would correct congenital heart defects and also claimed to have invented a cure for "HIV" in the later years.

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