Return of Alpha Gal | Radiolab Podcast
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- Опубликовано: 16 дек 2021
- From the Radiolab podcast: We’re about to serve up a tale of love, loss and lamb chops - with a side of genetic modification.
Several years ago we told a story about Amy Pearl. For as long as she could remember, Amy loved meat in all its glorious cuts and marbled flavors. And then one day, for seemingly no reason, her body wouldn’t tolerate it. No steaks. No brisket. No weenies. It made no sense: why couldn’t she eat something that she had routinely enjoyed for decades?
It turned out Amy was not alone. And the answer to her mysterious meat allergy involved maps, a dancing lone star tick, and a very particular sugar called alpha-gal.
In this update, we discover that our troubles with alpha-gal go way beyond food. We go to NYU Langone Health hospital to see the second ever transplant of a kidney from a pig into a human, talk to some people at Revivicor, the company that bred the pig in question, and go back to Amy to find out what she thinks about this brave new world.
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The original episode was reported by Latif Nasser and produced by Annie McEwen and Matt Kielty. Sound design and scoring from Dylan Keefe, Annie McEwen and Matt Kielty. Mix by Dylan Keefe with Arianne Wack.
The update was reported and produced by Sarah Qari. It was sound designed, scored and mixed by Jeremy Bloom.
Photo by José Ignacio Pompé [unsplash.com/@joseignaciopompe]
Video by Kim Nowacki and Andrea Latimer. 
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That's great that Amy doesn't want pigs killed or doesn't want to eat their meat, but there are untold numbers of us out here trying to deal with Alpha Gal who have no problem with the concept of animals being raised and slaughtered for our consumption. We just don't want to get sick (or worse) while we enjoy them. Thank God for Revivicor and their creation of GalSafe pigs. I just enjoyed the first pork chops I've had in a year and a half. They were delicious. Hopefully they will get the green light to sell online because there are tens of thousands in the FB support groups who would be instant customers.
Keep on trucking!
It is very idealistic thing what humans want to do but, we can't and that is the problem. But we do what we can.
God, as a carnivore that would suck
This explains the extreme vegan issue with people.
Am I the only one thinking Amy has greatly missed the point?
Her focus on the meat production and her role in that story might suggest a stronger responsibility than its actually the case. The company certainly would have considered the use as a food product even without her first podcast. Not the least, that organ harvesting was done entirely independently of her story.
Other than that, her point is, that this is a new level of animal exploitation. And that seems to be accurate if you ask me.
What point did she miss?
When she said "why don't we just make a fake kidney?" I lost interest lol. Luckily it's at the very end. If it was possible it would be done clearly lol
This episode ended as a huge disappointment. Amy Pearl ends up asking, "Why don't they just make a fake kidney?... I mean... imagine if humans did not think like oh, it's okay to take, to, like, kill an animal just to get its kidney for someone else. It was like not even something that crossed their mind. We would have invented a plastic kidney by now, probably."
I don't begrudge the fact that Amy doesn't know what she's talking about, that an artificial kidney machine has been invented and been used for decades to keep people alive. It's a lifesaving stopgap while waiting for a possible transplant. But, it's a miserable way to live in the long term. Treatment means being hooked up to a machine that cleanses your blood, imperfectly, for several hours several times each week.
I don't blame Amy Pearl for not being aware of this. I do blame Radiolab for leaving her statement that no one has invented a "plastic kidney" hanging out there without correcting it. Bad job.