Abstract

This issue of the Journal of Medical Ethics contains articles on the ethics of: xenotransplantation; the UN and ethical approval for research with human participants; medical assistance in dying; person-centred care; genomic healthcare; the obligations of the health system; rescue ethics; ethical preparedness; and mitochondrial replacement techniques. In this editorial, I want to focus on a timely article by Kögel et al on how a multicriteria approach to patient selection would look like when considering the first clinical trials of cardiac xenotransplantation.1 The ethics of xenotransplantation has come, again, to the fore after a series of gene-edited heart and kidney pig organs were transplanted to humans in 2022, 2023 and 2024. All patients survived the operations, but sadly, of the five patients who received an organ four have died.2–6 I have no doubt that with research in xenotransplantation gaining steam, biomedical researchers and policymakers will look to medical ethicists for guidance on several matters that …