When Debakey (sp, i'm sure, is wrong) got his early "success," there was a lot of overenthused overreaching. The evos think this is a poster child thing, but it could have been no more than a flippant remark made by a professional. I'll do some reading about Baby Fae, though, and I'll bet there were some ideas (wrong ideas) about the operation that had nothing to do with the Descent of Man.
Hah. I thought this whole thing was bogus. But there's a lot that's bogus going on in science these days--plagarists and phony data--just google up "unenthical scientists" and you'll waste a day of reading.
here's one source..".One concern was the difference in blood groups of the potential donors and the recipient: common baboons are virtually all AB, A, or B types. The recipient was type O. Crossing the ABO barrier has historically been shunned. However, scattered reports of human kidney- and heart-transplant survival, despite ABO mismatching, were of some encouragement. The transplant team also felt that crossing the ABO barrier might be less significant than crossing the species barrier and that the baby's immune system might fail to recognize it as being as significant as the species barrier.
Should they proceed? All of the other tests were progressing nicely and showing a significant likeness between Baby Fae and one particular potential baboon donor. The team would be vulnerable to criticism if the risky transplant was not successful. The decision to proceed became a judgment call. This was, after all, a compassionate effort to save a baby's life--and, maybe, eventually, the lives of many other babies.
The Institutional Review Board had been following developments closely and was aware of the surgeon's ongoing discussions with the baby's family and of her condition. Final approval of the IRB was granted on October 24, two days before surgery.
Meanwhile, sophisticated, time-consuming immunological tests were employed to help choose the best tissue-matched donor. Bailey's research had discovered that some baboons are more closely tissue-matched to some humans than are other humans. The longest test, the mixed-lymphocyte culture, took six days, but the transplant team was determined not to rush into surgery without having vital information. At midnight, Thursday, October 25, Baby Fae almost died. She was already on maximum life support and was almost taken to surgery before the tests were completed. Decisions were being made on an hour by hour basis." http://www.llu.edu/info/legacy/Legacy3.html (loma linda) There's lots more out there, just hit a single dogpile search with keywords "baby fae baboon chimpanzee"
This is all complete BS--that Dr. Bailey chose a baboon rather than a chimpanzee because "he didn't believe in evolution"-- what's going on here is a hidden agenda. I suspect a DNC agenda.
How low can these fanatics go--i