Susanne Lundin is a professor at the Department of Arts and Cultural Sciences and has conducted interdisciplinary research with medics for 30 years. Today, she is a sought-after expert on issues related to people’s attitudes to organ trafficking, counterfeit medicines and transplants.
“The common thread that runs through my research has always been technology, identity and health. What happens to us and our thoughts and attitudes as genetic engineering, biotechnology and medical technology are constantly evolving and exceeding the body’s limits to maintain and create life?”
It's not about right or wrong
Susanne Lundin does not seek answers to existential questions, she is the one asking them. She is also careful to point out that her research is not about ethics.
“I don’t say if something is right or wrong or what people should do. What I do is interview people in depth and relate their reasoning around issues such as involuntary infertility, organ trafficking, fake drugs and transplants.”
Susanne Lundin’s academic path took shape during her time as a postdoc in Cambridge in the mid-1990s, where she researched involuntary infertility and in vitro fertilisation. There, she came in contact with a research team that worked with xenotransplants, i.e. transplants across species boundaries from animal to human. At that time, another research team in Stockholm was studying whether it was possible to give diabetics insulin-producing cells from pigs.
“Xenotransplants and in vitro fertilisation use the same technology in some contexts, so these two research teams wanted me to investigate what people actually think about cross-species transplants.”
Cross-species transplants
Susanne Lundin says she slipped into what has since become her field of research for the last 30 years. She was in the right place at the right time and met the right researchers who were open to working in an interdisciplinary way.
In January this year, 57-year-old David Bennett had a genetically modified pig heart implanted into his body, attracting worldwide attention as the first person to survive such a transplant. He died recently, two months post-operation.
Cross-species transplants have rarely caught the eye of the media, but that all changed when a pig’s heart was operated into a human.
“I think it is a taboo. A person’s heart and eyes are so intimately associated with the soul and there is both a curiosity and a fear of anything that crosses species boundaries.”
Increased fears because of the pandemic
Ambivalence is perhaps the word that best describes people who have undergone a xenotransplant. One and the same person often holds conflicting views. Humankind is sometimes described as the pinnacle of creation, and yet is also regarded as part of nature, an interchangeable cog in nature’s larger machinery.
“These two views concur all the time. People think that researchers should not meddle with genes, challenge fate or change nature, and yet at the same time the mantra is repeated that people should do whatever it takes to stay alive and if you aren’t prepared to take the risk, you die,” Susanne Lundin explains.
The debate about cross-species transplantations has gained momentum over the last two years, just as the pandemic has been raging. Fear has increased and behind these concerns are worries about spreading disease from animals to humans, in the same way that it is assumed that the coronavirus spread from bats to humans.
Some countries stand out
Another type of fear that has always been present is the transference of animal characteristics with these operations. One that popular culture, not least Hollywood, has capitalised on. Movies like Alien and The Fly play on the fear of what becomes of the human body if something alien or animal invades.
“Popular culture is often one step ahead. Horror films often allude to the same concerns that appear in today’s discussions about artificial intelligence and robots; what will be the outcome, something human or something else? Will this unknown take over?”
But it is not just cross-species transplants that are controversial. Attitudes towards human organ transplantation change over time and differ between countries, cultures and religions. Susanne Lundin describes it as society constantly renegotiating what it considers to be acceptable. The boundaries are stretched.
She points to Germany as a country that stands out in Europe in terms of attitudes towards transplantation. There, the question is more controversial than elsewhere, not least due to the history of experiments that were done on people under Nazism.
Another country that stands out in terms of its views on transplants is China. There, as in many other countries, people believe the dead should be buried whole, without the body being opened. Nevertheless, China is a major exporter of human organs.
How can that be?
“In China, prisoners sentenced to death, especially political prisoners, are considered to have forfeited their rights as citizens. They are no longer considered human, and then it is considered fine to take organs from their bodies. They become organ banks,” says Susanne Lundin.
Illegal organs and medicines
All trafficking in human organs is illegal and it was in connection with her study of the trade that she came into contact with the trade in illegal pharmaceuticals. Both industries turn over large sums and are dependent on each other. Many people who buy organs illegally come home only to find not only is their organ defective, but so too are the accompanying antirejection drugs. They buy medicine believing it to be real but have been deceived and receive counterfeits.
“Counterfeit medicine is a gigantic market and production takes place everywhere from basements to large factories. The packaging is an exact copy of the originals, but inside could be plaster, dust or nothing at all. The most common counterfeits are malaria drugs and medicines for TB and AIDS, but also potency-enhancing drugs, antidepressants and diet pills. With the pandemic, counterfeit Covid drugs have become commonplace,” says Susanne Lundin.
