Return of Alpha Gal

Tuck your napkin under your chin. We’re about to serve up a tale of love, loss, and lamb chops - with a side of genetic modification.

• 0:01Speaker 00

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• 0:37Speaker 01

  Hello, it's Lulu. It's summer here in the northern hemisphere, which means the tics, the tics are out. And also, the barbecues are out. Hot dogs, hamburgers, tics, and burning meat, which made me think of today's episode, which combines the two into a wildly eerie, scary, but perhaps hopeful, ethically complex tale. It's one of my all-time favorite Radiolabs, and we're gonna play it for you today. It is 10 years old, but lucky for you, it has a pretty thrilling scientific update at the end. So here we go.

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  Wait, you're listening?

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  Okay.

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  All right.

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  Okay.

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  All right.

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  You're listening to Radiolab.

• 1:24Speaker 02

  Radiolab. From WNYC.

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  R-E-Y.

• 1:36Speaker 05

  Good.

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  Okay.

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  Is your mic on?

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  Yeah. I'm getting, this is making me nervous. Maybe I should get my EpiPen.

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  Are you allergic to radio greatness?

• 1:51Speaker 05

  Not that I know of. I haven't been really exposed to it yet. Anyway, let's go.

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  Are we rolling? We're good? We're going?

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  We are rolling.

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  Okay.

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  I'm Robert Krolwich. This is Radiolab. And today, we're going to begin with a conversation between Dan Pashman,

• 2:06Speaker 02

  Okay.

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  host of a podcast here at WNYC called The Sporkful. It's about food. And Amy Pearl.

• 2:13Speaker 02

  Amy?

• 2:13Speaker 05

  Yes.

• 2:14Speaker 07

  A digital producer here at the station who likes food. And the conversation they had was about something that happened to Amy, which she never expected, certainly didn't want, and yet it could happen to any of us at any time.

• 2:28Speaker 02

  So, years ago, before any of this happened to you, just tell me, what was your relationship with meat?

• 2:34Speaker 05

  My relationship with meat?

• 2:35Speaker 02

  Yeah.

• 2:36Speaker 05

  Well, you know how when you're little and your mom is like, "You can have any special dinner for your birthday." My dinner was meatballs. And she was like, "Except meatballs, they're so hard to make." So it was pot roast. And then Peter, you know Peter Luger's?

• 2:53Speaker 02

  Famous steakhouse in Brooklyn.

• 2:54Speaker 05

  Yeah. I used to go there quite often, and I live there, and I have a Peter Luger credit card. So...

• 3:00Speaker 02

  Are those hard to get?

• 3:02Speaker 05

  You know, I don't, I don't know how they give them out, but nobody seems to have one. I don't think they give them out anymore. But, I mean, I was very into Peter. Like, I was living in Williamsburg, and it just, it opened at like 1 o'clock every day, and you could just walk in at 1:00. They had an amazing bar. There was no tablecloth on the table, these old German waiters. They'd bring out your porterhouse for 3:00. They'd put a little plate upside down, and then put the big platter on top of it, so it's tilted, and all the juice runs to the end. And then they like have this special double spoon thing that they somehow like scoop juice onto your steak, and, ugh, so good. And also, like, the smell of burning fat from a hamburger.

• 3:45Speaker 02

  What about hot dogs?

• 3:47Speaker 05

  Oh, my God, I love hot dogs so much. When you bite into them, and they're like, clack, and have like a snap. And, like, having a weenie roast out in the open air is just, it's like, oh, God, it's so good. Anyway, I, I was always very into meat.

• 4:06Speaker 02

  What changed?

• 4:07Speaker 05

  Oh, my God, it was terrible. It was, what happened was, I was having this beautiful, it was springtime, I was having a beautiful leg of lamb with some neighbors, and we'd like put it on the grill, and it was just a delicious, beautiful dinner. And I had served with it some ramps that I foraged in my mom's yard.

• 4:27Speaker 07

  A ramp, by the way, is just a wild onion.

• 4:29Speaker 05

  And so, so we had this delicious meal, and then, you know, I went home, and I was going to sleep at like midnight, like a few hours later, and I just felt weird. I was like, "God, something's wrong." I feel like really anxious, like something's wrong with me. And I went in the bathroom, and I like look in the mirror, and my face was like all weird looking, and I was like, I kept laying down, be like, "I'll just sleep it off, whatever it is." But every time I lay down, I felt like I was gonna faint, so I was like prop myself up, and I was like, "Oh, God." I was having terrible, like, stomach cramps, and just like a weird feeling of impending doom. You know, but just like anybody, I'm just like, "Just get a good night's sleep, this will pass." I like splashed a little water on my face.

• 5:12Speaker 05

  I mean, I don't know why I made me think this, but I thought like, maybe a snail, a tiny snail, was on one of the ramps that I ate, and it was like poisoning me somehow. You know, snails, I mean, they're probably poisonous.

• 5:28Speaker 05

  So, I called my friends in the morning. I was like, "Hey, how you guys doing? How was dinner?" And they were like, "Oh, so great." And I was like, "Really? So great? Nothing weird?"

• 5:39Speaker 02

  No horrific panic attacks?

• 5:41Speaker 05

  They were like, and they were like, "Oh, that was so lovely. Thank you so much. Let's do it again, blah, blah, blah." And I was like, "Wow, I really had a rough night." And, but I didn't think anything of it, and I went on with my life, you know, just like, whatever. And then, about a week or two later, I made some cheeseburgers, and I ate a cheeseburger, and I was watching Goodbye, Mr. Chips. Really tear-jerking movie, and a good book, too. And about a couple of hours after I ate, I was like, started to feel really weird. Again, I was like feeling like I was like had to stand up. I was like, "I think I'm gonna faint. I feel really lightheaded. I can't catch my breath. I feel like really woozy." But if any time I lay down, I really felt like I was gonna faint.

• 6:25Speaker 05

  So I was like trying to stay sitting upright, and I was like, "Oh, my God, this is very similar." I ran into the bathroom, and I was like looking in the mirror, and lo and behold, I had hives all over my stomach, and then they started coming out of my hands, and I was like, "Oh, my God, something's happening." And at one point, I did get up and unlock my door, because I did feel like I'm gonna pass out, call an ambulance, and then they're not gonna be able to get in. So, I mean, I was a little bit afraid of what was happening. And when I woke up in the morning, the first thing I did was Google sudden meat allergy, because I was like, "This seems like an allergy." And the only thing that was the same was meat. And I'm going through, and like the second thing that came up was this article that was like, "Florida man has sudden meat allergy."

• 7:10Speaker 05

  I was like, "Oh, my God, I think it's possible I could have this." And so I made an appointment with my doctor. I brought in the article. I'm like, "I'm gonna be this person, but I can do it." And I had the article in my pocket.

• 7:19Speaker 02

  What, be what person?

• 7:21Speaker 05

  You know, the person that goes to their doctor with something I found on the internet. So I brought the article. It was in my pocket, and like, I got through the whole like checkup, and I was too chicken. I went, when I was paying the receptionist, I pulled it out and gave it to the receptionist, and I was like, "Could you give this to the doctor?" So, that was like the best I could do. And then I did call my doctor and had a conversation with him on the phone, asking him if I could get tested, and he was like, "No, there's no such thing as a meat allergy, blah, blah, blah."

• 7:54Speaker 02

  So, so some people think allergies are just like in your head.

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  This is science writer Peter Smith. We got in touch with him after we heard Amy's story, because Peter is an investigator of many things, including strange allergies.

• 8:09Speaker 02

  And people are like, mushrooms hurt them, or they think...

• 8:12Speaker 06

  Wifi hurts them.

• 8:13Speaker 02

  Yeah, Wifi hurts them, and I don't know...

• 8:15Speaker 07

  And when our producer, Latif Nasser, and I got into the studio, and we told him about Amy's story, he said...

• 8:20Speaker 02

  Yeah, all right.

• 8:21Speaker 07

  "I know exactly who you need to talk to."

• 8:23Speaker 04

  Hello?

• 8:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, hi! Thomas Platts Mills.

• 8:26Speaker 04

  This is Thomas Platts Mills, that's right.

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  How are you?

• 8:29Speaker 04

  I'm very well.

• 8:30Speaker 07

  Dr. Platts Mills is down at the University of Virginia in Charlottesville. He's a professor, and he works at an allergy clinic.

• 8:36Speaker 04

  In an allergy clinic, we're constantly sifting through stories, which not only you don't believe, but are actually nonsense, simply because...

• 8:45Speaker 07

  And he told us, in the last 10 years or so, he started hearing lots of stories just like Amy.

• 8:51Speaker 04

  Right.

• 8:51Speaker 07

  Somebody shows up at the office convinced that they're allergic, all of a sudden, for no apparent reason, to red meat.

• 8:57Speaker 04

  The first time I heard it was probably as early as 2004.

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  And every single time he heard the story, he would tell the patient exactly what Amy's doctor told her.

• 9:09Speaker 04

  No.

• 9:09Speaker 07

  No way.

• 9:10Speaker 04

  No, no, no.

• 9:10Speaker 07

  It's not possible.

• 9:11Speaker 04

  Right.

• 9:12Speaker 07

  So what was wrong with these complaints, you know, in an orthodox medical way?

• 9:16Speaker 04

  Oh, everything.

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  Everything.

• 9:17Speaker 04

  Adults don't become allergic to something they've eaten for 40 years out of the blue, and certainly not red meat.

• 9:26Speaker 07

  So you're, you're basically saying to these patients, "I think you must be making this up, because I can't explain it."

• 9:31Speaker 04

  Well, I don't, I don't use language like that. I say, I say, "They're there."

• 9:37Speaker 07

  I was, I was trying to give you your inner voice.

• 9:39Speaker 04

  Oh, you don't want to know what doctors are thinking in their inner voices. You know, you often think in the middle of an interview.

• 9:46Speaker 03

  Is it possible that he's got, you know, some ghastly disease?

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  Mad cow.

• 9:50Speaker 03

  Yeah, you know.

• 9:51Speaker 07

  The point is that when he'd hear a story like Amy's, he just didn't believe it. But then, everything changed. Thanks, oddly enough, to a cancer drug.

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  This new cancer drug called cetuximab.

• 10:05Speaker 04

  In New York today, Martha Stewart was indicted on criminal charges relating to--

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  This is the very drug that got Martha Stewart in all that trouble for insider trading.

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  Remember that? I went to jail for six months.

• 10:16Speaker 07

  Yeah. Anyway, very promising, exciting new drug. But then?

• 10:23Speaker 06

  Doctors were giving people this injection and they would just like end up on the floor of the doctor's office.

• 10:28Speaker 07

  In shock?

• 10:29Speaker 06

  Yeah, there would be an anaphylactic shock.

• 10:31Speaker 07

  Their hearts would start beating faster, they'd get short of breath, they'd get stomach cramps, their immune system would start to overreact to something new, an alien that came in with the drug. Basically, a classic allergic reaction.

• 10:44Speaker 06

  So the mystery lands on Thomas Platts Mills' desk.

• 10:48Speaker 03

  Yes. So we were asked to look at cetuximab.

• 10:52Speaker 07

  To see if they could figure out what was causing the reaction.

• 10:54Speaker 06

  And he tests two groups of blood, a control sample and then people that have this allergy.

• 10:59Speaker 07

  And he quickly zeroed in on a particular molecule, a sugar that was part of the drug.

• 11:04Speaker 03

  This sugar, galactose, alpha 13 galactose, or alpha-gal.

• 11:11Speaker 07

  Alpha-gal?

• 11:12Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 11:13Speaker 07

  As in a particularly great lady?

• 11:16Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 11:16Speaker 07

  Better than the beta or gamma-gal?

• 11:18Speaker 00

  It's like alpha male, but alpha female didn't quite have a ring to it. It's the alpha-gal.

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  Anyway, it seemed like alpha-gal was the culprit.

• 11:26Speaker 03

  Yeah, and if you'd told me four years earlier that there's a whole lot of people out there who are allergic to this sugar, I'd have thought you were smoking, you know, vaping again.

• 11:38Speaker 07

  Because not only does this sugar, alpha-gal, show up in the cancer drug, and this is where we get back to Amy, it also shows up in the blood of mammals.

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  All non-primate mammals.

• 11:53Speaker 07

  So every time you eat--

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  Lamb--

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  Or--

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  Beef, goat, camel--

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  Even--

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  Tripe--

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  Or--

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  Pig's kidneys.

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  You're also eating alpha-gal.

• 12:06Speaker 05

  So I'm reading this article and it says like, it's this thing called alpha-galactase or alpha-gal or whatever.

• 12:12Speaker 07

  So it made no sense that someone like Amy, who'd been eating meat all her life, would suddenly somehow be allergic to alpha-gal.

• 12:19Speaker 05

  I just was like, this was so stupid.

• 12:21Speaker 07

  So, one day--

• 12:22Speaker 05

  It's getting to be barbecue season. I usually have like a couple of barbecues where I just do a whole pork butt and a brisket and like hang out all day doing it. And I was like, very wanted to do that. And I was like, I'm just gonna not eat meat and not even know. So I was like, forget it, my doctor won't test me, I'm gonna test myself. So I was like, gonna be very careful. I got a thing of Benadryl. And I was like, I'm not gonna do it alone, I'll do it with my mom. My poor mom. And so I went up to my mom's and she's like really into food too. So she was like, oh, this is so exciting. I got two porterhouse steaks on salad stews.

• 13:03Speaker 07

  Did you explain to her what you were testing?

• 13:06Speaker 05

  Yeah, I did, because I had talked a little bit about it with her. So, like, fire up the grill, do the porterhouse. I even think I like Instagrammed it as a joke, like, ha, ha, ha. This might be the last time you hear from me.

• 13:20Speaker 05

  But, so, you know, we're having a nice summer day, just me and my mom, having our steak. I only ate like a couple bites because I was slightly nervous. And I was like sitting in the grass with my dog and reading a book and trying to think like, do I feel normal? Which, try it, folks, it's hard to figure out when you start asking yourself. Do I feel normal? Does this, am I breathing? Oh, is my stomach hurt? Is something wrong? And I was like, after a while, I was like, ugh, I feel pretty good. And the neighbor came over and was like chatting with us. And it was in the middle of that conversation where I was like, I kind of feel like I have to go to the bathroom, but maybe I just have to go to the bathroom.

• 14:05Speaker 05

  So I went to the bathroom and I was sitting there and I was like, oh, God, something feels bad. And then I was like, oh, God, I definitely, this is not right, something's wrong. And I went in to get the Benadryl and I took the Benadryl and I went on my bed and in the guest room at my mom's and I was like sitting on there and I was like, I just don't feel right. Oh, maybe I just take a deep breath, I'll just stand up. Maybe I just put my hands over my head like this. Oh, that does feel slightly better, I think. And then I was finally like, I think we should go to the hospital. And I went outside, I was like, Mom, I think you have to drive me to the hospital. She was like talking to her neighbor like, what? Oh, my God, honey, what? Oh, let me go change my clothes.

• 14:51Speaker 05

  Change my clothes. Like, Mom, you know, she's not wearing the hospital level clothes. So I'm like, okay, hurry up, Mom. Mom, are you ready, Mom? And then I was like, while she was changing her clothes, I suddenly was like, oh, my God, got my wallet out and my cell phone and I like threw it towards my mom's bedroom door. And I was like, here's my insurance card, call an ambulance. And I just like hit the floor. Eventually, the ambulance arrives and I got stabilized, I was strapped to the thing, I was in the emergency room, like they were shooting me full of, I don't know what, epinephrine and adrenaline. And the little like 12-year-old emergency room doctor runs in and he was like, I looked it up on the internet, alpha-gal, fascinating. What?

• 15:36Speaker 05

  That's terrible, I've never heard of that, could it be true? Yes, it's true. Like, they're all having this discussion there. Then when I went back to my doctor after that and I was like, hey, just get out of the emergency room because they tested me for alpha-gal and I'm allergic to meat.

• 15:51Speaker 07

  So this is an allergy?

• 15:53Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 15:54Speaker 00

  So all of a sudden, you're looking at the quote crazies and they're not so quote crazy anymore?

• 15:59Speaker 03

  Absolutely. We suddenly had a blood test. And of course, what turned out is all these patients who'd been telling us this story were allergic to alpha-gal.

• 16:12Speaker 06

  But, but it's still like a mystery.

• 16:14Speaker 03

  Right. There are--

• 16:15Speaker 07

  Thomas Platts Mills couldn't figure out why people like Amy, who had lived for 40 years eating porterhouse steaks at Peter Luger's with a credit card, why would she suddenly develop an allergy now? There had got to be some kind of trigger.

• 16:30Speaker 03

  Yes. So we were looking for anything that could explain it.

• 16:33Speaker 06

  It could be a mold, it could be a nematode.

• 16:35Speaker 03

  A worm or a fungus.

• 16:38Speaker 07

  But then he looked again and noticed that all the people who had had bad reactions to the cancer drug--

• 16:44Speaker 03

  They were in a particular area of the country. Was Virginia, North Carolina--

• 16:49Speaker 07

  Southern Missouri.

• 16:50Speaker 03

  Arkansas. No cases in Salt Lake City, no cases in Denver. Just smatterings down the west.

• 16:56Speaker 07

  So he turned to his technician, Jake, and he said--

• 16:58Speaker 03

  I said, you've got to Google every map you can find and say what matches that area.

• 17:05Speaker 07

  Creatures or diseases that appear wherever the allergy appears. So Jake starts Googling.

• 17:12Speaker 06

  Googling and Googling and Googling and--

• 17:14Speaker 07

  And eventually, he comes across a map that--

• 17:17Speaker 03

  Matches where the cases are very beautifully. The maximum area for Rocky Mountain spotted fever.

• 17:23Speaker 06

  So he made this little map and it's like the shaded dark areas of the country are places with Rocky Mountain spotted fever. And then there's like some stars where, you know, this, this allergy had appeared.

• 17:33Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 17:34Speaker 06

  And they, they overlap.

• 17:36Speaker 03

  Ah, very interesting.

• 17:38Speaker 06

  And then all of a sudden, it clicks. Rocky Mountain spotted fever is a tick-borne disease.

• 17:46Speaker 03

  This is the distribution of the Lone Star Tick.

• 17:49Speaker 07

  And actually, just a little before this, it turns out, an allergist down in Australia, Cheryl Van Nunnan. First name Cheryl, S-H-E-R-Y-L, Van Nunnan, V-A-N, and then N-U-N-N. And I'm from the Tick Injurious Allergies Research and Awareness Centre in Sydney, Australia. She says she was now being visited by all kinds of people who claimed suddenly to be allergic to meat. And whenever I'd take a history, so for example, I'd ask them, was there a family history of rhinitis?

• 18:17Speaker 01

  Eczema, asthma, stinging insect allergy. And they say they've all been bitten by ticks.

• 18:23Speaker 03

  When we started asking patients, we suddenly heard the stories just out the kazoo.

• 18:31Speaker 07

  But at this point, Dr. Platts Mills, all he has is a map, some stories, and a hunch.

• 18:37Speaker 06

  Right.

• 18:37Speaker 07

  So. So what does he do?

• 18:39Speaker 06

  He decides, well, maybe I'll just do this to myself.

• 18:42Speaker 07

  He does what?

• 18:43Speaker 06

  He decides to test it on himself.

• 18:46Speaker 07

  Oh, my God.

• 18:47Speaker 06

  He sort of denies that he did it intentionally.

• 18:49Speaker 03

  I know I had no intention.

• 18:51Speaker 06

  I mean, I think he also likes to walk and amble and think about things.

• 18:55Speaker 07

  Right.

• 18:56Speaker 06

  So he goes for a long walk along the Blue Ridge Mountains.

• 18:59Speaker 03

  And I knew I wanted to be off trail because I'm actually rather allergic to humans.

• 19:06Speaker 07

  So he's walking and walking and walking. And along the way.

• 19:09Speaker 03

  Ah.

• 19:10Speaker 07

  He bumps into a whole bunch of ticks.

• 19:11Speaker 03

  And if you walk into a nest of those things.

• 19:14Speaker 00

  Oh, my God, this sounds like a nightmare.

• 19:16Speaker 03

  Yeah, absolutely. I got 200 seed ticks.

• 19:19Speaker 06

  Oh, boy.

• 19:20Speaker 03

  And then in November of that year, I was taken out to dinner. And the lamb chops were particularly delicious and the French wine was delicious. And six hours later, I woke up covered in hives.

• 19:34Speaker 06

  He's got an allergy to red meat.

• 19:36Speaker 07

  All just because of a?

• 19:38Speaker 03

  Tick bite.

• 19:38Speaker 06

  Tick bite.

• 19:38Speaker 03

  That's right.

• 19:43Speaker 07

  We'll bite you right back after this.

• 19:48Speaker 01

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• 22:42Speaker 07

  I'm Robert Krowich. This is Radiolab. Now we go back to Amy just when she's discovered that the allergy to meat that she's developed comes from a tick bite.

• 22:53Speaker 05

  A tick bite? Hang on a second. Because like a few weeks before all this started happening, as I said, I was foraging for ramps in my mom's backyard and I had a tick on my, on my arm.

• 23:09Speaker 07

  Now, it turns out that not only was that tick bite a terrible thing for Amy, it was a kind of double tragedy. Hidden from view amongst the trees and in the undergrowth. And I think it's only right at this point to back up. Is a fascinating world of wonders. And consider the story from a tick's point of view.

• 23:33Speaker 02

  Okay, so I'm Graham Hickling. I'm a wildlife disease ecologist at the University of Tennessee.

• 23:39Speaker 07

  So I was wondering if you could help us tell the story of, in this case, the Lone Star tick that bit Amy.

• 23:47Speaker 02

  Oh, yeah, sure. So they start off in this little pile of eggs, perhaps a mass of 2,000 eggs, under the leaves.

• 23:56Speaker 07

  The proud mom who just gave birth.

• 23:58Speaker 02

  At that point, she's just a kind of a withered husk.

• 24:01Speaker 07

  Meaning dead. But anyway.

• 24:03Speaker 02

  A few weeks later, those eggs will hatch and this mass of 2,000 baby ticks emerge from under the leaves.

• 24:11Speaker 07

  And could I see them with my naked eye?

• 24:13Speaker 02

  If you ran into a mass of them all up together, you would feel like you've got a little smudge of dirt and then the dirt starts walking. And so they'll just climb up and they'll potentially all be on the same leaf or the same twig, looking for something to feed on.

• 24:29Speaker 07

  Now, one teeny little tiny problem for these teeny little tiny ticks.

• 24:32Speaker 02

  Is that they dry out.

• 24:33Speaker 07

  So when they come up from under the leaves, they come up.

• 24:36Speaker 02

  Briefly.

• 24:37Speaker 07

  And then they go back down, get a little water, come back up, get thirsty, go back down.

• 24:41Speaker 02

  And rehydrate.

• 24:42Speaker 00

  So they like commute?

• 24:43Speaker 02

  Exactly. And we refer to the behavior as questing.

• 24:46Speaker 00

  Oh.

• 24:47Speaker 07

  Questing. So if you were one of these little baby ticks up questing for food.

• 24:51Speaker 02

  While you're up there, you are essentially Velcro.

• 24:55Speaker 07

  Because on each one of your little legs.

• 24:56Speaker 02

  You have little kind of hawk-like structures. And so you're flat against the leaf.

• 25:02Speaker 07

  Sort of sniffing in the air with your two little front legs.

• 25:04Speaker 02

  That can detect CO2 heat movement.

• 25:08Speaker 07

  So let's say one day you're sitting there on your leaf and you pick up the scent of a nearby mouse.

• 25:13Speaker 02

  Mice are the potato chips of the ecosystem. Everything eats them.

• 25:16Speaker 07

  Which means you might be about to have your very first meal. So you.

• 25:20Speaker 02

  Basically stand up.

• 25:21Speaker 07

  Stretch out all your little legs.

• 25:23Speaker 02

  And do a tick dance. And so it's kind of interpretive dance-like movements.

• 25:27Speaker 07

  While you're waiting for that mouse to come just close enough that you can grab onto it. So you're dancing and you're waiting and you're dancing and you're waiting and you're dancing and you're waiting and you're dancing and you're waiting.

• 25:44Speaker 02

  To be honest, you are probably going to wait your entire life and die unfulfilled. Because there are 2,000 of you starting off and a stable tick population, there's only going to be two of you that survive.

• 26:01Speaker 07

  Oh, my gosh. So 1,998 little baby ticks are born.

• 26:06Speaker 02

  And then that's it for them.

• 26:08Speaker 07

  But let's say that you're one of the lucky ones. And one sunny day, there you are hanging out on your little leaf when you detect two incoming mammals. One is a 40-year-old hominid, the other is her dog. So you perk up, you thrust your legs out.

• 26:26Speaker 02

  Wave, do the tick dance.

• 26:27Speaker 07

  And say that you're waving and you're dancing and you're hoping and you're waving and you're dancing and you're hoping and you're waving and you're dancing and you're hoping. And slowly the dog's getting closer and closer and closer. And you reach out with one of your tiny little limbs so you can.

• 26:40Speaker 07

  Grab on and eat and survive.

• 26:45Speaker 05

  But the reason that tick ended up on me was I slept in bed with my dog naked. I mean, she's always naked, but I was also naked. I mean, that's not gross. I don't, I mean, does that sound weird?

• 26:58Speaker 07

  No. But what, but how do you know that's when it happened?

• 27:01Speaker 05

  Because I know that like I did a good tick check on myself and I took a shower and everything. And then in the middle of the night, I woke up with a itching sensation and I went to the bathroom and I couldn't really see what was on, like something was on the back of my arm and there was a tick.

• 27:18Speaker 07

  So as the tick is biting into Amy, what is it giving Amy that's going to make her allergic to meat?

• 27:25Speaker 02

  Well, actually, I need to stop you there, Robert.

• 27:27Speaker 01

  Hmm, difficult one, Robert.

• 27:29Speaker 02

  I don't know the answer to that.

• 27:31Speaker 07

  That's Peter Smith and.

• 27:33Speaker 01

  Well.

• 27:33Speaker 07

  Rejoining us is Cheryl Vandennan, the scientist.

• 27:35Speaker 01

  It's all up for speculation.

• 27:38Speaker 06

  We don't really know, but here's the theory.

• 27:41Speaker 07

  Normally, when you eat a piece of meat, you put alpha-gal in your stomach and your stomach digests it and it's in your body and it's no big deal.

• 27:47Speaker 01

  But the tick cunningly.

• 27:49Speaker 02

  Will drill into you, poke into you.

• 27:51Speaker 01

  And injects.

• 27:52Speaker 06

  Its saliva.

• 27:53Speaker 00

  We'll call that tick spit.

• 27:54Speaker 06

  Tick spit into its victims.

• 27:56Speaker 07

  Straight into its victim's largest organ, the skin.

• 27:59Speaker 02

  And tick spit has an anticlotting factor. ...aesthetic, anti-inflammatory compounds.

• 28:05Speaker 07

  And we think

• 28:06Speaker 01

  the alpha-gal.

• 28:08Speaker 07

  Now, Peter says the thing about the skin is

• 28:10Speaker 06

  the skin is like this enormous, like, surveillance system.

• 28:14Speaker 07

  It's always on the lookout for invaders. So when the alpha-gal comes through your skin, covered by all that bad, bad tick spit stuff.

• 28:22Speaker 06

  That's gonna really, like, set off your immune system.

• 28:24Speaker 07

  The immune system freaks out.

• 28:26Speaker 06

  Like, oh.

• 28:27Speaker 07

  Uh-uh. And the alpha-gal, covered now in bad spit, almost sort of

• 28:31Speaker 01

  by mistake.

• 28:32Speaker 07

  gets labeled bad. And now it's on the bad guy watch list. So

• 28:37Speaker 01

  therefore

• 28:37Speaker 07

  the next time you eat meat.

• 28:39Speaker 01

  The meat comes in.

• 28:40Speaker 06

  And then?

• 28:41Speaker 07

  The body unleashes wave upon wave upon wave of chemical attacks.

• 28:46Speaker 06

  To do battle against this alpha-gal.

• 28:48Speaker 07

  And this reaction gets way out of hand. You've got so many antibodies, multiplying, multiplying, multiplying, multiplying, making you, rather in this case, Amy, feel just

• 29:00Speaker 07

  horrible.

• 29:01Speaker 06

  Right?

• 29:01Speaker 05

  I mean, it's very weird. It sounds like a science fiction movie. It sounds like the beginning of a science fiction, at least kids book, let's not go to movie, but like, it's, it's just strange.

• 29:14Speaker 07

  Which all goes to say that this really is a kind of double tragedy for Amy and her tick.

• 29:20Speaker 06

  Yeah, because ticks didn't evolve to bite humans.

• 29:23Speaker 07

  Right. We're a mistake.

• 29:25Speaker 06

  Like, we have opposable thumbs.

• 29:26Speaker 07

  We're either gonna pull them off.

• 29:28Speaker 05

  I actually woke my mom up and she helped get it off.

• 29:31Speaker 02

  Or if they drop off, they're gonna drop off in a airport terminal or a Walmart car park or somewhere like that.

• 29:36Speaker 06

  Or a shag carpet.

• 29:37Speaker 02

  Or a shag carpet indoors and, and they're doomed.

• 29:41Speaker 07

  And for us, well, we lose something that historically, anyway, is a big part of who we are.

• 29:47Speaker 06

  Yeah, because we, we have, we, we adapted in the grand evolutionary scheme of things to, like, eat flesh, to eat meat.

• 29:58Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 29:59Speaker 05

  I mean, I'm actually sitting here picturing a steak, but actually the thing, I mean, hot dogs, like, wrap ramps around a weenie and roast. Yum, that sounds so good. My mouth's watering.

• 30:16Speaker 05

  Weenie, weenies and ramps.

• 30:17Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 30:18Speaker 05

  But I am going to my allergist tomorrow because I did, you know, I was reading about this allergy a lot when I first got it. And I read that for some people, the allergy can fade away. So I'm gonna get a blood test to see what my blood level of alpha-gal is. So I'm a little

• 30:33Speaker 00

  So what are you hoping for tomorrow?

• 30:36Speaker 05

  I want to be normal. Again.

• 30:43Speaker 07

  That was the end of, of the Dan and Amy conversation. She was gonna go to the doctor, get herself tested, find out whatever.

• 30:52Speaker 07

  So we asked her back in.

• 30:54Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 30:55Speaker 07

  To find out what happened.

• 30:57Speaker 05

  So I actually did get an appointment with my allergist, Dr. Korn.

• 31:03Speaker 05

  Her name was Dr. Korn. She's really nice. Um, so I got the appointment, I got the blood draw, whatever. And a few days later, my doctor called me and she said that my numbers were still really high. And I was like, well, how high are they? And she was like, three? And I was like, three? That's not high. And she was like, there's supposed to be like one or something. So they had gone down, but they were still, you know, many times more than they should be. So

• 31:31Speaker 07

  But when you left and you were waiting for the call, were you waiting with the hope that what, that you would soon be eating a bit of hot dog?

• 31:40Speaker 05

  I mean, honestly, I was hoping, no.

• 31:42Speaker 07

  No?

• 31:43Speaker 05

  No. I don't

• 31:44Speaker 07

  Wait a second, you are, you are the big, the great, you, you

• 31:46Speaker 05

  No, but I was afraid that she would be like, oh, my God, your numbers are so low. I think you could probably eat meat. Let's do a food challenge. I would be like, ah, because like, that's such a scary memory. Yeah, I don't, you know, actually, just the other night, I was eating at an Indian place and I was eating vegetarian, but like, I felt something and I pulled it out. And in the dim light of an Indian restaurant, like, why are they all lit like that? I was like, was this bacon? And I suddenly, you know, like, you just get this drop in your stomach. And I'm like, what time is it? Four hours from now? If I, you know, because it's, there's something about it being delayed that makes it so difficult. It just is like

• 32:28Speaker 07

  Like a suspense movie with you the victim.

• 32:30Speaker 05

  It's like, it could happen in the next three hours or maybe not. I don't know. I mean, honestly, the only thing that, the real reason I want to be able to eat meat is so that I will be prepared to eat it in case of emergency. I mean, I went on a canoe trip in the Adirondacks and I, I was like, well, what happens if I get stranded out here? And like, what if I have to hunt, but I can't even eat meat? I would have to hunt fish. But then when the lake freezes over, what would I eat? I can't survive. Something's wrong with me. I feel evolutionarily challenged. This is what I think about before I go to bed every night. Would I be able to survive if I had just what's on me right now? A pen,

• 33:09Speaker 05

  underwear, my dog. And so, yeah, I mean, that's a real issue is like, it's not a real issue. Obviously, it's never gonna happen. I live in Brooklyn, but I, I do, for some reason, I always think like, I want to be prepared in case. But, um, yeah, you know, I don't think I would go back to eating meat necessarily.

• 33:33Speaker 07

  Like, you are still more, more frightened than game, so to speak.

• 33:38Speaker 05

  Well, also, like, I wish I could be a vegetarian for ethical reasons because it's not so much just the eating meat, but just like, you know, the, the, the factory farming and that kind of stuff. So I feel like morally superior now. I can be like, well, I don't eat red meat. Of course, I'm forced to not eat it, but at the same time, I would if I had the, if I had the willpower, I'd probably go that way anyway. And then also, I think it's great. It's like, we're all evolving to be on this planet, which is getting harder to be on. And we know that meat takes a lot of resources and like, now I don't, now I'm not doing that. So like, the tick is helping me evolve into a better human being.

• 34:22Speaker 07

  Like, so one could, instead of thinking of the tick as your teeny weeny irritating enemy, you could think of it as a guiding light, making the world safer to share with your fellow Earthlings.

• 34:37Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:39Speaker 00

  So you may have lost your relationship with meat, but at least you have your moral superiority.

• 34:44Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, I am superior.

• 34:50Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 34:59Speaker 07

  So huge thanks to Amy Pearl for telling a story which never stopped, never stopped being scary and wonderful. And to the fellow who brought her into the room, Dan Pashman, whose podcast, The Sporkful, is, it's, it's all about food in every conceivable way. Like, he talks about eating it, preparing it, worrying about it, as you've heard, getting sick from it, getting fat from it, whatever. And you can find his show on iTunes or Stitcher or on the internet at sporkful.com. And this story was produced by Annie McKeown and Matt Kilty with reporting help from Latif Nasser. See you next time.

• 35:38Speaker 01

  All right. So that was the original piece. We're gonna take a quick break now, but when we come back, Sarah and Sorin are gonna follow the thread from Amy's allergy to this brand new genetically modified pig that can help a human who needs a kidney and also maybe solve Amy's problem.

• 35:53Speaker 00

  Or maybe make it worse.

• 35:55Speaker 01

  Stick with us.

• 35:58Speaker 04

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• 36:40Speaker 04

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• 36:47Speaker 00

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• 37:32Speaker 00

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• 37:39Speaker 04

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• 38:06Speaker 04

  Recording. Walking into NYU. This building is huge. Hello? Hello. All right. How are you? I'm doing well. Like, I don't know, do we shake hands? I don't know. I haven't, haven't done this in a really long time, so.

• 38:23Speaker 04

  You ready for the, oh, Radiolab? Yeah, sure. Yep, everybody, come on in. Awesome.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  So our update today comes to us from producer Sarah Kari, who you just heard wandering the halls of NYU's Langone Health Hospital back in 2021. That is when we made this update.

• 38:40Speaker 03

  Hello.

• 38:41Speaker 04

  Hi, guys.

• 38:42Speaker 01

  Hello.

• 38:42Speaker 04

  Hello.

• 38:45Speaker 04

  This is really exciting.

• 38:46Speaker 03

  As well as our executive editor, Thorin.

• 38:49Speaker 01

  Willie, Willie.

• 38:50Speaker 03

  Wheeler. I can give us a start if you want me to.

• 38:53Speaker 04

  All right. Yeah, actually, yeah, you should tell us how you even had the idea.

• 38:56Speaker 03

  Yeah, I mean, I had the idea by someone else having had an idea that I saw their idea in a newspaper.

• 39:02Speaker 04

  It's called reading.

• 39:04Speaker 03

  But like, I don't know, what, a month ago, maybe? I was reading the news. The news I was reading was the New York Times.

• 39:11Speaker 00

  Heard of it, heard of it.

• 39:12Speaker 03

  It was like a science section news thing, and the article is basically announcing this big breakthrough. News this evening about a major medical breakthrough. It's been called an astonishing step in medicine. Basically, a group of surgeons had managed to put a pig kidney into a human being.

• 39:31Speaker 00

  And it worked.

• 39:32Speaker 04

  Successfully transferring a pig kidney to a human patient.

• 39:37Speaker 00

  For the first time ever, the person's body didn't reject the kidney, which, when you think about all the people waiting on kidneys, you know.

• 39:42Speaker 01

  Game changer.

• 39:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, totally. So I'm just, I'm reading through this article, but then in the middle of it, there's just a couple of lines about a particular pig that they used for this kidney that drew this very weird line back to a story we had told here on Radiolab. That's when I, so I brought in Sarah to like, report this whole thing out.

• 40:02Speaker 04

  So I actually went to talk to the doctor who, who did this transplant.

• 40:06Speaker 01

  Hi, how's it going?

• 40:07Speaker 00

  Nice to meet you. How do you do?

• 40:08Speaker 01

  Good. How are you?

• 40:10Speaker 04

  His name is Robert Montgomery. He's at NYU Langone Health, and he's the head of transplant surgery there.

• 40:17Speaker 01

  So, so when did it first occur to you that transplanting a pig kidney into a human would even be possible?

• 40:23Speaker 04

  I just started with like, the most basic question, which is like, why would you do this?

• 40:27Speaker 00

  Because we don't have an adequate supply of organs for the people who need them, when they need them. And so a lot of people die waiting. And so the idea of xenotransplant.

• 40:37Speaker 04

  And he just made the argument that using animal kidneys was the best way that he could think of to.

• 40:43Speaker 00

  Make a dent into that waiting list of 90,000 people.

• 40:47Speaker 01

  And do you know, is this person still walking around? And is the pig still walking around? Hmm, good question.

• 40:52Speaker 04

  So, so no.

• 40:53Speaker 00

  We did this transplant, and someone who had been declared brain dead, who had wanted to donate their organs, but were unable to donate their organs. And so their family essentially donated their whole body so that we could test a xenotransplant.

• 41:11Speaker 04

  Like, we're gonna try this crazy thing that's never been done, and see how it goes.

• 41:17Speaker 00

  And determine whether this was going to be safe to move into living humans. I guess a proof of concept type thing, and they didn't want to, yeah.

• 41:26Speaker 04

  Yeah. So, the family agreed, and the doctors did the transplant. And they could see, you know, like, that it worked, and the body wasn't rejecting the kidney, the kidney was doing its kidney stuff. But the sort of amazing thing is.

• 41:41Speaker 00

  Actually, as we sit here today, the same thing happened yesterday.

• 41:45Speaker 04

  While we were sitting there talking, he told me.

• 41:48Speaker 00

  You know, we, at 2:00 in the morning, we did our second xenotransplant.

• 41:53Speaker 04

  We actually just did the second one. You want to see?

• 41:55Speaker 01

  What? That's like, happening right now.

• 41:58Speaker 00

  That's happening right now. And if you want to, you know, come down with me, I'll, I'll show you what we're doing, so.

• 42:05Speaker 04

  And I was like, oh, yes. And he took me downstairs to this big room.

• 42:12Speaker 01

  It's like a conference room. Okay.

• 42:14Speaker 04

  It was totally silent. There was like, a window looking into this operating room.

• 42:20Speaker 01

  Okay, can we walk up to the glass?

• 42:22Speaker 04

  And you could see just like, the, the jumble of machines and like, medical equipment.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  What are we looking at?

• 42:27Speaker 00

  All right, so, there's a ventilator over here.

• 42:30Speaker 04

  And in the middle of the room, you could see this person.

• 42:34Speaker 00

  That's the, the recipient.

• 42:36Speaker 04

  Lying there on the table, covered by this blue surgical shroud.

• 42:40Speaker 01

  You can see the patient's body kind of like, rising and falling as they breathe.

• 42:44Speaker 00

  Yeah, that's the ventilator, you know.

• 42:45Speaker 04

  And they actually attached the kidney at the person's thigh, because they sort of want to be able to watch it, and they're not worried about the person getting up and walking around. So, there's this incision at the thigh, and in that oval incision, you could see the pig kidney kind of like, poking out. It was like, covered by plastic. And Dr. Montgomery told me that, you know, when a body rejects a kidney.

• 43:09Speaker 00

  The kidney will literally turn black moments after the blood goes into it.

• 43:14Speaker 04

  But you could see, like, with this one, it was bright pink. And kind of amazingly, just like the first one.

• 43:21Speaker 00

  Within moments, it started to make urine, believe it or not. And so we knew right away that it was working.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 43:28Speaker 00

  See, see right where it's dripping in? See how fast it's dripping? All that urine is coming out from that kidney.

• 43:34Speaker 04

  So, you know, this is just the second one that worked. But eventually, Dr. Montgomery and his team want to get to the point where they can do clinical trials on people who are walking around and doing things and living their lives, and who would hold on to this kidney.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 43:51Speaker 00

  Allow me to presume that you have two questions, which I think you do, even if you haven't said them yet. Which is like, one, why did this never work before? And then two, why are we even telling you this? It's not our usual stick to just pick up a New York Times Science News article and relay that to you.

• 44:09Speaker 01

  Fair.

• 44:09Speaker 00

  Which brings me back to that little part of the article that piqued my interest in the beginning, because the pig that they got the kidney from, to do this, was a very special pig. Normally, pigs and other mammals that aren't primates have a sugar in their body that our bodies don't have. And so, we don't like it, or see it as foreign, and that's why usually, a, an organ from another animal would get rejected. But this pig had been genetically modified. It had had the gene that makes that sugar removed, so it didn't have that sugar, which is part of the reason this worked. And that sugar just so happens to be called AlphaGal.

• 44:49Speaker 01

  AlphaGal.

• 44:53Speaker 01

  Our old friend.

• 44:55Speaker 04

  There it is. There's the Radiolab connection.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Our old friend of me.

• 44:59Speaker 03

  It's really only the food that was kind of eluding us, because we've known and have been also pursuing various medical device applications of the GalSafe pig. You know, we've had conversations with.

• 45:11Speaker 04

  So, I actually called up the company that makes this pig. They call it the GalSafe pig. The company itself is called Revivicor.

• 45:21Speaker 03

  Started out as the US division of the Scottish company that cloned Dolly the Sheep.

• 45:26Speaker 04

  Oh.

• 45:27Speaker 00

  The UK company that did Dolly the Sheep. This is like, their sort of like, American offshoot.

• 45:30Speaker 01

  Got it.

• 45:31Speaker 04

  Okay.

• 45:31Speaker 03

  And from there, we actually cloned the world's first pigs.

• 45:36Speaker 04

  So anyway, I talked to David Ayers. He's the company's chief scientific officer. And also, John Bianchi.

• 45:44Speaker 00

  Lead product development enterprises at Revivicor, and I also am in charge of regulatory affairs.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  So, so at what point, and either of you can take this, at what point did you guys realize, okay?

• 45:59Speaker 04

  And I just wanted to ask them, like, okay, you made this pig for all of these medical transplant reasons, but did you know about the whole food side of things?

• 46:09Speaker 00

  I'll take this one, Dave, unless. Sure. I'm the poor sap that had to work with the FDA. I shouldn't say that. It was a very collaborative effort with the FDA.

• 46:21Speaker 04

  And they told me that while they were in the middle of getting FDA approval for this pig to be used for medical reasons, they heard a certain radio show.

• 46:32Speaker 00

  After listening to the Radiolab episode, the original episode, and listening to Amy Pearl, we thought, hmm, why not just expand the application to include food?

• 46:42Speaker 03

  We realized that the pigs that we had developed so that their organs wouldn't be rejected, would also be a food source for these patients that have the AlphaGal allergy, or the red meat allergy.

• 46:54Speaker 01

  Okay, wait, so, hearing Amy Pearl on our show had something to do with thinking that, oh, we should make this a food product?

• 47:01Speaker 00

  It was absolutely a motivation of mine, after listening to Amy.

• 47:06Speaker 04

  What?

• 47:07Speaker 00

  Yeah, totally.

• 47:08Speaker 04

  Yes. So, yeah, now, because of Amy Pearl and her story, this pig is now FDA-approved for medical devices and things like that, and transplants, but also for, for food. To use the meat of those pigs to make pork products that, like, people with AlphaGal syndrome can eat.

• 47:27Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 47:28Speaker 00

  So of course, we immediately like, called up Amy Pearl. And we're like, Amy Pearl, Amy Pearl, Pearl, Pearl.

• 47:33Speaker 05

  Hi. Hello.

• 47:34Speaker 00

  We got something to tell you.

• 47:36Speaker 05

  Look at this.

• 47:37Speaker 00

  Oh, no.

• 47:38Speaker 01

  Oh, my god.

• 47:39Speaker 00

  How do you always have like, tiny little bundles of cuteness in your life?

• 47:42Speaker 04

  When we talked to her, she had a couple of really small foster kittens, like, scrambling up and down her shoulders and mewing in the background.

• 47:53Speaker 00

  So, we explained to her, you know, the whole deal. There's this pig that doesn't have AlphaGal that's being used for transplants, from which you could make meat that would be safe to eat for people like you, Amy Pearl.

• 48:07Speaker 05

  Oh, that's kind of, I mean, I just, I feel kind of disgusted, because it's been a long time, long time, since I've had pork or beef. I've found plenty of delicious things to eat that aren't bacon.

• 48:25Speaker 00

  And, and she said that, you know, even if there is now some pork that's totally safe, she still feels sort of the same way she did at the end of the original show, which is that she's kind of just over red meat.

• 48:37Speaker 05

  I've kind of moved on from it, honestly, and.

• 48:39Speaker 00

  And happily, it sounds.

• 48:40Speaker 05

  Yeah. I feel like it's better for my peace of mind, it's better for my health, it's better for the planet itself. And I feel lucky and happy. It's kind of like.

• 48:50Speaker 04

  But then, of course, you know, we had to tell her that, you know, we talked to the guys at Revivicor, and that she and her.

• 49:00Speaker 01

  Our story were sort of an inspiration for this meat becoming available to people.

• 49:05Speaker 05

  I'll just play you a clip of of something they said to me.

• 49:10Speaker 00

  It was absolutely a motivation of mine after listening to Amy. When I heard the Radiolab podcast, I'm thinking, well, we hold the hammer.

• 49:20Speaker 05

  Oh, God.

• 49:24Speaker 05

  Great.

• 49:26Speaker 05

  I'm so fine.

• 49:31Speaker 05

  Oh, well, but it's fine. I mean, I, I, I guess he sounds like such a nice guy.

• 49:39Speaker 05

  Say more, say more on what you're feel. What's, what were you thinking as you heard it? You sort of like hung your head. I mean, I was thinking that.

• 49:46Speaker 06

  Never should have gone on Radiolab.

• 49:48Speaker 05

  Just like always thinking misanthropic things. But I was thinking like,

• 49:57Speaker 05

  here's a person who's like, here's me just like talking about how delicious meat is and like juices. And they're like, yeah, I love meat too. And they're like, she seems sad. I'm gonna make meat for her. And then it's like, but I actually don't really, I actually, anyway, I can make it for you. I figured it out. I have the hammer. But I actually don't want, it's okay, I'm making it.

• 50:25Speaker 05

  Here it is.

• 50:26Speaker 01

  I think she felt like because of her, they'd gone and solved this problem that she didn't even really want solved.

• 50:34Speaker 05

  Just kind of like, you would like go to some kind of special FDA store to buy some special genetically modified pork just so you could have a bite of some kind of meat. I mean, it just was like, I don't know. Do you guys ever get into philosophy? You ever? It just like immediately for me when you say, oh, they created this pig that you can, that alpha gut people can eat. My next thought is like, what is the meaning of life? Why am I here? Wait, why?

• 51:08Speaker 06

  Can you, do you think you could close the gap between those two stories a little bit? Like, are there some intermediate steps?

• 51:13Speaker 05

  Because it's like, well, is that good or bad? Well, I guess it's good for people who want to eat pork, but it's bad for the pig. It just immediately brings to mind, you know, what, how to live? Do you live to satisfy your desires and, and be happy? Or do you live to, to not harm others? Or why, why are we even here? Are pigs below us? Are, are they above us? Is it okay to put a, put a pig first? Like, what if someone's kid is dying of kidney cancer?

• 51:55Speaker 06

  Well, see that, then now, like, that's now how, like, you know, this question has another whole layer, because it's not just that they made a pig for people who got bit by a tick but wish they could still have a hot dog. They also then, it turns out, made a pig that like could maybe have a kidney that could save a life where there's no other kidney available, or maybe in the future, more and more and more things like that.

• 52:18Speaker 05

  But it's just, it's kind of like when you start thinking about breeding animals just for organs for people. It's like redeciding all over again. Like, should we be eating another animal that might be intelligent? It's like you're just answering all those questions again, but for another purpose, because like you can get organ, like kidneys out of other people and they're, it's like safe and. I mean, yeah, that's a good point. And, and I, and I asked this guy, um, this doctor about this and, and, you know, was sort of pushing him on, on like, why, like, you've just opened the door to like a whole new way of exploiting animals.

• 53:03Speaker 05

  And I think his thing, which I'm convinced by honestly, is like, look, there are 90,000 people right now, right now, that need a kidney. And when it comes to like, making the decision for, for yourself or like for a loved one, if you're like, they need a kidney and you're, and, and you have the option to put a pig kidney in them, you're like, that's not even a question. You know, we eat millions of pigs anyway. I guess on balance, I feel okay, you know? I mean, I, I totally agree with you, but why don't they just, why don't they just make a fake kidney? Yeah, I mean, I.

• 53:47Speaker 05

  I mean, if somebody, like, imagine 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.

• 54:06Speaker 01

  So at this point in the interview, unfortunately, we actually still had one more thing that we had to tell Amy that we learned from the guys at Revivicore.

• 54:16Speaker 05

  I do have to tell you something that you might like even less. What, they named the, they named the pig Amy before they hit it with the hammer? Yeah, yeah, they did.

• 54:28Speaker 05

  What? Yeah. Are you kidding us? Are you kidding? No, I'm not. I'm not kidding.

• 54:34Speaker 00

  By the way, the first pig that went to market, we named Amy.

• 54:40Speaker 01

  After Amy Pearl?

• 54:41Speaker 00

  Of course. Well, I did in my mind. I'm not sure Dave approved that name, but it.

• 54:46Speaker 05

  What did they name? The one who donated the kidneys? No, no, so the first one that they slaughtered for meat. They named it Amy and unofficially, but, but, you know, they did, yeah.

• 55:01Speaker 05

  I mean, I can see why they picked something that was like motivating for them, like humanizing and motivating in their, their like quest to solve this thing that they decided was a good problem to put their thoughts behind. I mean, I, it can't bother me. I can't let myself think about that.

• 55:26Speaker 05

  Poor, poor, poor, poor living creatures that suffer.

• 55:34Speaker 05

  Yeah, but I do think it's good. I am grateful that like, you are holding the position of making all of us think twice, including me. Like, I think I've been part of the like, oh, this is a breakthrough. And look at the pig kidney and the human and the heart is beating and everything is working. It's so cool. And, and I do think that it's really hopeful for, that you're reminding me there is a cost to this that we shouldn't ignore and that, you know,

• 56:10Speaker 05

  that we should challenge our imaginations almost to imagine a world where we don't have to exploit these pigs and find another way.

• 56:18Speaker 06

  There could be some young budding scientist that'll listen to this version of the story and come up with an artificial kidney and name it Amy.

• 56:29Speaker 05

  That'd be great.

• 56:31Speaker 05

  That would be great. Yeah, I think that's the only way to make this right. It's funny to think that there's like, I mean, how big was this pig at the end? Like usually pigs, I guess when they slaughter them for meat, maybe they're smaller. But like I met a pig in Vermont that was like 800 pounds and I gave her a whole watermelon. And to her, it was like.

• 56:50Speaker 06

  Like a gumdrop? Thanks.

• 56:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, I mean, it was, she was just giant. I took a hoe, I was like scratching her back with a hoe and it just like looked like a little toothbrush on her. And she was like, oh, that feels so good. I mean, I wonder if Amy got to be that big. I wonder. 800 pound Amy? Pretty formidable. Watch out.

• 57:16Speaker 05

  I'm just like, now I'm wishing I could change places with her and then I'll have done my time. And like, I would have now be like, left the mortal coil. And she would be sitting here in this interview with her pig intelligence, which is plenty for this, probably.

• 57:34Speaker 06

  Do you think she could raise those kittens? And then she would end up on like one of those unlikely friendship calendars where it's like, look at the pig raising the kittens.

• 57:42Speaker 05

  Exactly. I wonder if there's a resemblance.

• 57:50Speaker 05

  What an incredible turn of events.

• 57:57Speaker 05

  What are you thinking? I'm just thinking about like Amy the pig going about her business, you know, with no thought to any of this. Just imagining like, oh, it's so warm here in the mud. I'm gonna stay here for a little while. Oh, I'm hungry. I'm gonna go check out the trough for a while. Just like that kind of, that kind of living. I don't know.

• 58:27Speaker 05

  When your brain hurts, you just have to like retreat to your body.

• 58:43Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 58:51Speaker 01

  Thank you, Amy Pearl, for coming on the show again and making us think more deeply than we were again.

• 58:59Speaker 06

  This update to the episode was reported and produced by Sarah Kari. Um, and also a thank you to Amy the pig.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Thank you, Amy the pig.

• 59:11Speaker 01

  Okay. And finally, an update to the update. It is now Lulu in 2026. And back in March of 2024, surgeons transplanted a pig kidney into a living patient for the very first time. That patient was a 62 year old man living with end stage kidney disease. His name was Rick Slaman. And he lived with the kidney for about two more months before dying from heart issues, which his doctors said were unrelated to the transplant. The pig, for its part, was genetically edited, of course, but we couldn't find out any more information about its life or name. Thank you to the pig for its service.

• 59:58Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Gabby. I'm from the Bay Area, California, and here are the staff credits. Radiolab is hosted by Lulu Miller and Latif Nasser. Soren Wheeler is our executive editor. Sarah Sandback is our executive director. Our managing editor is Pat Walters. Dylan Keefe is our director of sound design. Our staff includes Jeremy Bloom, W. Harry Fortuna, David Gable, Maria Paz Gutierrez, Sindhu Nainasambandhan, Matt Keelty, Mona Maudgauker, Alex Neeson, Sarah Kari, Natalia Ramirez, Joanna Strogatz, Anissa Vizza, Arianne Whack, Molly Webster, and Jessica Young, with help from Gabby Santos and Maya Appleby Millamud.

• 1:00:44Speaker 04

  Our fact checkers are Diane Kelly, Emily Krieger, Natalie Middleton, Angela Mercado, and Sophie Semai.

• 1:00:59Speaker 04

  Hi, I'm Monica and I'm calling from Mexico City. Leadership support for Radiolab's science programming is provided by the Simons Foundation and the John Templeton Foundation. Foundational support for Radiolab was provided by the Alfred P. Floran Foundation.