With all the hype about Jessica Alba’s new movie “The Eye”, the sheer subject matter of the movie may be put into question.
Is it possible for
transplant recipients to take on the characteristics of their donor’s or feel, experience or see what their donor may have felt? Model Tyra Banks, showcased Jessica Alba recently on her talk show, to talk about the movie. Tyra had a guest on her show who was the recipient of a teenage boy’s liver who was killed in a car accident. Since the transplant, he confessed that his sweet tooth went away and he started to love pasta and riding roller coasters, which he found out, according to his donor’s parents, were all characteristics of his donor. Does this make sense, or is it bewildering? An expert on the subject from the show contended that this was totally possible as nerves and cells are connected to every organ within the body, which may be responsible for transmitting certain characteristics. On an episode of Nip and Tuck, a patient who came in for cosmetic surgery was a victim of a suicide bomber. She was severely burned and told the doctor she wanted the parts of the suicide bomber that she was made aware of by an x-ray, that existed inside of her, removed. She said the suicide bomber’s bones that got into her system in the explosion were making her angry and full of rage, and she wanted them removed so she could move on with her life, and no longer harbor anymore pain and animosity towards him. The surgeon’s removed the speckles of his bones piece by piece from her insides and she shipped his remains to his parents. According to an abstract by Margareta A Sanner entitled Transplant recipients’ conceptions of three key phenomena in transplantation: the organ donation, the organ donor, and the organ transplant, “Thirty-five heart and kidney transplant patients were interviewed on five separate occasions during the first 2 years after transplantation. The qualitative analysis of the informants’ reactions was focused on three themes; nine categories emerged. The first theme concerned general aspects of the donation and the donor and was differentiated in four categories: joy and sorrow, gratefulness and indebtedness, guilt, and inequity. The second theme related to the donor as a unique individual and included three categories: recognition and identification with the donor, influences of the donor, and relationship to the living donor. The third theme pertained to incorporation of the transplant and included two categories related to the naturalness of having a transplant, and the benevolent transplant. There were few differences between heart and necro-kidney patients concerning the reactions to the donation, the donor, and the transplant; the dividing line was more prominent between recipients with living and necro-
transplants.” To some the idea that one’s personal traits can be transplanted with their organ into another human being may seem preposterous, but it cannot be denied, as evidenced by transplant recipients. The whole concept not only makes for an interesting movie, but it raises an even more interesting question: Should transplant recipients not only screen for a matching or compatible organ, but matching or compatible characteristics or personality traits as well? What do you think?