Sunday Roast - Sunday Telegraph
Sunday Magazine September 12 2004
HAVE A HEART
We Aussies are not big on organ donation, but apparently we’re not averse to animal transplants. It sure puts a new spin on looking like a pig’s ear, says Wil Anderson.
I’m a registered organ donor. Not that I realistically think my organs are going to be worth much to anyone when I go. I can just imagine some poor sick kid getting my liver, and immediately spitting out his mum’s breast and demanding “five Cougars thanks.”
After the way I’ve treated my body, when I meet my maker I expect him to take one look and tell me I’m not getting my bond back. But I do hope when I die, my hand-me-downs might help someone else live. Or at the very least, I hope my friends stuff me and use me to drive in the transit lane.
But while Australians still have one of the lowest human organ donation rates in the world, a recent survey showed seven out of 1 0 would accept an organ from an animal in a life or death situation. (The other three out of 10 are vegetarians, although one in three admitted they probably would take an organ from a fish.)
Yep, it won't be long before, when someone says they heard it straight from the horse's mouth they may not be joking.
But should we really find this surprising? Let's be honest, in a "life or death" situation most of us would probably be happy with an organ made by Benita from Play School out of egg cartons and pipe-cleaners.
It doesn’t shock me at all that people are happy to have assorted animal organs inside them. If they weren't, the entire hot-dog industry would have collapsed years ago.
At the moment transplants are mostly limited to pig heart valves - the irony being it was probably fatty pork chops that stopped your heart in the first place - but apparently the use of other animals is not far away.
Pretty soon an athlete described as having a "heart as big as Phar Lap' might actually have Phar Lap's heart; donkey votes may be as a result of donkey brains; and people will only be able to bite their fish fingers after first covering them in tartare sauce and lemon.
While I admit it might seem shocking, there certainly are some positives to animal transplants. For starters, after your operation, you'd not only come home -from the hospital with a new heart, but also a lovely meat tray for the family. And if the worst happened and you died on the operating table, at least the cremation would have that lovely barbecue smell.
Feeling unlucky? How about having your foot replaced with a lucky rabbit's foot? Or even better, why not swap your shnoz with a customs dog's, so you can always identify the person, at the party with the drugs?
Of course, some of the operations would have downsides. The dog transplant patients would have to watch out for side effects including, chasing cars, playing dead, rolling over and sniffing other people's bums.
Meanwhile, those with monkey parts would notice a reddening of the buttocks, and a desire to throw their own poo. (You could easily cover this by telling people you were a rugby league player.)
But despite all the fuss, are animal transplants really all that radical and new? I know heaps of people with chicken legs and butterflies in their stomach, who come home rat-arsed and crying crocodile tears. (I even know one broke who is hung like a horse, and he's happy as a clam.)
While I'm all for animal parts being used if it could save a human's life, I'm not in favour if it's for purely cosmetic reasons. That's why I was shocked to read the other day they are now using pig's ears to create artificial nipples. Believe it or not, the article I read claimed many top models were getting their own nipples removed – if they were, say, different, sizes and shapes - and getting them replaced with the perfect symmetrical fake nipples so they could get more modelling work.
Now I'm sorry, but I don't think poor innocent pigs should have to go around looking like Chopper Read just because some over-paid Chupa-Chup in stilettos wants to bedazzle herself with beautiful bouncy boobs.
One supermodel quoted in the story even said, 'I don't think there is a downside to having a pig's ear nipple', to which my immediate response was, 'When did we start letting supermodels talk?" Of course there has to be a downside to having a pig's ear nipple. For starters you can’t date anyone Jewish; if you get aroused they turn to crackling; and if your lover pours apple sauce on your chest you don't know if they're horny or just hungry.
Plus you have to constantly be on the lookout for Mike Tyson and Russell Crowe trying to bite your boobs, and you have to get a really supportive bra or one nipple will go to market, and the other will go wee wee wee all the way home. Th-th-th-th-th-that’s all folks!
Wil Anderson is the host of The Brekkie Showon Triple J with Adam Spencer, as well as co-host of The Glass House on ABC TV
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