Italian neuroscientist Dr. Sergio Canavero is making headlines by saying that he helped Chinese doctors perform the world's first successful head transplant on a corpse. Now, he says, a head transplant of a live patient is imminent.
While Canavero tries to convince the public that head transplants will soon be a viable surgery, doctors and medical professionals have been quick to bring Canavero’s head out of the clouds.
“This guy is ridiculous,” said Art Caplan, director of the Division of Medical Ethics at NYU Langone Medical Center, during an interview with Boston Public Radio Wednesday. “He is a fraud.”
Caplan questions his credentials and scientific methods.
“He keeps doing science by press conference. He doesn’t publish; he has never done this in animals to show that he could keep an animal alive for a year. He doesn't do the basic work,” Caplan says.
Caplan believes that a successful head transplant will never be possible. “It isn’t like taking a lightbulb out of a socket and twisting in a new one,” he said.
