On this day · OCTOBER 26
1984
She was only 12 days old when she made medical history.

On October 26, 1984, surgeon Leonard Bailey and his team at Loma Linda University Medical Center in California transplanted a baboon's heart into a newborn girl born with a fatal heart defect. The public knew her as "Baby Fae."

She lived for 21 days. The operation sparked fierce debate about medical ethics, consent and animal-to-human transplants. It also focused attention on infant heart transplantation, and Bailey's team later performed successful human-to-human heart transplants in babies.

Today, xenotransplantation research is back in the headlines. Where do you think medicine should draw the line?

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