Do we need the artificial heart? The answer to that question depends on which definition of an artificial heart is used. Do we need to allocate resources to develop a fully implantable, self-contained, functioning, non-infecting, non-stroke inducing, artificial, and mechanical heart? No. Do we need an artificial means to support human life when the human heart is weakened by age and disease? Yes. The pacemaker is widely available and is useful in many situations where a person's cardiac system is not functioning properly. Technology is constantly improving and adding to the options for patients with heart problems. The artificial, or mechanical, heart of the Jarvik-7 or the Penn State types, are not ethically or medically justifiable.
The medical need for a permanent replacement heart to be used with candidates for a heart transplant can be shown. The difficulty lies in the human body's inability to accept a permanent artificial transplant and in the lack of technological expertise to develop a workable and testable prototype. The first artificial heart was transplanted into a patient in 1969, by Denton Cooley (Cooley 57). Dr. Cooley continues to believe that a permanent artificial heart will be developed to aid the expected 10,000 to 20,000 people who are expected to have severe enough cardiac conditions by 2010 to warrant implantation of an artificial heart (Cooley 58). All artificial hearts have caused severe problems in the patients in which they were implanted--if the patient lived beyond three weeks.
Technological problems with the artificial heart include the synthetic material which has been used in its construction. The device acts as a magnet and culture medium for bacteria (Gil 25). Bacteria thrive and multiply in the area surrounding the implant. It was thought that the source of the bacteria was the drive lines which cross the skin and power the device (Gil 24). When this was found to be incorrect,...