In Russia, 30-year-old Valery Spiridonov will be flying to the United States to meet the doctor who plans to perform the world’s first head transplant on him. During the operation, Italian surgeon, Dr. Sergio Canavero, intends to completely remove Spiridonov’s head and reattached it to a healthy body. Spiridonov suffers from a rare form of spinal muscular dystrophy called Werdnig -Hoffman disease .
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In Maryland, the pair will be
presenting at a major medical conference
in hopes to gain more support from the medical community.
Spiridonov explained, “I am flying to New York and then will go to Annapolis to take part in the scientific conference with the surgeon Sergio Canavero. We will be together on stage. It will be a joint presentation. I will speak for myself.”
Spiridonov told the Daily Mail more about his decision to undergo the surgery.
He said, “I am not rushing to go under the surgeon’s knife, I am not shouting – come and save me here and now. Yes, I do have a disease, which often leads to death, but my first role in this project is not that of a patient. First of all, I am a scientist, I am an engineer, and I am keen to persuade people – medical professionals – that such operation is necessary. I am not going crazy here and rushing to cut off my head, believe me. The surgery will take place only when all believe that the success is 99 percent possible.”
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As LifeNews previously reported, the operation is considered highly controversial but Dr. Canavero believes he can pull it off. According to the doctor, both donor and patient would have their head severed from their spinal cord at the same time. Then the patient’s head would be placed onto the donor’s body and attached using a substance called polyethylene glycol (PEG) that would fuse the two ends of the spinal cord together. After the procedure, the patient would be put into a coma for a month to ensure that the head and body heal together. Additionally, the patient would be given powerful immunosuppressant drugs to stop the new body from being rejected.
However, countless doctors are urging Spiridonov not to go through with the procedure, which is planned to take place sometime in 2017. The president of the American Association for Neurological Surgeons, Dr. Hunt
Batjer, told CNN, “I would not wish this on anyone. I would not allow anyone to do it to me as there are a lot of things worse than death.”
Spiridonov disagrees.
He said, “I can hardly control my body now. I need help every day, every minute. I am now 30 years old, although people rarely live to more than 20 with this disease. My muscles stopped any development in childhood. Because of this, they do not grow and the skeleton gets deformed. The back muscles cannot support the skeleton.”
He continued, “I do understand the risks of such surgery. They are multiple. We can’t even imagine what exactly can go wrong. I’m afraid that I wouldn’t live long enough to see it happen to someone else. What’s more, there’s already a lot of effort invested in this idea and that’s why it’s too late to back out. I came up with this idea quite some time ago. I read many scientific articles on this topic.”
In 2013, CBS News reported that Dr. Jerry Silver and a team of scientists at Case Western and the Cleveland Clinic successfully restored connectivity in rats whose spinal cords had been completely severed. This encouraged Dr. Canavero, who said such recent advances in reconnective technology give scientists reason to believe the procedure he proposes will be successful in humans.
Not only did Dr. Silver think the correlation was laughable, he was appalled.
He said, “It’s complete fantasy, that you could use [PEG technology] in such a traumatic injury in an adult mammal. To severe a head and even contemplate the possibility of gluing axons back properly across the lesion to their neighbors is pure and utter fantasy in my opinion. Just to do the experiments is unethical. This is bad science, this should never happen.”
www.lifenews.com/2015/06/10/terminally-ill-man-set-to-undergo-worlds-first-head-transplant-meets-the-doctor-whos-doing-it/
The man volunteering to be the guinea pig for pioneering head transplant surgery is flying to America this week to meet for the first time the doctor intending to give him a new body.
Russian Valery Spiridonov will appear at a major medical conference in Annapolis with Italian neurosurgeon Sergio Canavero, who hopes to convince the medical establishment that his techniques are on the brink of viability.
But he prepared to fly to New York today, one of Moscow's top surgeons branded the £9.8million ($15million) head transplant plan 'reckless', claiming the medic - who has been labelled Dr Frankenstein by critics - is nowhere near being ready to undertake such a complex operation.
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Journey: Valery Spiridonov,
pictured at Moscow airport on
Wednesday, is flying the New
York to finally meet the man
who may one day cut his head
off and reattach it to another
person's body
+9
Journey: Valery Spiridonov, pictured at Moscow airport on Wednesday, is flying the New York to finally meet the man who may one day cut his head off and reattach it to another person's body
Trapped: The 30-year-old,
pictured here aged seven in
Russia with his mother, left and
father, far right, suffers from a
muscle wasting disease, which
means he has been confined to
a wheelchair for much of his
life
+9
Trapped: The 30-year-old, pictured here aged seven in Russia with his mother, left and father, far right, suffers from a muscle wasting disease, which means he has been confined to a wheelchair for much of his life
Groundbreaking?: Controversial
surgeon Sergio Canavero
announced his plans earlier
this year - horrifying many in
the medical world, and earning
him the nickname Dr
Frankenstein
+9
Groundbreaking?: Controversial surgeon Sergio Canavero announced his plans earlier this year - horrifying many in the medical world, and earning him the nickname Dr Frankenstein.
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3117029/I-m-not-going-crazy-cut-head-Disabled-man-volunteering-HEAD-transplant-meet-surgeon-time-tomorrow-insists-ll-knife-99-possible.html

Valery Spiridonov
But it will also be his first meeting with Canavero, whose controversial plans have raised eyebrows in the medical community.
'I am not going to discuss whether I may like or dislike him,' Spiridonov said. 'We have our shared interests, similar goals, and we are going to achieve them in this or that way.
'At the moment we are involved in huge joint project and we are going to work on it and make it come true and real.
'It is not a question of trust here. We must do our best to make it happen.'
Spiridonov may be positive, but others are more worried. Leading Russian surgeon, Anzor Khubutia, director of the Moscow-based Sklifosovsky emergency hospital, warned that Canavero's plans were 'reckless'.
'This may be real in the future,' said Khubutia. 'But it's hard to talk about head transplantation before spine regeneration becomes possible.'
And the Russian Health Ministry's chief transplant expert Sergei Gotye warned: 'I have no answer to the question of how to make the transplanted head control the donor body. And I am not sure Canavero has either.'
Indeed, his plans seem so unbelievable there has even been speculation that it may be an elaborate hoax.
Video game enthusiasts have suggested Canavero's ambitions and the plot of the fifth installment of the hit game Metal Gear Solid.
Not least is his uncanny resemblance between Canavero and a medic who appears in a trailer for the game.
But the neuro-surgeon has dismissed the claims - as has Spiridonov, who told MailOnline: 'This is just nonsense.
'Dr Canavero and I are not playing games with the concepts of life and health.
'It is not right even to imagine such things.'
Support: Spiridonov, pictured
aged 16 with his mother
Viktoriya, is hoping his
appearance at a conference this
week will help convince people
of the need for the
experimental operation
+9
Support: Spiridonov, pictured aged 16 with his mother Viktoriya, is hoping his appearance at a conference this week will help convince people of the need for the experimental operation
Dr. Sergio Canavero predicts head transplantation is possible
In fact, the two are expecting countries to be won over and queue up to allow Canavero to conduct the surgery.
'You should understand that it's not simply a medical procedure. This surgery has a political meaning,' the doctor said.
'The Soviet Union was the first one to send Yuri Gagarin to space, America was the first on the Moon. The country that hosts head transplant surgery for the first time will become a leader like this.'
He vowed to confound the doubters and doom-mongers at the Annapolis conference.
'I'll prove it is totally possible to all the sceptics there,' he said.
Explaining his planned technique in April, he said it would take him less than an hour to put Spiridonov's head on the body of a donor body, but the entire surgery could go on all day and night.
'Valery's head will be cooled to 10-15 degrees Celsius,' he said.
“
I know what I'm for and am prepared for it. I already have an entire army of enemies. But even I fail with the project, it'll be a lot easier for those who carry on after me
”
Sergio Canavero
'That is done in cases of surgery on deep areas of brain.
'We will have an hour to 'switch' the head to a different body.
'You need a few minutes to join blood vessels.
'Valery's head will be detached from his body and transferred to another one in a matter of seconds, and brain's blood flow will start in about 15 minutes.'
However 'the joining process may take up to 18-24 hours,' he said. 'Doctors will be taking turns not to get tired.'
He added: 'I will be explaining all the technical peculiarities on June 12 in Annapolis at an international neurosurgeons' conference.'
Canavero is also not worried about the outside world's perception of himself - in particular, the nickname Frankenstein.
'I am prepared for any nicknames, because it sounds cool and will help to sell more newspapers,' he said.
'But I am very conservative when it comes to funding.
'When Bill Gates or Dmitry Itskov (a Russian millionaire supporting the research in artificial intelligence) fund my project, I'll come to the cameras with the receipt and say, this person supported my initiative.'
He went on: 'I know what I'm for and am prepared for it. I already have an entire army of enemies.
'But even I fail with the project, it'll be a lot easier for those who carry on after me.'
He admitted that 'the final goal is immortality' and brushed aside objections from churches.
One day he expected aged tycoons to buy head transplants onto much younger bodies.