Details on heart patient still scarce

From Elizabeth Cohen
CNN Medical

ATLANTA, Georgia (CNN) -- In many ways, the man who received a first-of-its-kind artificial heart last month remains a mystery.

His doctors have held two press conferences about his progress -- including one two days after the surgery and another 12 days later.

But some bioethicists say the surgeons, and the company that makes the artificial heart, need to give daily and more detailed updates, as other doctors have done after performing groundbreaking procedures.

"People start to worry that something may have gone wrong, and I think the doctors involved should give the people a regular update so they can be reassured," said David Prentice, a professor of life sciences at Indiana State University.

Boston University bioethicist George Annas agreed.

"I think that human experimentation has to be a public event. It's not that we have to know the name of this person, or have pictures of this person, but I think that the public has to know what's happening to this person," he said.

He points out that while the heart was successful in animals, those trials were in young and healthy calves. The 55-year-old patient now resting at Jewish Hospital in Louisville, Kentucky was gravely ill.

Officials at ABIOMED, the company that makes the heart, defend their approach, saying their primary focus was the patient's privacy.

Recalling the media circus surrounding the first Jarvik heart surgery in 1982, they initially planned to hold no press conferences for a month after the surgery.

"What we're doing is totally consistent with what we consider to be the most ethical way to handle such extraordinary technology," said David Lederman of ABIOMED.

A spokeswoman for Jewish Hospital says that in time, when they're ready, the patient and his family will speak and will say if they think the procedure was worth it. Then the world will have a better idea if the experiment was a success.