Bailey claimed that the drastic condition of Baby Fae before the operation led him to believe that a time-consuming search for a suitable human heart would simply cost Baby Fae her life. "We did not search for any human hearts before the operation," he says in a press statement. The Loma Linda Medical Center however has refused to make public either the data on Baby Fae herself, or the deliberation before conducting the operation. "The hospital regards all information on Baby Fae as private," says Jessical Baker, spokesperson.

"They should have actively searched for a human replacement," says Mudge. "Common sense would dictate that we should exclude all conventional methods before venturing into the relatively undocumented field of species-to-species transplants."

"If I could not find a human heart to serve as a replacement, I probably would have let the baby die in peace rather than subject her to unprecedented [for neo-natals] experimentation," added Mudge.

In addition, Dr. Castenada has used a modified version of the Norwood procedure on about 40 children with about a 40 percent mortality rate. Xenographic transplants in history have a 100 percent mortality rate; Baby Fae outlived all other recipients of an animal heart by two and a half weeks.

Baby Fae's condition could possibly have been corrected by the Norwood operation, says Castenada. He emphasized that unless Bailey had developed some novel technique for supressing the immune system after the transplant he would be critical of the doctor for ignoring other methods.

Bailey, who prior to this operation was not a leader in the organ transplant field, has not published any information on xenographs or on transplants in general for that matter, according to the press office.

"I certainly would have used the Norwood methods," says Levey, a colleague of Castenada.

In addition to raising questions of the appropriateness of species-to-species transplants, the Baby Fae case has brought some long-avoided issues of medical ethics into the public realm. Once again, however, more questions than answer have been brought up.

Animal-rights activists across the nation have come out in droves to denounce the operation as "useless" and "goulish tinkering." Also, several doctors and government officials have called for increased regulation of new procedures given the suddenness and uncensured nature of Bailey's operation.

"We were very displeased with the whole situation at Loma Linda," says Aaron Medlock, executive director of the New England Anti-Vivesectionist Society. "We feel a great deal for Baby Fae because she was used, just as the sacrificed baboon, as an animal in an experiment. The public just doesn't understand that the operation did not take place for the benefit of Baby Fae, but for the benefit of researchers."

"She probably wouldn't have lived any longer without the baboon heart but now they're both dead," he says. He added that very rarely does a doctor have to make a life or death decision based on killing an animal for the sake of a human being. "Seventy million animals die every year in experiments and almost none of these deaths save the life of a human."

In addition, he says that if the medical profession devoted more of its time to reforming the system for donor organs from humans (increasing the number who pledge their organs upon death) then the need to kill animals would be minimized.

Medical researchers, however, have convincing arguments for the need to use animals. "You can't name a significant medical advance in the last fifty years which hasn't used animals in experimentation to a certain extent," Tilney explains. He says that sacrifices are necessary for the continued progress of medical science.

"We all have dogs at home," but medicine has always relied on animals for experimentation, the alternative being people, says Mudge.

Cohn agreed however that significant reform in the human donor process would help to solve the reliance on other methods of saving lives including the use of animals. "Thousands of people die everyday with perfectly good organs," he says.