Caplan said that those would be the minimum conditions under which it might be ethically permissible to try something as new as putting an unapproved genetically engineered animal organ into a patient. But there are other things to consider. For example, what will the hospital team do if the patient’s immune system rejects the heart in the coming days and weeks? “You need to think hard about what you’re going to do if the patient is not succeeding and lay those options out during the consent process,” Caplan said.

In 1982, when another critically ill man named Barney Clark received the first artificial heart, no such options had been considered. Clark died a slow, torturous death, wracked by convulsions and kidney failure. His suffering may have advanced science, but bioethicists today consider it a lesson in what not to do.

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Griffith did not say what sorts of options were discussed during the consent process with Bennett. “He was informed of the risks and that there were no proven benefits to this,” Griffith said via email. “He was told it was comparable to the care he was currently getting in terms of potential lifesaving benefits.”