Lessons re Charlie Gard - Reason, Science and Medicine win over politics

[malaise]

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/jul/24/charlie-gard-parents-end-legal-fight-over-critically-ill-baby
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First published on Monday 24 July 2017 14.30 BST

Charlie Gard’s parents have ended their legal fight for their critically ill baby to be flown to the US for experimental treatment, saying it was too late for the process to work.

After a five-month court battle, they said at an emotional hearing on Monday that they were abandoning their fight for Charlie to receive the nucleoside bypass therapy (NBT) they hoped would bring about significant recovery. Their decision means that Charlie, who was born on 4 August last year with a rare genetic condition inherited from his parents, will shortly be removed from life support at Great Ormond Street hospital (Gosh) and will not live to see his first birthday.

After Grant Armstrong, acting for Charlie’s parents, shocked the packed courtroom in central London by saying that owing to to “extensive muscle atrophy” they believed he no longer had any prospect of enjoying a “meaningful life”, the baby’s mother, Connie Yates, read a statement.

As she tearfully paid tribute to the couple’s son from the witness stand and insisted that they had only done what any parent would do, friends, family, lawyers and members of the press also wept.
How new brain scans showed Charlie Gard could not be helped

The hospital later made an unprecedented attack on US neurology professor Michio Hirano, who had led Charlie’s parents to believe he could be treated. In a statement it said Gosh had shared their hopes when Hirano said he had new evidence that Charlie might benefit from NBT.

But it added that they had learned with “surprise and disappointment” last week that he had neither looked at the child’s brain scans nor read the medical notes, other expert opinions or the judgement of the court. It added that Hirano “retains a financial interest in some of the NBT compounds he proposed prescribing for Charlie”.
Thank you Britain. And Fugg Groper Don the Con who was trying to exploit this a la George Bush and Terri Schiavo. And Fugg that greedy Michio Hirano as well.

[Warpy]

1. No parent wants to lose a child. No parent wants another parent to lose one.

It is horrible.

I am glad the parents have finally come to terms with this. I hope they're allowed privacy and have plenty of support as they say goodbye to their baby.

And shame on anyone who used their child to score financial, political, or religious points.

[malaise]

2. It is horrible

Shame indeed.