Charlie Gard Gets a Second Chance at Life

The Mengele-esque medical claque at London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital has found playing God has responsibility. They’ve “reconsidered” their unilateral decision to remove 11-month-old Charlie Gard from life support over the wishes of his parents.

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In an abrupt shift, a London hospital said on Friday that it would reconsider its decision to turn off life support for Charlie Gard, a brain-damaged and terminally ill British infant, in light of “fresh evidence” about a potential treatment.

The statement from Great Ormond Street Hospital was the latest twist in a case that has raised difficult bioethical and legal questions, and has caught the attention of Pope Francis and President Trump.

Charlie, 11 months old, has a rare and debilitating genetic condition that has no cure, and the hospital had said that letting him die was the only humane option to end his potential pain and suffering. The hospital, where the boy has lived since October, won a series of court rulings, most recently last week, authorizing it to withdraw life support.

On Friday afternoon, however, the hospital changed course.

“Two international hospitals and their researchers have communicated to us as late as the last 24 hours that they have fresh evidence about their proposed experimental treatment,” the hospital said in the statement. “And we believe, in common with Charlie’s parents, it is right to explore this evidence.”

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This is bullsh**. This hospital has not received any information that it didn’t have before they decided to go full-metal-stupid and go to court to impose their will to kill the child upon parents who were trying to save his life.

There are a couple of hurdles yet to be cleared:

The US hospital, which cannot be named for legal reasons, said that it would treat the boy with an experimental drug pending approval from government regulators, the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

It said it had “agreed to admit and evaluate Charlie, provided that arrangements are made to safely transfer him to our facility, legal hurdles are cleared, and we receive emergency approval from the FDA for an experimental treatment as appropriate”.

It added: “Alternatively, if approved by the FDA, we will arrange shipment of the experimental drug to Great Ormond Street Hospital and advise their medical staff on administering it if they are willing to do so.”

One never knows how the FDA will react to this but the FDA administrator has been hostile, before his appointment, to FDA’s penchant for letting people die rather than approve experimental treatments. What we do know is that if a major research hospital, which is certainly the source of the proposed drug and treatment protocol, has gone out on a limb in an emotionally and politically charged case like this, then their Institutional Review Board has decided that the treatment is not only legal but ethical.

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The long term odds are against young Charlie. But as long as you are alive there is hope and keeping him alive, even for a while, is a small victory over the Culture of Death that is consuming Western Civilization.

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