Doctors in Seattle who treated the severely disabled girl Ashley with surgery and hormones to keep her at the size of a six-year-old child have received requests from parents of other disabled children to repeat the treatment.
Dan Gunther, an associate professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington who devised Ashley's treatment with the blessing of her parents, said four sets of parents had contacted him to ask that their children be considered.
Popular
US media organizations have also been approached by parents keen to find out whether their disabled children could have their growth stunted to prevent them attaining full adult size.
The treatment given to Ashley, now aged nine, who has been brain damaged since birth and cannot walk or talk, became public last week when her parents posted a 4,000-word essay on the Internet explaining why they had wanted to subject her to a series of operations including removal of her uterus and to a high-dose course of the female hormone estrogen to halt bone growth.
They said that by restricting her size to 1.34m, rather than her expected 1.67m, she would be more comfortable and have a better quality of life.
Ethical dilemmas
Gunther said that requests for similar treatment posed ethical dilemmas for the Seattle Child-ren's hospital where he practises. The hospital's management, as well as its ethics committee which heard Ashley's case before she was treated, would be involved in detailed discussions before decisions were taken.
"There are many families who are in the same position as Ashley and her parents and for whom this might be an option. We certainly wouldn't want to put pressure on families, but there are some where children would undoubtedly benefit," Gunther said.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
Japan unveiled a plan on Thursday to evacuate around 120,000 residents and tourists from its southern islets near Taiwan within six days in the event of an “emergency”. The plan was put together as “the security situation surrounding our nation grows severe” and with an “emergency” in mind, the government’s crisis management office said. Exactly what that emergency might be was left unspecified in the plan but it envisages the evacuation of around 120,000 people in five Japanese islets close to Taiwan. China claims Taiwan as part of its territory and has stepped up military pressure in recent years, including
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
RSS