Month: July 2017

Miracle Babies

nancyvalko abortion, disability, futility, medical ethics

Yesterday, we learned that Baby Charlie Gard is expected to die soon as his heartbroken parents have decided to remove his life support because a US doctor had told them it was now too late to give Charlie nucleoside therapy. According to a BBC article, “US neurologist Dr Michio Hirano had said he was no longer willing to offer the baby experimental therapy after he saw the results of a new MRI scan last week.” Baby Charlie’s parents are now asking the court to allow them to take Charlie home to die.

We have learned much from Baby Charlie’s tragedy, not only about the perils of government deciding who should live and who should die but also about the love and commitment of his dedicated parents and the importance of the worldwide support they received.

Now we know there is more hope for babies born with conditions like Baby Charlie’s because of the publicity and probably more parents will try to find alternatives when they are given a poor or fatal prognosis.

Here are two cases where the parents did just that and saved their children.

ABIGAIL BUETLER AND POTTER’S SYNDROME

During the fight to let Baby Charlie get experimental treatment, U.S. Congresswoman Jaime Herrera Beutler led the effort in the US Congress to get residency for Baby Charlie. That would have expedited efforts to help Baby Charlie receive the experimental treatment in the US.

Congresswoman Beutler’s interest was also personal.

In 2013, she and her husband found out that their unborn baby Abigail had Potter’s Syndrome, a fatal condition where the kidneys are missing. She and her husband were told that no one ever survived this condition and abortion was offered more than once.

They looked for other options and found there was an experimental treatment given before birth for other conditions that might work on their Abigail. The parents contacted many different hospitals before Johns Hopkins finally agreed to try.

Today, Abigail is a healthy four year old and has a kidney donated by her father a year ago. She is the first known person to survive Potter’s Syndrome, thanks to her dedicated parents.

NOAH WALL, BORN WITH LESS THAN 2% OF HIS BRAIN

Also known as the “boy with no brain”, four year old Noah Wall was born in the UK with a rare complication of spina bifida that caused fluid to compress his brain down to an estimated less than 2% brain tissue.

The condition was discovered before birth and the parents were told that even if he survived birth, he would be severely mentally and physically disabled. Abortion was offed 5 times.

But Noah did survive birth and an immediate surgery was done for his spina bifida and a shunt was installed to drain excess fluid from his brain.

Thanks to the efforts of his devoted parents and sister to keep his brain stimulated, Noah has confounded the doctors by the regrowth of his brain. When a CT scan of his brain was done years later, doctors found that Noah now has 80% of his brain tissue. Even more amazing to the doctors, Noah has developed into a charming, expressive and empathetic little boy who now attends a local primary school, despite still having  some physical and mental impairments.

This year,  a documentary about Noah was made. I saw it myself a few weeks ago on TV and I highly recommend seeing it.

And as the UK’s Daily Mirror newspaper article wrote:

“Neurosurgeon Dr Nicholson sums up the larger importance of Noah’s incredible story:

‘He teaches the medical profession that you can’t ever know’.”

CONCLUSION

Over the years, medical progress has made great strides while medical and legal ethics have deteriorated because of a “quality of life” mentality.

This has led to medically discriminatory attitudes affecting people with disabilities as I personally found out when my daughter Karen was born with Down Syndrome and a severe heart condition.

All children with disabilities deserve both a welcome and a commitment to help them have the best life possible from not only their parents but also from the rest of us.

Why is Baby Charlie Gard’s Government-appointed Guardian a Euthanasia Activist? Does It Matter?

nancyvalko assisted suicide, conscience rights, euthanasia, medical ethics

So now we learn that Baby Charlie Gard’s guardian is a euthanasia activist who is Chairman of Compassion in Dying, an “end-of-life” advocacy group with a sister organization that supports assisted suicide.

This should not be a surprise.

In a July 19, 2017 New York Times op-ed “Charlie Gard and Our Moral Confusion”, Kenan Malik, who wrote a book on morality and ethics on moral issues, argues:

“In Charlie’s case, the judges decided that it is in his interest to die even with a possibility of treatment. Mr. Conway, in contrast, wants to be allowed to die in dignity, but the law will not permit it. His motor neuron disease is incurable, and he is not expected to live beyond 12 months. His condition is painful, and will become more so. He wants doctors to be able to give him a lethal injection when he decides that it is time to end his life. Under British law, it would be a criminal offense for a doctor to do so.”

“Death with dignity” is the catchphrase and death is considered the ideal end in both of these cases when viewed through the prism of so-called “dignity”.

Unfortunately, this “death with dignity” must be enforced through laws and courts and even down to the medical personnel involved.

“DEATH WITH DIGNITY” AND ITS’ OTHER VICTIMS

In June, a Canadian home health nurse was faced with the option of participating in assisted suicide with her patients or resigning. She resigned and yet another dedicated nurse was lost to the principle of a right to “death with dignity”.

However, Mary Jean Martin was afforded no dignity or rights herself. She was at the mercy of a new health care law that now mandates participation in medical lethal overdoses, an act considered medical murder before.

Ms. Martin called being forced to choose between her conscience and her job a “violation of my human rights.” She wrote:

“Why has my right to peacefully follow my own beliefs within a free and inclusive society been suddenly taken away from me?” she said.

“After 30 years as a nurse these laws make me feel no longer proud of being either a health care professional in this country or Canadian citizen,” she added.

The forced normalization of assisted suicide/euthanasia radically changes medicine for the healthy as well as the ill when only medical professionals willing to participate in assisted suicide/euthanasia are allowed to practice their professions.

CONCLUSION

Whether the issue is denial of food and water to brain-injured people, futility determinations overriding patients’ and families’ decisions, denying potentially beneficial experimental treatment or forcing medical personnel to participate in lethal overdoses, etc., the word “choice” in these cases is a misnomer when only the choice for death is considered “dignified”.

 

The Catholic Church, Experimental Treatments and Charlie Gard

nancyvalko futility, law, medical, medical ethics

A disturbing statement made by Archbishop Vincenzo Paglia, head of the Vatican’s Pontifical Academy for life, appearing to support the European Court of Human Rights decision to reject Baby Charlie Gard’s parents’ request to go to the US for an experimental treatment for their critically ill son struck a nerve with many Catholics. And although Pope Francis quickly expressed his support for Baby Charlie and his parents shortly after the statement, the ethical issue of experimental treatment remains confusing to many people, Catholic or not.

But what has the Catholic Church really said about experimental means?

VATICAN STATEMENT ON EUTHANASIA

Perhaps the best guidance can be found in the 1980 Vatican Statement on Euthanasia that states:

“If there are no other sufficient remedies, it is permitted, with the patient’s consent, to have recourse to the means provided by the most advanced medical techniques, even if these means are still at the experimental stage and are not without a certain risk. By accepting them, the patient can even show generosity in the service of humanity. – It is also permitted, with the patient’s consent, to interrupt these means, where the results fall short of expectations.” (Emphasis added)

The document further explains that:

But for such a decision to be made, account will have to be taken of the reasonable wishes of the patient and the patient’s family, as also of the advice of the doctors who are specially competent in the matter. The latter may in particular judge that the investment in instruments and personnel is disproportionate to the results foreseen; they may also judge that the techniques applied impose on the patient strain or suffering out of proportion with the benefits which he or she may gain from such techniques. (Emphasis added)

This is a common sense and balanced approach that was not controversial in 1980 and should apply in Baby Charlie Gard’s situation, especially since there is apparently disagreement among doctors about the experimental treatment.

TWO CASES OF EXPERIMENTAL TREATMENT

When I worked with cancer patients in the 1980s and 1990s, I especially remember two patients who decided to try experimental treatments.

One was an older woman whose cancer had spread to her brain. A new drug had been developed that would have to be administered via an access implanted in her head. She desperately wanted to spend more time with her family and was willing to try the drug despite the potential side effects and poor chance that the drug would work.

Initially, the drug did make her worse and she was near death. Three times we called her family to come in because death was imminently expected and she was in a coma.

But she surprised us all by recovering and two years later was still doing well without any recurrence of the cancer. The doctors were astounded.

In another case, a man in his 40s with two sons also decided to be part of a clinical trial of a new drug for his cancer. Some of my colleagues questioned why he would take on such a challenge so I talked with him. He said that he accepted the fact that he was probably going to die of his cancer but he wanted to try the drug not only in the hope that it would benefit him or others like him but also because he wanted his sons to know that he fought to live and be with them.

Although this man died, he left a brave legacy of love to his boys.

CONCLUSION

It is important to understand that medical progress and technological marvels often happen because doctors, patients and family persist in trying.

For example, it wasn’t that long ago that AIDS was considered incurable. Experimental drugs did not work at first but later ones did and now AIDS is no longer an automatic death sentence.

Baby Charlie’s parents worked hard to find a potential treatment and even raised the money to transport their son to the US. The hospital’s decision to usurp the parents and unilaterally remove Baby Charlie’s life support has led to an outpouring of support for Baby Charlie and his parents.

Let us hope that this latest court appeal will reverse the hospital’s decision and help restore the rights of parents reasonably trying to help their children

35 Years after Baby Doe Continued: The Simon Crosier and Charlie Gard Cases

nancyvalko disability, futility, law, medical ethics, Simon's Law

Last week, I wrote about Baby Doe and my daughter Karen and how both were medically discriminated against 35 years ago because they were born with Down Syndrome. The ethical rationale in both cases help set the stage for the legalized assisted suicide/euthanasia we struggle against today.

Unfortunately, the legal right to live for children with disabilities and their parents continue to be under attack today with the cases of Simon Crosier and Charlie Gard.

SIMON CROSIER

Last August, I wrote a blog titled “Parent Power” about the efforts by some legislators in Missouri and Kansas to block the passage of Simon’s Law, a bill that exposed and sought to change the secret futility policies in even some Catholic hospitals that led to the death of Simon Crosier, a baby born with Trisomy 18.

Since that blog, Kansas finally did pass Simon’s Law but in Simon’s home state of Missouri, the bill is still stuck in committee even though new information about the life expectancy and prognosis for such children led to an opinion editorial in the prestigious Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) admitting that withholding life-sustaining treatment from babies with Trisomy 13 and 18 was really a value judgment rather than a medical judgment.

The fight for Missouri’s Simon’s Law will continue.

CHARLIE GARD

On June 30, 2017, the parents of 11 month old Charlie Gard lost their appeal to European Court of Human Rights to keep their son with a rare genetic disorder on life support and take him to the US to try an experimental treatment. The appeal was filed after Britain’s Supreme Court decided to let the hospital remove Baby Charlie’s life support, finding that prolonging Charlie’s life was “not in his best interests.”

Baby Charlie has a rare genetic disorder affecting his muscles and brain that has caused  brain damage, seizures and prevents him from breathing on his own.  A neurologist in the US has suggested an experimental nucleoside treatment that might, in theory, offer some benefit although the treatment has not been tried before in a situation like Baby Charlie’s.

On Facebook, Charlie’s parents said that they were “heartbroken” and aghast that the hospital would not even allow them to take their son home to die.

Charlie’s parents have been fighting for months for the right to take their son to the US try this experimental treatment. By the time of the court decision, $1.7 million had been raise through crowdfunding media to cover expenses.

Unlike the Simon Crosier case, the withdrawal of treatment decision by the hospital was not secret.

Apparently under British law, parents do have the right to make decisions about the treatment of their children unless the treatment is not in a child’s “best interests” and usually it is parents who refuse treatment for their children on moral of religious grounds who end up in court.

The Charlie Gard case has caused enormous conflict among ethicists, lawyers and even religious leaders across the world as well as the general public.

However, in the last few days, Baby Charlie and his parents gained support from two important people: Pope Francis and US President Donald J. Trump.

At first, a Vatican official issued a statement on Baby Charlie that “We must do what advances the health of the patient, but we must also accept the limits of medicine and, as stated in paragraph 65 of the Encyclical Evangelium Vitae, avoid aggressive medical procedures that are disproportionate to any expected results or excessively burdensome to the patient or the family.” But a few days later and after much criticism of the first statement, Pope Francis expressed hope that the desire of 10-month-old Charlie Gard’s parents “to accompany and care for their own child to the end” will be respected. (Emphasis added)

Then, after a July 3, 2017 offer by President Trump to help, an unnamed US hospital came forward to offer free treatment to Baby Charlie.

CONCLUSION

On their GoFundMe page , Baby Charlie’s parents wrote:

If Charlie receives this treatment and it does work like the Dr in America thinks, it won’t be just Charlie’s life that has been saved, it will be many more children in the future, who are born with this horrible disease and it will open up other trials on other mitochondrial depletion syndrome’s.

We need to change things and show how determined parents can forge a path for other families encountering similar obstacles. We need to find treatments for incurable diseases. We need to give other people hope. We need to start saving lives.. hopefully starting with Charlie xxx (Emphasis in original)

Over my decades of nursing experience, I have seen people decide to try experimental treatments because they hoped for a cure, improvement or at least to help doctors learn more that may help someone else later.

Sometimes the treatments worked and sometimes they didn’t but after talking with these patients (or parents), I could not help but admire their love, courage, faith and determination.

May God bless Baby Charlie, Baby Simon and their parents!