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MORAL PHILOSOPHY DILEMMA:....CAN HUMANITY INTERFERE WITH NATURE' LIFE DESIGN???...... Posted by Vishva News Reporter on January 12, 2007 |

IS IT A HUMAN
RIGHT TO INTERFERE WITH PATH OF LIFE ORDAINED BY NATURE?
AND SPECIALLY MEDICAL OATH:
"FIRST DO NO HARM"
In a highly unusual case that is stirring ethical debate
in the medical community and elsewhere, doctors at Seattle Children's
Hospital in Seattle, USA and the parents involved are describing how Ashley
who is presently 9 years old has received treatment over the last few years
designed to purposely stunt her growth. Ashley has static encephalopathy, a
brain impairment that prevents her from walking or talking. Her parents have
pursed radical treatment to inhibit her natural body growth.
The treatment, known as "growth attenuation," is expected to keep
Ashley's height at about 4 feet 5 and her weight at about 75 pounds
for the rest of her life. Doctors expect her to have a normal
lifespan.
Had she not been given the treatment, doctors estimate, she
would have grown into a woman of average height and weight — about 5
feet 6 and 125 pounds.
The parents' decision has drawn criticism and even outrage from some
doctors and caregivers, who say such treatment is a violation of a
person's dignity. Some say it's also a violation of the medical oath:
First do no harm.
Ashley parents response:
"The objection that this treatment interferes with
nature is one of the most ridiculous objections of all; medicine is
all about interfering with nature. Why not let cancer grow and nature
takes its course. Why give antibiotics for infections?"
Publication of the case in a national pediatric journal in October set
off criticism of the parents' decision; "eugenics," "slippery slope,"
"despicable" and "Frankenstein-esque" are some of the printable
contributions to websites on the topic. |

PVAF is publishing this news item to fulfill its mandate
of sharing knowledge among humanity on this planet earth TO
MAKE YOUR TOMORROW HAPPIER THAN TODAY....as
KNOWLEDGE IS THE ONLY THING IN THIS UNIVERSE WHICH CAN DO THIS FOR
YOU....
But today's news story makes one wonder if humanity has
the wisdom and the right to use the currently evolving science knowledge in
the western civilization, which is only evolving for the last 500 years, to
deny natural right of humans to grow and live life as designed by Nature.
This notion raises serious questions of philosophy, ethics, morality,
democracy when one factors in the TRUTH that the current evolving science
only understand about one percent of Nature and how it creates, operates,
maintain and re-creates life perpetually....
We have seen so many examples of
this fact in knowledge in Genome Project, pharmaceutical sciences,
biomedical sciences and even every day human laws, which humanity keeps on
either upgrading daily or even discarding as NOT TRUTH or even very
harmful to human existence.....
PVAF invites you to share your thoughts on this philosophy
of this news item....as sharing knowledge is increasing knowledge to
take it to ULTIMATE TRUTH OF REALITY humanity lives in.....
Just click
on the POST A COMMENT button in the
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Click on the next line to read the entire news story
before sharing your thoughts on the philosophy of interfering with Nature
and its life design sciences....and also to enlighten yourself of the
Hippocratic Oath all doctors take to serve humanity...
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TANGLE OF
TECHNOLOGY
ONE SET OF PARENTS
CHOOSE THE "HUMANE" BUT RADICAL TREATMENT OF STUNTING THE GROWTH OF
THEIR SEVERELY DISABLED CHILD
OTHERS PURPORTEDLY
SEEK TO ENGINEER A CHILD WHO SHARES THEIR DISABILITY

Ashley -Her Parents 'Pillow Angel':
Ashley, pictured in her wheelchair in 2006, has static encephalopathy,
a brain impairment that prevents her from walking or talking. Her
parents have pursed radical treatment to inhibit her natural body
growth.
Los Angeles Times:
January 3, 2007 Sam Howe Verhovek
click to enlargeSEATTLE — This is about Ashley's dignity. Everybody
examining her case seems to agree at least about that.
Ashley is a 9-year-old girl who has static encephalopathy, a severe
brain impairment. She cannot walk or talk. She cannot keep her head
up, roll over or sit up by herself. She is fed with a tube. Her
parents call her "Pillow Angel" because she stays right where they
place her, usually on a pillow.
Her parents say they feared that their angel would become too big one
day — too big to lift, too big to move, too big to take along on a
family outing.
And so they decided to keep her small.
In a highly unusual case that is stirring ethical debate in the
medical community and elsewhere, doctors at Seattle Children's
Hospital and the parents involved are describing how Ashley has
received treatment over the last few years designed to stunt her
growth.
The treatment, known as "growth attenuation," is expected to keep
Ashley's height at about 4 feet 5 and her weight at about 75 pounds
for the rest of her life. Doctors expect her to have a normal
lifespan. Had she not been given the treatment, doctors estimate, she
would have grown into a woman of average height and weight — about 5
feet 6 and 125 pounds.
The parents' decision has drawn criticism and even outrage from some
doctors and caregivers, who say such treatment is a violation of a
person's dignity. Some say it's also a violation of the medical oath:
First do no harm.
But Ashley's parents say the move was a humane one, allowing her to
receive more care, more interaction with her younger brother and
sister, and more of the loving touch of parents and others who can
carry her.
As a result, they say in a written account posted on the Web this
week, "we will continue to delight in holding her in our arms and
Ashley will be moved and taken on trips more frequently and will have
more exposure to activities and social gatherings (for example, in the
family room, backyard, swing, walks, bathtub, etc.) instead of lying
down in her bed staring at TV (or the ceiling) all day long."
The treatment has involved a hysterectomy, surgery to prevent breast
growth and subsequent high doses of estrogen.
Doctors say that the treatment's major risks come from the surgeries,
but that it also carries potential benefits such as eliminating the
risk of ovarian and breast cancers.
High-dose estrogen to inhibit growth was used occasionally in the
1950s and 1960s, mostly on teenage girls whose parents were concerned
about the social stigma of being too tall. The drugs could stop a
5-foot-9 girl from becoming, say, 6 feet tall.
As that stigma has gone out of fashion, so has the treatment, medical
ethicists say.
But Ashley's case involves an entirely separate ethical realm, that of
whether a severely disabled person might be better off having his or
her growth impaired.
Publication of the case in a national pediatric journal in October set
off criticism of the parents' decision; "eugenics," "slippery slope,"
"despicable" and "Frankenstein-esque" are some of the printable
contributions to websites on the topic.
But it wasn't until 11 p.m. on New Year's Day that Ashley's parents
told their side of the story.
That was when Ashley's father hit the send button on an e-mail to
doctors, reporters and others, and began entering chat rooms with a
link to their story —http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/blog — and
to photos of the girl: http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/photos .
The parents have declined all media requests for an interview.
"I cannot explain something this complicated in an interview," he said
by telephone Tuesday.
He added: "People think it must have been a horribly difficult
decision" to have the treatment performed. "It really wasn't."
The parents have not identified themselves publicly,
and, in family photos of Ashley they have a dark box on the faces of
her siblings, who are not disabled.
Medical experts could not say for certain whether the case was
unprecedented, but they did say treatment to inhibit growth of a
severely disabled person had never been discussed in mainstream
medical journals before.
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"It's simply the first reported case any of us know about," said
pediatrician Jeffrey Brosco of the University of Miami, a co-author of
an editorial criticizing the treatment in the October issue of the
Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.
"I think most people, when they hear of this, would say this is just
plain wrong," Brosco said. "But it is a complicated story, and when
you get into this issue, you can understand the difficulties.
"And," he said, "our societal ethics may change…. But we are going to
have to discuss this as a society. We are going to have to say this is
right or this is wrong, and thus decide whether we will allow it."
In the editorial, Brosco and co-author Chris Feudtner called growth
attenuation "ill advised," though they applauded the Seattle doctors
for publishing the case report and helping to "advance our ethical
dialogue" on the topic.
If the treatment becomes more widely available, Brosco and Feudtner
wrote, parents of severely cognitively disabled children might feel
pressured to have their children undergo it to avoid the agonizing
choice of whether to put them in a special-care facility once they're
fully grown.
"High-dose estrogen therapy to prevent out-of-home placement simply
creates a new Sophie's Choice for parents to confront, where neither
letting the child grow unchecked nor imposing shortness is without
peril," they wrote.
"If we as a society want to fundamentally revise the nature of the
harrowing predicament that these parents face, then, in the end, more
funds for home-based services, not more medication, is what is called
for."
But Daniel Gunther, a pediatric endocrinologist who has overseen
Ashley's treatment at Seattle Children's Hospital and Regional Medical
Center, said the approach was a humane alternative that parents such
as Ashley's could find to be in the best interest of the child.
"Certainly we would never want the option for growth attenuation to
become an obligation for growth attenuation," Gunther said.
"It's very natural for people hearing about this case to have an
initial sort of, 'You're kidding me ... how could you do this?'
reaction," he said in an interview. "What I have found is that if you
really examine it, if you actually lay out the benefits of this to the
child, then people start to see the possible wisdom in this."
The case arose when the girl, at age 6 1/2 , began to show unusually
early signs of pubescence, including pubic hair and initial stages of
breast growth.
As the parents consulted doctors, Gunther wrote in his description of
the case in the pediatric journal, it became clear that "the parents
particularly feared that continued growth eventually would make it
untenable for them to care for their daughter at home, despite their
strong desire to do so."
Gunther told the parents that growth attenuation was a possible
option, and soon the parents were strongly pressing for the treatment.
The case was brought before the hospital's ethics committee in 2004.
At one meeting, the father — described as a software executive by some
involved in deliberations — made a PowerPoint presentation listing
several benefits of the treatment.
Given that the child was found by a variety of doctors to be severely
impaired, with virtually no indications of improvement in her
intellectual development, the committee found in favor of the parents'
right to seek growth attenuation. The case was not publicized at the
time, and therefore did not draw any legal challenge.
Ashley's father, who said in the phone conversation that he was
speaking on behalf of her mother, said they were especially bothered
by critics' allegations that the treatment was undertaken for the
"convenience" of the parents.
"That's simply not true at all," he said. "Anybody who thinks that,
I'd ask them to read what's on the website.
In that account, the parents wrote: "Ashley's biggest challenges are
her comfort and boredom…. [The treatment] goes right to the heart of
these challenges and we strongly believe that it will mitigate them in
a significant way and for the rest of her life."
They continued: "The objection that this treatment interferes with
nature is one of the most ridiculous objections of all; medicine is
all about interfering with nature. Why not let cancer grow and nature
takes its course. Why give antibiotics for infections?"
sam.verhovek@latimes.com
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