title: Is the issue the price of a child's life, or the futility of heroic measures?
abstract: Britain's High Court has been asked to rule whether a $160,000 experimental treatment with a 1% chance of saving the life of a 10-year-old girl should be paid for by the National Health Service. Child B, who has had one bone-marrow transplant, has had acute myeloblastic leukemia for a year and is near death. However, after her Cambridge doctors advised that further treatment would not be beneficial, her family found a hematologist willing to try an experimental treatment and a second transplant. The media debate in Britain has focused on financial aspects of the situation, not on the usually futile use of heroic measures.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Richmond
mesh_terms: D002648:Child; D004739:England; D005260:Female; D017048:Health Care Costs; D006801:Humans; D007603:Jurisprudence; D018447:Medical Futility