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Friday, November 3, 2006

 

Young disabled girl ‘kept small’

`In a controversial treatment, doctors in the US have given a severely disabled child drugs to keep her small and ‘manageable’ for her parents.

In a report published in a medical journal this month, the doctors described a six-year-old girl with profound, irreversible developmental disability who was given high doses of estrogen to permanently halt her growth so that her parents could continue to care for her at home.

The controversial growth-attenuation treatment, which included hysterectomy, was requested by the child’s parents and initiated after careful consultation and review by an ethics committee. ‘




2 Responses to “Young disabled girl ‘kept small’”

  1. Pillow Angel Says:

    The heroine of this discussion is our daughter Ashley. If you are interested in the full story about the “Ashley Treatment” see: http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/blog/ and for Ashley’s photos see: http://ashleytreatment.spaces.live.com/photos/

  2. moonbuggy Says:

    Thanks for stopping by, and for the links. There’s a lot more information there than in the original article, and the whole thing makes a lot more sense after reading them.

    I did actually wonder, when I read the original article, how a hysterectomy would halt growth, for example.. Good thinking with the appendectomy too, btw. πŸ™‚

    Heh. Silly newspapers. πŸ™‚

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