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The nine-year-old, named Ashley, has the mental ability of a three-month-old baby and cannot walk or talk.
Along with hormone doses to limit her growth, Ashley's parents also opted for surgery to block breast growth and had her uterus and appendix removed.
They say the treatment will help to improve her quality of life.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/6229799.stm
I got this in an email with a list of phone numbers (which I saw fit to edit out, for their sake) for 3 people who work in relevant parts of the Seattle Children's Hospital and Melinda Gates (who the email felt the need to emphasize is Bill Gate's wife), is apparently the head of their fundraising committee with this:
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Ashley is a nine-year-old with a severe cognitive disability. In order to keep her small and more easily cared for by her family, doctors at Seattle Children's Hospital are having her undergo hormone "therapy" to stunt her growth. In addition, they surgically removed her breast buds, uterus and appendix. The "Ashley Treatment," as her parents call it, is a medical "fix" to serious social problems we face in America today. The first of these problems is a lack of quality home-based services for people with disabilities. The second is the social attitude that people with disabilities are less than human and therefore fair game for experimentation. The third is a lack of understanding of disability vs. illness: as Joe Hall of South Carolina has stated, "When I was born my parents knew that I would never walk, but they would have never thought it would be acceptable to cut my legs off."
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10 January 2007, 08:35 AM
The Ashley Treatment
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