Judge: Place girl on adult transplant list

The Associated Press

PHILADELPHIA -- The national organ transplant network has complied with a judge's unusual order and placed a dying 10-year-old girl on the adult waiting list for a donated lung. Another patient at the same hospital asked the court for the same relief.

The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network added Sarah Murnaghan to the list after U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson's ruling Wednesday, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Thursday.

The girl also remains on the priority list for a lung from a pediatric donor, Sebelius said. Her family, through a spokeswoman, said Sarah's condition had worsened yesterday.

The mother of an 11-year-old Bronx boy at the same hospital filed a lawsuit Thursday, asking a federal judge to add him to the list and saying he faced death soon without a donated organ. A judge scheduled a hearing for June 14.

Javier Acosta, who like Sarah has cystic fibrosis, is in the intensive care unit at Children's Hospital of Philadelphia.

Sarah's parents had challenged existing policy that made children younger than 12 wait for pediatric lungs to become available, or be offered lungs donated by adults after adolescents and adults on the waiting list had been considered.

Sarah's family, who live Newtown Square in suburban Philadelphia, said in their suit that pediatric lungs are rarely donated, so they believe older children should have equal access to adult donations.

Lungs are the most difficult of organ transplants, and children fare worse than adults, which is one reason for the policy, said Dr. Arthur Caplan, a bioethicist at New York University Langone Medical Center.

He called it troubling for a judge to overrule that medical judgment.