Quote Originally Posted by Burney View Post
The existence of homeopathy anywhere near the NHS is a national disgrace and due almost entirely to that renowned gobshīte the Prince of Wales. I would agree that their readiness to countenance such nonsense does undermine their reputation for making dispassionate judgments based on hard, clinical data. However, that is not the fault of the individuals involved in this decision, most of whom I don't imagine like homeopathy any more than I do.

Intent and effect are two very different things. The intent was to achieve the best possible level of care for this child given his condition. The effect is that the NHS has had to go to court at great public expense to defend its its primacy in such decision-making. The fight was over an important and compassionate principle and was - I would suggest - a lot more hassle and more expensive than letting the poor child be used as a guinea pig.

The outcome is that the boy will die. The boy was always going to die, though.
No compassion was involved. Only an infringement of the ultimate civil liberty, the right to try and save your life by whatever means possible. The intent was to stop the child from having potential life-saving treatment. If this line was taken with every new treatment we'd still be chewing leaves every time we had a headache.

You do not know if the boy would have lived or died with the experimental treatment. You cannot know, neither can I. It might have worked or it might have helped to improve the treatment for others, that is how science works.