Policy

Lawyers Beg for Transplant Rule Change to Save 10-Year-Old Girl

Death panels? We don't have death panels!

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Lawyers for 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan, who has been denied a lung transplant because of a controversial federal policy, say Health and Human Services' Secretary Kathleen Sebelius' decision to review the policy—but not in time to save Sarah—is unconstitutional.

Sarah would be at the top of the adult lung transplant list if she were 12, because she only has weeks to live and a lung transplant would as-good-as cure her of cystic fibrosis.

The Murnaghan family is fighting a little known organ transplant policy that is effectively pushing Sarah to the bottom of the adult transplant waiting list because it mandates that adult lungs be offered to all adult patients before they can be offered to someone under 12 years old.