Dying Child's Hospice Care Made into Reality TV

Sarah Murnaghan

The latest FOX News media stunt is so far over the top that it leaves me shaking with rage.  A little girl named Sarah Murnaghan, who suffers from end-stage cystic fibrosis, endured two double lung transplants in June.   After the first transplant failed almost immediately, the child was given another transplant two days later. What followed were a string of medical complications, requiring three additional surgeries as well as other medical procedures, which have left the child on life support.  She is fed through a tube inserted in her intestines, and suffers  agonizing pain from severe osteoporosis, causing her spinal bones to crumble.     



However, this is not the story that FOX News is telling its viewers.  It claims that Sarah Murnaghan has made a  miraculous recovery, despite Obamacare death panels. This makes reference to the fact that the child's parents sued to have their child placed on adult transplant lists, even though Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius had refused to intervene.  At the time the medical community warned that all of their efforts to implant adult lungs in children younger than twelve had failed.  Ex-Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin has gotten in on the act, with a new video (click here).   And of course, Rush Limbaugh, joined the parade.  An article in the conservative Washington Times proclaimed:   "Republican judge saves Sarah Murnaghan from death panel bureaucrats."

FOX News  brought in their  so-called medical expert, Dr. Marc Siegel, who claimed that Sarah's  "future is bright," although she lies numbed by painkillers on life support. Dr. Siegal added that it was a "really good sign that her body seems to have accepted the new lungs."  What he failed to mention was that after three months, she was still unable to breathe with the new lungs, and that problems had arisen in trying to wean her off the ventilator. (See Discussing Lung Transplantation & Sarah Murnaghan)

Every week or so, FOX News offers news footage, videotaping this critically-ill child, languishing in bed or propped up against her mother.  However, the commentary proclaims that little Sarah is "on the road to recovery," "breathing on her own," "walking," "playing with friends," when the reality is in fact so heart-breaking.  We all know how this story is going to end.  So, why is FOX News continuing its upbeat coverage other than for the prurient interest of otherwise bored viewers, who tune in each week to watch a beautiful child die.

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