Fresh hearing set as new evidence in Charlie case
GREAT Ormond Street Hospital has said it has applied to the High Court for a fresh hearing in the case of terminally ill baby Charlie Gard “in light of claims of new evidence relating to potential treatment for his condition”.
A Gosh spokesman said: “We believe, in common with Charlie’s parents, it is right to explore this evidence.”
Charlie inherited the faulty RRM2B gene from his parents, Connie Yates and Chris Gard, affecting the cells responsible for energy production and respiration and leaving him unable to move or breathe without a ventilator.
The couple, both in their thirties and from Bedfont, west London, want to take him to a hospital in the US but lost a lengthy legal battle after judges ruled in favour of doctors at Gosh, who argued the treatment would not improve the 11-monthold’s quality of life.
Gosh, who have told Charlie’s parents of the decision, said it was taken after two international hospitals and their researchers contacted them “as late as the last 24 hours” to say they have “fresh evidence about their proposed experimental treatment”.
Under a High Court ruling, Gosh is forbidden from allowing Charlie to be transferred for nucleoside therapy anywhere.
It comes as researchers at the Vatican children’s hospital implored Charlie’s doctors to reconsider allowing an experimental treatment to be used, citing “new information”.
Clinicians from the Bambino Gesu paediatric hospital’s neurosciences department said tests in mice and patients with a similar, but not the same, genetic condition had shown “dramatic clinical improvements”.
A spokesman for the institution in Rome said the letter, which was posted on the charliesfight.org website hours after the boy’s parents met Gosh medics, had been sent by the hospital.
Charlie’s case will be heard by Mr Justice Francis on Monday at 2pm, according to a High Court listing.
Ms Yates has said her son was “not in pain or suffering” and she had been given hope by international attempts to come to Charlie’s aid, including from the Pope and US President Donald Trump.
Gosh said it will now be for the High Court to make its judgment on the facts and that it is acting in Charlie’s best interests.
They describe his condition as exceptionally rare, with catastrophic and irreversible brain damage.
In a statement, Gosh said: “Our doctors have explored every medical treatment, including experimental nucleoside therapies.
“Independent medical experts agreed with our clinical team that this treatment would be unjustified.
“Not only that, but they said it would be futile and would prolong Charlie’s suffering.
“This is absolutely about what is right for Charlie.
“Our view has not changed.
“We believe it is right to seek the High Court’s view in light of the claimed new evidence.”
Successive legal attempts by Charlie’s parents failed as judges in the High Court, Court of Appeal and Supreme Court in London ruled in favour of Gosh doctors, while the European Court of Human Rights declined to hear the couple’s appeal.
A US hospital, which cannot be named for legal reasons, has offered to ship the drug to the UK to help Charlie, and Ms Yates said this had been offered as early as last December.
In his April ruling, Mr Justice Francis said the couple had, understandably, grasped at the possibility that the therapy might be “pioneering treatment”.
But he said it had never been tried on a patient with Charlie’s rare form of mitochondrial disease, there was “no evidence” it could help him.