Children placed on list for transplant

PHILADELPHIA — A dying Pennsylvania girl has been placed on the adult waiting list for donated lungs amid a court fight over the nation’s transplant rules with help from a judge who granted another petition Thursday from a boy at the same hospital.

The Organ Procurement and Transplantation Network added 10-yearold Sarah Murnaghan to the list Wednesday night after a federal judge ordered U. S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to suspend a 12-and-over age requirement.

Sarah, who has endstage cystic fibrosis, also remains on the priority list for a set of pediatric lungs, Sebelius said. The girl’s family, through a spokeswoman, said her condition had worsened Thursday at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.

The mother of an 11-year-old New York City boy hospitalized there filed a lawsuit Thursday, and U. S. District Judge Michael Baylson likewise granted that request on the grounds the boy was otherwise facing death. Javier Acosta, who also has cystic fibrosis, is in intensive care.

The families challenge existing transplant policy that made children under 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.

“The rule’s not working. And they’re reconsidering it, but ... Javier, Sarah, they would die in the meantime,” said lawyer Stephen Harvey, who represents both families.