Lawyers and academics concerned with children’s rights argue that under the Children Act a medical procedure

Lawyers and academics concerned with children’s rights argue that under the Children Act, a medical procedure should only be carried out if it is in the best interests of the child undergoing treatment.”Adults are not usually compelled to display altruism, but children are regularly ‘volunteered’ by their parents,” says Linda Delaney, senior lecturer in the School of Law at Manchester Metropolitan University, who wants to seelegal safeguards established for potential child donors.She argues that a bone marrow certification scheme should be set up in which independent witnesses would ensure that the child donor has fully consented and understands the risks involved. According to a report in the Journal of Clinical Pathology, post-operative pain is modest, and easily controlled “With care, any risk to the donor is minimal,” it reads. The bone marrow cells are then transfused intravenously into the patient, whose own immune system has been destroyed to get over problems of rejection.While most families with a very sick child would take such “altruistic” donations for granted, there is growing concern about the ethical problems involved in a child undergoing surgery for someone else’s benefit. Bone marrow registers, such as the British Bone Marrow Appeal and the Anthony Nolan Trust, help people who are hunting down a match outside the family, but in too many cases suitable donors are never found.During the operation on the donor, which takes about 40 minutes, healthy bone marrow is aspirated from the iliac crest, part of the pelvic bone, using a special needle. We didn’t say, ‘Look if you don’t do it, Lewis will die,’ because that would have been too much, but she knew as much. At the end of the day a parent isn’t going to say, ‘The choice is yours. If you decide not to, that’s fine, we’ll just prepare for our son’s funeral.’ If she had had very strong views against being a donor, I don’t know what we would have done.”Up to 500 bone marrow transplants a year are carried out in Britain.

For many people who need a bone marrow transplant – principally patients with leukaemia, who make up 90 per cent of cases – the greatest hope of a successful match lies within the family, where there is a one in four chance among siblings. In a way, I suppose, she didn’t really have a choice.”We simply told her the facts. All five members – including both parents – of the Harrison family were tissue-typed; Lewis’s older sister, 10-year-old Lauren, was found to be a perfect match.
In January, Lauren had some of her bone marrow removed to help save the life of her brother. He is now thriving – out of hospital and back at school.”Lauren said she had a feeling it was going to be her because she didn’t want it to be She was scared of hospitals and needles,” says her mother. “When she found out she was a bit upset and scared, but then became very matter of fact about it, telling her friends what she was doing.In this case, however, there was no parental pressure “She was happy to do it. The disease causes an excess of white blood cells in the bone marrow, which eventually prevent vital organs from functioning.

It can be treated successfully by a transplant from someone with similar tissue typing. They have already done their first 10-hour stretch of hardcore drinking and dancing on Caister’s packed, beer-slippery dance floors flanked with giant papier mache palm trees Another two days of the same lie ahead The music in the main hall has already started up again. Campers are being summoned to the dance floor over the tannoy. A Pool Party in the compound’s exotic indoor waterpark kicks off in the afternoon.Dazed-looking people wearing whistles on strings, cut-off shorts and Dolce and Gabbana jumpers wander about breakfasting on takeaway pizza and chips, porridgey legs exposed to the bitter Siberian winds gusting in from the North Sea Security is tight. Doctors say his or her only chance of survival is a transplant of healthy bone marrow, taken from a brother or sister.