What balls, what guts. Could you? Would you? I think I’d have slumped myself down the bottle of a bottle and been a passenger in such an event.

I honesty really dont know how I’d deal with that kind of shit.

Well done them for doing what they did.

…in search of alternative treatments – unavailable on the NHS…

…It is now clear that we did the right thing and have always kept Ashya safe and comfortable. Everything we did, we did for our son. Our conscience is clear.

Exactly 😀

Anyone know if these are true?

Before you all get too excited, I suggest that you make sure that you know the limits of ‘proton beam treatment’. Proton beam treatment, can only treat a tumor and nothing else. It does this by focusing on the exact diameter & depth of the tumor and removes it without damaging the surrounding tissue. To ensure that there are no remaining cancer cells in the surrounding tissue, further standard radio/chemo treatment should be administered within a few weeks of the proton treatment. Ashya King had a brain tumor, which was removed at Southampton General Hospital, so there was no tumor for proton beams to focus on. What treatment did Ashya receive in Prague?…Was the taxpayer conned into paying for a publicity excersise for the Proton Beam Centre, and taking the King family (all ten of them, including the grandmother), to Prague for a treatment that didn’t happen!

and

I work for a charity called the CCLG (Children Cancer and Leukaemia Group) and this story has had a very negative impact on paediatric cancer care in the UK and Europe. It is incredibly dangerous for the media to say that the treatment Ashya would have had in the UK would have killed him. The treatment you refer too has saved hundreds of thousands of young lives and this has been proven in hundreds of international clinical trials. I have NEVER seen it KILL a child in the 15 years I have worked in Paediatric Oncology. Proton Therapy has been available to patients in the UK but is only funded if it is proven to be affective in people with this type of cancer. Clinical trials have proven that proton therapy is not more affective in this type of cancer than standard radiotherapy due to the whole central nervous system Having to be treated. The media are playing a very dangerous game with this family that has already had a negative impact on the treatment of children with cancer in Europe.

We’re on shaky ground with it being The Mail after all…. 😉

Regardless of what people say. The boy survived when Proton treatment wasn’t available to him on the NHS. If it wasn’t applicable in his case and the treatment in Czech republic pointless how did he make a recovery?

The British government etc were quick to go after the parents weren’t they? Why can’t there be a lot of hands up/an open process on why this happened and some professional humble pie.

Could/would you do the same? Or stay put.

Awaits better facts; reserves judgement.

Regardless of what people say. The boy survived when Proton treatment wasn’t available to him on the NHS. If it wasn’t applicable in his case and the treatment in Czech republic pointless how did he make a recovery?

From the Beeb –

“Ashya had been diagnosed with a medulloblastoma, which was successfully removed by surgeons in Southampton on 24 July.
He then had a further operation on his brain on 22 August.”

Bloody facts, eh?

Funny which way the media winds blow. One minute – nut jobs kidnapping their child from a hospital, the next minute saints who stood up to The Man. Pick your version. It sounds like the NHS had already done the necessary.

It’s still early days. Well meaning parents but misguided.

My ex had this type of brain tumor. Caught quickly it’s the physical removal and radio therapy that does most work and then follow up chemo to mop up mobile parts .

It was 4 years before she was considered in remission. And you still get checked every 9 months for the rest of your life .

perhaps both sides are “right” and the reason for this down to poor communication and “customer” management by technocratic health care professionals resulting in misunderstanding and poor decision making by the parents.