Trump activist claims British baby Charlie Gard died because it was ‘too expensive to keep him alive’ as she slams Joe Biden’s plan for ‘socialised medicine’
- Natalie Harp, who has battled bone cancer, claimed that Britain’s National Health Service decided it was ‘too expensive and too cruel to keep (Charlie) alive’
- Harp praised Trump’s ‘right to try’ legislation which she claims gave her access to experimental treatments that saved her life
- Charlie Gard’s case made headlines in 2017, a battle between the infant’s parents and London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital over the child’s best interests
- Medical experts condemned the Trump administration’s intervention at the time and slammed Republicans’ erroneous framing of the decision as a financial one
A Republican Convention speaker last night invoked the death of British baby Charlie Gard to attack Joe Biden‘s plan for ‘socialised medicine.’
Natalie Harp, a bone cancer survivor, claimed that Britain’s National Health Service decided it was ‘too expensive and too cruel to keep him alive.’
Harp, a member of Trump’s campaign advisory board, said she wouldn’t be alive today were it not for the president’s legislation on experimental treatments, the so-called ‘right to try.’
Charlie was born with an extremely rare condition called mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome (MDDS), which causes progressive brain damage and muscle failure. There is no treatment for the condition and it usually results in death during infancy.
In 2017, Charlie’s parents lost a high-profile legal battle – which attracted attention from the White House – for the 11-month-old to be allowed to travel to the US for experimental treatment.
Natalie Harp, who has battled bone cancer, claimed that Britain’s National Health Service decided it was ‘too expensive and too cruel to keep him (Charlie Gard) alive.’
Chris Gard and Connie Yates with their son Charlie Gard who was born with an extremely rare condition called mitochondrial DNA depletion syndrome (MDDS), which causes progressive brain damage and muscle failure
Courts in the UK and the EU ruled in favour of London’s Great Ormond Street Hospital, agreeing that the child had no chance of recovery and travel to the US would only prolong his suffering.
At the time, President Donald Trump had intervened to say that he would be ‘delighted to help’ and Republicans seized on the case as an example of the dangers of Obamacare.
Conservatives in America have claimed erroneously that the decision over what was in the best interests of the child had financial considerations.
The High Court judge who dealt with the case in London dismissed such notions as ‘nonsensical.’
The judge continued: ‘It was one of the pitfalls of social media that the watching world felt it right to have opinions without knowing the facts of the case.’
Harp last night claimed from the pulpit in Washington that were it not for the ‘right to try’ legislation signed by Trump she wouldn’t be alive today.
Harp says she failed two rounds of chemotherapy and was rejected from clinical trials before being allowed to look at experimental options.
She claimed that in Joe Biden’s America ‘some of us would be denied care, for in socialised medicine, you don’t beat the odds.’
‘You become the odds,’ she added. ‘And I would lose my right to try, just like Charlie Gard, that terminally ill British baby whose government-run health care system decided it was too expensive and too cruel to keep him alive.’
Natalie Harp speaks from Washington, during the first night of the Republican National Convention Monday, Aug. 24, 2020
Genetics expert Robert Winston has previously described the interference by the Trump administration in baby Charlie’s case as ‘extremely unhelpful and very cruel.’
Winston, who sits in the House of Lords, said at the time: ‘This child has been dealt with at a hospital which has huge expertise in mitochondrial disease and is being offered a break in a hospital that has never published anything on this disease, as far as I’m aware.’
Biden has discussed plans to build on Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act (Obamacare), so that 97 percent will be covered by health insurance.