Court steps into second child lung transplant case

The family of 11-year-old Javier Acosta filed suit on Thursday against Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, seeking broader eligibility for a potentially lifesaving lung transplant for the boy. The family of Sarah Murnaghan, 10, had gone to court a day earlier…

In both cases, U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson ordered Sebelius to put the children on the adult waiting list. The children, who have cystic fibrosis and are at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, are now on both the adult and pediatric waiting lists.

The extraordinary cases have created political controversy in Washington, with pressure on the administration to take action for individual children and to short-circuit the system for updating organ transplant policy. That worries transplant experts and bioethicists — but Steve Harvey, the attorney representing both families, said the current policy is discriminatory. Acosta had a brother who died at age 11 while waiting for new lungs.

There are only about 15 children younger than 12 on the waiting list for lung transplants nationwide.