What does the US doctor get out of this? Also the article doesn't say that the treatment would actually have any outcome other than what's currently been stated. It says he COULD treat
What outcome if any would be achievable?
What is the U.S. doctor attempting to do?
What expectations do the parents have and are they realistic?
Being at an academic medical center with many doctors doing innovative therapy, I have three ideas for why the doctor is going through on this.
1. He genuinely thinks it will improve quality of life
2. A massive, massive ego
3. Doing something so experimental in such a rare case would be really cool! (And, of course, it's totally for scientific study purposes *wink wink*)
Although, most of the docs doing things for option three do it because they genuinely think it can help the patient's condition and have expertise and other related research to back up their suspicion.
Following this case, it seems initially the parents had realistic expectations and goals - getting the treatment, or if that was denied, taking their child home to die and donating the money. As more and more people gave them hope and promise of treatment, their views have gotten more distorted. One source quoted them as saying they believe their son could live a normal life with the treatment. I think in a case like this, it's very immoral to give hope that the child's condition will improve, because short of miracle in the most literal sense, his condition won't improve.
Personally, I'm torn. I don't think he should get the experimental treatment because it won't help, and if by some miracle it works as intended, it will only prolong death, hurting him more. On the other hand, this disease is so rare that we should try to take advantage of opportunities to try new treatments. But, sadly, there will be more cases, so perhaps it would be better to try this treatment on future cases after more basic research on the treatment has been conducted.