The Region : Doctor’s Quest to Aid Youth Thwarted

After two weeks of waiting unsuccessfully in Bangkok for permission to enter Vietnam and find the brother or sister of a 17-year-old Vietnamese youth needing a bone marrow transplant, Dr. Vasilious Berdoukas returned to Childrens Hospital in Los Angeles. Berdoukas said there is “a very, very small chance” that aplastic anemia patient Thoi Le will get better without the transplant. If either his brother or sister had been found and had proven a compatible donor, the doctor said, the youth would have a 75% chance of survival. Mike Lewis, chairman of the Make-A-Wish Foundation, which sponsored the doctor’s trip, said the Vietnamese apparently were “not in any humanitarian mood.”