Amidst all the bad news of lies and treachery at last one piece of good news. Seems that doctors in Chennai and Coimbatore have been able to cure a nine year old girl of thallasaemia by transplanting stem cells from her newly born brother's umbilical cord blood. Thallasaemia is a genetic disorder in which patients are unable to form normal adult heamoglobin and form foetal haemoglobin instead. The red cells carrying this haemoglobin are promptly destroyed by the spleen and the patients need regular transfusions to keep them alive. Since blood contains iron this metal builds up in the children and requires prolonged infusions of a chelating agent to get rid of it. All this is extremely painful for children and distressing for the parents. If this little girl called Thamirabharani stays well then more children could be offered the treatment, eventually curing all the children with this terrible disorder. At Rs. 1 million it would be cheap because of the enormous savings in blood and drugs. Also a lot of blood will be freed up to treat other emergencies. Normally placenta and the cord are thrown away so collecting small amounts of blood should not be a problem. Once established children with sickle cell disease, an extremely painful condition, could also be treated. This is truly a wonderful advance. Sadly implementation will be in the hands of the criminal politicians and the uncivil servants. What hope for the children?