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LONDON (AP) -- The grandmother of a 5-year-old British boy with a severe brain tumor accused U.K. authorities on Monday of cruelty for seeking an arrest warrant and pursuing the family abroad after his parents removed him from a British hospital against medical advice.

Hours later, a Spanish judge ordered the parents' detention for 72 hours while a court in Madrid considers whether to grant Britain an extradition request.

Grandmother Patricia King told the BBC it was an "absolute disgrace" that her son and daughter-in-law were accused of child neglect after they took Ashya from Southampton General Hospital last week. The family says U.K. authorities had refused to give Ashya the kind of treatment he needed.

The family has criticized Britain's health care system, saying he needs an advanced treatment option called proton beam therapy and that it wasn't being made available to him.

King's parents were arrested Sunday in southeastern Spain after a European arrest warrant was issued by Interpol at the request of British police. Their son is receiving medical treatment for a brain tumor. After his parents' arrest, he was admitted to a Spanish hospital.

King says the authorities are "the ones who are cruel, because they have taken poor little Ashya, who is dying of a brain tumor, and they won't let the parents, my son and daughter-in-law, they won't let them see him at all."

Prime Minister David Cameron's spokesman also weighed in on the matter Monday, saying people all over the country have been moved by the family's plight.

British police say the parents, Brett and Naghemeh, are suspected of neglect.

Spanish National Court Judge Ismael Moreno ordered the parents' detention for 72 hours, a court spokesman said. Moreno could have opted to let the parents go free while the extradition case is considered.

The spokesman said Ashya King's parents told the judge they don't want to return to the U.K. They were arrested Sunday in southeastern Spain after a European arrest warrant was issued by Interpol at the request of British police. Their son is receiving medical treatment for a brain tumor and is currently at a Malaga hospital.

The spokesman said the legal process also involves requesting the advice of Spanish doctors and translating legal documents deemed pertinent to the case. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he wasn't allowed to be cited by name in the media.

After the 72 hours expire, the judge could extend their time in detention or release them.

King said in a video posted on the Internet that his research suggests his son would benefit from proton beam therapy, a targeted type of radiation treatment that increases the chance of killing cancer cells by sending a higher dose of radiation directly to the tumor.

Unlike other types of cancer treatment, it doesn't indiscriminately kill surrounding healthy tissue, so there could be fewer long term effects.

In Britain, proton beam therapy is currently only available in the country to treat certain patients with cancer in their eyes. Other countries, including the U.S., Switzerland and Japan, also use proton beam therapy to treat cancers of the spinal cord, brain, prostate, lung and those that affect children.

Britain's health department announced in 2011 it will build two treatment centers to make proton beam therapy available in London and Manchester from 2018. Until those facilities open, Britain will pay for patients eligible for the therapy to go to the U.S. and Switzerland for treatment.

It wasn't immediately clear why health care officials didn't make this option available to Aysha.

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_BRITAIN_BOY_BRAIN_TUMOR?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2014-09-01-06-43-12

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Viva El NHS

Yeah, tricky situation they were in. They seem to have been just trying to do whats best and take him where they could get the care they wanted for him which the NHS wouldnt or couldnt provide.

Initially going by the headlines you'd think it was another one of those wackjob religious parents who put their son's life in "god's hands" but instead they did it to pursue the newest and most advanced treatment available for their kid.

I think the biggest lesson learned here is the problem with the state actively interfering in the medical field. But the job of the state in socialized medicine is to keep costs down by any means allocated... and unfortunately it seems like they were trying here by forcefully providing recently antiquated cancer treatment.

It would be one thing if the mainstream medical establishment could actually CURE cancer, but the death rates for treatment are just as high.

I guess when it comes to the state, a second opinions isn't an option.

Sounds like what 0bamacare will be doing starting next year...

I guess we've reached the breaking point. Parents do not choose anymore what's good or bad for their children, it's the country which tells them how to care for their children, and if parents refuse to obey, they're being sent to jail.

This is fascism, in the UK now. Probably, we shall look down on British citizens from now on. They are not real humans, but puppets in the hands of the mighty government.

Finally, a bit of relief!

http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-29040124 (http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-england-29040124)

People realizing that this isn't the police job to catch parents trying to offer the best available treatment for their kid.
We shall not despair of the UK!