Rare disease is taking his sight. Access to a treatment is hard to get

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If any parents should be able to help their sick child, it's Judy and Courtney Stecker.
They've both worked for the Trump administration, giving them high-level connections in Washington and at the nation's top hospitals. Doctors diagnosed their son, Wheeler, with a rare brain disorder as an infant, early enough to slow its progress. Scientists have developed a drug that could help him.
And yet, seven years after Wheeler was born with a form of Batten disease, he still hasn't received that treatment. And time is running out. Wheeler is going blind.
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