Republican obstruction means that the best we can hope for in the near future are palliative measures — modest additional spending like the infrastructure program President Obama proposed this week, aid to state and local governments to help them avoid severe further cutbacks, aid to the unemployed to reduce hardship and maintain spending power.
An additional factor determining treatment for relapse is dictated by patient preference for either further intensive treatment or palliative measures, and the availability of donor.
No treatment or palliative measures are known.
Many palliative measures such as symptom-controlling medications, good nursing care, communication and compassion, are inexpensive.
In such a climate, the impact of supposedly palliative measures conceded to the Lib Dems will hardly register.
But what of the inexpensive palliative measures for those experiencing pain?
For many years, neonatologists relied largely on gestational age in deciding whether to administer intensive care or to "redirect," which means to restrict care to palliative measures.
Of course, he acknowledged, there are palliative measures that companies like Hewlett-Packard can take, like trying to "reduce the ways that empty cartridges get on the market".
McClelland's approach to philanthropy similarly combined the practical and ideal, following Joseph Rowntree's belief in tackling social causes of poverty rather than in palliative measures.
Finally, the necessary palliative measures should be established.
