Daily Record NEWS 30 November 2006 BROWN BABY AGONY Little Fraser, 4 months, has cystic fibrosisB... BROWN BABY AGONY...

The Chancellor and wife Sarah lost their first child, daughter Jennifer Jane, in 2002 when she was 10 days old. She had suffered a brain haemorrhage.

All babies in Scots maternity wards a re routinely blood-tested for cystic fibrosis. Before he knew about Fraser, Brown backed moves to bring in the same system in England.

A spokesman for the Chancellor said: "While Fraser has been diagnosed with cystic fibrosis, he is fit, healthy and making all the progress you would expect.

"Thousands of other parents are in the same position. Gordon and Sarah are confident that the advice and treatments available, including proper exercise and later, sporting activity, will keep him fit and healthy.

"The NHS is doing a great job and Gordon and Sarah are very optimistic that the advances being made in medicine will help Fraser and many others."

He has yet to show any of the major symptoms but reports last night said he had been in and out of hospital with minor chest infections since birth.

"Obviously, this is the kind of thing no parent wants to hear. Politicians are exactly the same as everybody else and they worry in the same way.

Most babies with cystic fibrosis are very small when they are born. Fraser's relatively high birth weight - 7lb 14oz - gives cause for hope about how he will cope with his illness.

Tory leader David Cameron, whose son Ivan, four, has cerebral palsy, passed on his sympathy to the Browns. He said: "My wife Sam and I are thinking of Gordon and Sarah and their family."

"But, given the extraordinary development in treatments over recent years, children can expect to live an extremely happy, active and in most ways normal life."

"You never come to terms with it. You always know there is something missing. "Two weeks ago, she would have been going to school for the first time."

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