(CNN) -- The happiest day in Justin Smith's life -- next to the day his daughter was born -- was March 5, 2013. When his phone rang, he looked down and saw the 301 area code. It must be the National Institutes of Health, he thought. He didn't know anyone else in Maryland. Indeed, Dr. Brigitte Widemann was calling to say that after five months of waiting, Smith's 12-year-old daughter McKenna had been accepted into a clinical trial at NIH headquarters in Bethesda, Maryland. She could begin the week of September 30. Smith thanked the doctor and hung up the phone.
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Some 200 new patients, including 30 children, start a clinical trial at NIH every week
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With the government shutdown, these patients are being told they will have to wait to begin
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McKenna Smith will be allowed to receive treatment, doctors say, on Friday
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