In the 1970s, Lorber was one of the early advocates for neonatal surgical intervention in cases of the Myelomeningocele form of spina bifida.
[1] Lorber's published work advocating treatments, along with the opposing views of Raymond Duff and A. G. M. Campbell, became important voices in the debate about the ethics of withholding medical care.
[2] However, by the mid 1980s, Lorber's position had changed based on the unsatisfactory long term outcomes and instead he supported a treatment of normal nursing, with care to avoid pain and discomfort.
He included a report by Lorber, never published in any scientific journal,[6] about the case of a Sheffield University student who had a measured IQ of 126 and passed a Mathematics Degree but who had hardly any discernible brain matter at all since his cortex was extremely reduced by hydrocephalus.
[6][7] The article led to the broadcast of a Yorkshire Television documentary of the same title, though it was about a different patient who had normal brain mass distributed strangely in a very large skull.