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Author
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Topic: Judge rules family can't refuse chemo for boy
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T
Knowflake Posts: 288
From:
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted May 15, 2009 05:44 PM
 
By AMY FORLITI, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 11 mins ago
MINNEAPOLIS – A Minnesota judge ruled Friday that a 13-year-old cancer patient must be evaluated by a doctor to determine if the boy would benefit from restarting chemotherapy over his parents' objections.
In a 58-page ruling, Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg found that Daniel Hauser has been "medically neglected" by his parents, Colleen and Anthony Hauser, and was in need of child protection services.
While he allowed Daniel to stay with his parents, the judge gave the Hausers until Tuesday to get an updated chest X-ray for their son and select an oncologist.
If the evaluation shows the cancer had advanced to a point where chemotherapy and radiation would no longer help, the judge said, he would not order the boy to undergo treatment.
However, he said, if chemotherapy is ordered and the family still refuses, Daniel will be placed in temporary custody.
The judge wrote that Daniel has only a "rudimentary understanding at best of the risks and benefits of chemotherapy. ... he does not believe he is ill currently. The fact is that he is very ill currently."
It was unclear how the medicine would be administered if the boy fights it. Dr. Bruce Bostrom, a pediatric oncologist at Children's Hospitals and Clinics of Minnesota, said last week he would have a hard time forcing Daniel to take the medicine. Bostrom said Friday his hospital has psychologists, child life specialists and other resources to help ease Daniel's fears. He also said an ethics committee would meet next week to talk about all the scenarios doctors may encounter.
Daniel's court-appointed attorney, Philip Elbert, called the decision unfortunate.
"I feel it's a blow to families," he said. "It marginalizes the decisions that parents face every day in regard to their children's medical care. It really affirms the role that big government is better at making our decisions for us."
Elbert said he hadn't spoken to his client yet. The phone line at the Hauser home in Sleepy Eye in southwestern Minnesota had a busy signal Friday. The parents' attorney had no immediate comment but planned to issue a statement.
Daniel was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and stopped chemotherapy in February after a single treatment. He and his parents opted instead for "alternative medicines" based on their religious beliefs.
Child protection workers accused Daniel's parents of medical neglect; but in court, his mother insisted the boy wouldn't submit to chemotherapy for religious reasons and she said she wouldn't comply if the court orders it.
Doctors have said Daniel's cancer had up to a 90 percent chance of being cured with chemotherapy and radiation. Without those treatments, doctors said his chances of survival are 5 percent.
Daniel's parents have been supporting what they say is their son's decision to treat the disease with nutritional supplements and other alternative treatments favored by the Nemenhah Band.
The Missouri-based religious group believes in natural healing methods advocated by some American Indians.
After the first chemotherapy treatment, the family said they wanted a second opinion, said Bostrom, a pediatric oncologist who recommended Daniel undergo chemotherapy and radiation.
They later informed him that Daniel would not undergo any more chemotherapy. Bostrom said Daniel's tumor shrunk after the first chemotherapy session, but X-rays show it has grown since he stopped the chemotherapy.
"My son is not in any medical danger at this point," Colleen Hauser testified at a court hearing last week. She also testified that Daniel is a medicine man and elder in the Nemenhah Band.
The family's attorney, Calvin Johnson, said Daniel made the decision himself to refuse chemotherapy, but Brown County said he did not have an understanding of what it meant to be a medicine man or an elder.
Court filings also indicated Daniel has a learning disability and can't read.
The Hausers have eight children. Colleen Hauser told the New Ulm Journal newspaper that the family's Catholicism and adherence to the Nemenhah Band are not in conflict, and that she has used natural remedies to treat illness.
Nemenhah was founded in the 1990s by Philip Cloudpiler Landis, who said Thursday he once served four months in prison in Idaho for fraud related to advocating natural remedies.
Landis said he founded the faith after facing his diagnosis of a cancer similar to Daniel Hauser. He said he treated it with diet choices, visits to a sweat lodge and other natural remedies.
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http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/ap_on_he_me/us_med_forced_chemo
On the Net:
Hauser case final argument briefs: http://www.courts.state.mn.us/?pageNewsItemDisplay&item45848 IP: Logged |
katatonic
Knowflake Posts: 291
From:
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted May 15, 2009 06:00 PM
now this is a tough call! i wonder if they left out the religious argument and cited only evidence that this has been treated "alternatively" if the court would be as up against them? i have often wondered what i would do if this was me. of course an adult has the right to refuse treatment if they want and his being a child is part of the whole mess...but if my child had cancer? not sure. i've never had to make that decision! i do know that the woman who owns the place i work in was diagnosed 30 years ago with cancer and refused "treatment" by doctors. she healed herself largely with good fresh food and other natural healing remedies including visualizations etc. recently she developed a new cancer of the squamous cell variety and for two years tried to heal without chemo - at which point she was so tired and discouraged that she agreed to try the "conventional" way. she was blown away by the openness of the hospital she worked with and they by her! so it was a real healing moment where the two sides came together. she is still on the mend from the ravages of the chemicals though she IS cancer free. recently she broke a hip - chemo can seriously weaken your bones to the point of osteoporosis - and THAT she healed without the surgery the doctors suggested. IP: Logged |
T
Knowflake Posts: 288
From:
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted May 16, 2009 08:30 AM
Wow, interesting story. Yeah, it really is a tough call.IP: Logged |
jwhop
Knowflake Posts: 142
From: Madeira Beach, FL USA
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted May 16, 2009 12:13 PM
A tough call indeed.I have the perfect right to refuse treatment for myself. Question is, do I have the right to refuse treatment for a minor or permit my child to refuse life saving medical treatment? My personal opinion is that no, I don't have that right and wouldn't permit one of my minor children to refuse treatment which could and probably would save their lives. This case is even worse when it's known the minor child has a learning disability and cannot read. How could such a child make an informed decision about treatment options..or non treatment? IP: Logged |
katatonic
Knowflake Posts: 291
From:
Registered: Apr 2009
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posted May 16, 2009 12:18 PM
i had to make the same choice on a regular basis with my daughter. i firmly believed antibiotics were risky but i was dealing with SOMEONE ELSE'S body, health and CONSCIOUSNESS. not only did she have frequent strep throat and tonsilitis, but her tonsils didn't shrink the way they are supposed to around 7...ended up having them out! and though i believed an anesthetized child retains enough consciousness to be suggestible to what is said around them, i was not allowed any input or control over that situation either.she stopped getting tonsilitis but thereafter developed BRONCHITIS regularly every winter...which is what tonsils are there to protect you from!! the problem is as much the "faith" aspect as anything, i think. were they to present enough cases where people were healed with natural methods and not say it was because of their religion...i wonder if they could push it further. i know some christian scientists have been prosecuted for not "medically" treating their kids, some of whom have died. would they have lived anyway? and what kind of life after chemo? i'm not sure there aren't some people who are permanently maimed by drugs and radiation. but it's back to the same question of whether the state has the right to tell people how to raise their kids, and what is abuse? can they do the same thing if you refuse vaccinations? its scary. either way someone is making the decision for the kid. i guess its on the alternative healers to mainstream knowledge of our methods even more. one of the reasons i stay in cali is that acceptance is so high here even with very "ordinary" folk. trouble with that is then the alternatives come under the fricking REGULATIONS of the mainstream. it gets more and more difficult to even give a massage without a license. on one hand i can see why, because there are plenty of quacks around, but in 40 years i have never hurt a massage client and don't intend to start now! still i have to have insurance, license and permit - its already to the point that some people feel there's something sleazy about ignoring those rules. but there are people who regularly and systematically abuse their children who no one notices. and of course the definition of abuse is different from one person to the other. sometimes i think a sudden ice age would be a boon to us all...of course there would be a lot less of "us all" if that scenario ever played out... IP: Logged | |
Lindaland
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