In the city of New Ulm, Minnesota, a situation has developed that raises all sorts of questions regarding medical ethics. Newspaper articles often have a brief cyberlife, so I'll offer an extended summary of the salient features from the Mpls-St.Paul Star Tribune:
Daniel Hauser has what doctors consider one of the most curable types of cancer, Hodgkin's lymphoma.
But the 13-year-old from Sleepy Eye, Minn. and his parents don't want him to have chemotherapy and radiation, the standard treatments. For the past three months, they have ignored the advice of his cancer specialists and turned to natural therapies, such as herbs and vitamins, instead.
Now they are going to court to defend their decision.
James Olson, the Brown County attorney, has filed a petition accusing Daniel's parents, Colleen and Anthony Hauser, of child neglect and endangerment, and he has asked a judge in New Ulm to order the boy into treatment.
The case, which goes to trial this morning, has quickly turned into a cause celebre in the world of alternative medicine...
Daniel, one of eight children, has asserted that treatment would violate his religious beliefs. The teenager filed an affidavit saying that he is a medicine man and church elder in the Nemenhah, an American Indian religious organization that his parents joined 18 years ago (though they don't claim to be Indians).
"I am opposed to chemotherapy because it is self-destructive and poisonous," he told the court. "I want to live a virtuous life, in the eyes of my creator, not just a long life."
... Danny, as he is known, was first found to have cancer in late January, and his doctors recommended six rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, according to court papers. The disease -- a cancer of the immune cells -- has a 95 percent survival rate for his age group with treatment, according to the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society.
But after one round of chemotherapy, Daniel became so sick that his parents refused to send him for a second treatment. They switched him to an alternative regime of complementary medicine, including dietary changes and "ionized water," Johnson said.
The case is interesting because it's not the conventional "right-to-die-from-a-terminal-illness" situation; this disease is eminently treatable - not just to remission, but to cure. The boy, while not of "legal" age, is mature enough to make some informed judgments, and is backed by his parents. Their principles, interestingly, did not embrance alternative medicine at the onset (he had one round of chemo); the opposition apparently arose because the chemo had toxic side effects.
My personal view is that there is no way that chemotherapy should be "forced" by court order upon this boy. I would hope that the remainder of his life would be used for a sympathetic but brutally honest documentary film that could be used in the future to educate others about the course his illness will undoubtedly follow.
There's more information re the medical, legal, and ethical aspects at the link, as well as a long and not surprisingly acrimonious comment thread.
Addendum: There's further discussion with a different viewpoint (and a long comment thread) of this case at Pharyngula, a blog I check weekly but hadn't seen yet. Thanks, Bill.
Addendum May 15: A district judge has ruled the boy must undergo treatment with chemotherapy/radiotherapy if the lesion is still deemed curable on repeat evaluation. Curiously, there is also a comment that this 13-year-old is "unable to read."
Addendum May 19: A followup CXR showed that the Hodgkins nodes had regrown to their original size since cessation of chemo. The boy and his mother did not present themselves to an oncologist by the court-mandated date; the location of both is unknown. An arrest warrant has been issued.
Addendum May 20: Excellent Star-Tribune article here about the scam artist who misrepresents Native American culture as a "church" and deludes people, including young Daniel's parents.