The family of the Amish girl with cancer who needs chemotherapy flee the country and claim natural healing has “cured” her

Pris,

Just out of curiosity, when and in what cultures were children ‘property?’ Outside of slave-owning cultures, that is.

(My knowledge of world history doesn’t go too deep, sorry.)

David Michael uses other names (David Michael Augenstein), to post his pseudoscience:

http://healthimpactnews.com/2011/new-study-vaccinated-children-have-2-to-5-times-more-diseases-and-disorders-than-unvaccinated-children/

He’s claims to be for “vaccine choice” and he is anti-water fluoridation and a proponent of raw milk, as well.

http://vax.livingfood.us/?p=6860

So come on over Mr. Augenstein, to discuss natural foods, herbs and supplements and their role in curing Sarah’s cancer.

The Hershberger’s fleeing the country can only help cure their daughter; after all they are taking charge of her cancer, and we all know that aids survival.

Or at least that was the claim of Ohio State University emergency physician Diane Gorgas in a recent column:

“Those who show the least amount of resiliency likely will feel devastated by serious medical diagnoses and never come close to fully recovering. On the other end of the spectrum are those who, after the initial shock, grow from the experience and, over time, develop more strength and positiveness than they had before the diagnoses…
And when resilience turns to action, remarkable things can happen. Multiple breast-cancer studies have found that patients who say they want to take control of their disease have better outcomes, even for those in advanced stages.”

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2013/10/27/your-health/patients-show-power-of-resiliency.html

Think positively, take charge, and cancer will be on the run! Except the literature is anything but convincing on the subject. I’m not sure what “multiple studies” Gorgas is referring, but here’s one showing “resiliency” does not impress cancer:

http://discovermagazine.com/2008/feb/hope-may-be-useless-against-cancer#.Um5WMFOHNjs

What ticks me off about uninformed glurge like what’s promoted by Gorgas, is that it makes people who are down about their diagnosis feel guilty for not “taking charge of their disease” and not being “resilient”, when there’s no good evidence that attitude makes a difference.*

*one of Gorgas’ examples of “taking charge” is a woman with leukemia who got pregnant and apparently is stopping chemo (to protect the fetus). Somehow that doesn’t sound like she’s “taking charge” of her cancer.

This is totally O/T but may be of interest to many: I was touted onto a web text called “Statistics done wrong”, by an apparently very able statistics grad student. It’s clear, and amusing, and appears to be full of excellent advice:

http://www.refsmmat.com/statistics/index.html

Damn. I have to run *and* will be AFK.

Here is a similar instance from Phoenix in late 2012 (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/12/12/emily-bracamontes-sick-girl-hospital-phoenix-mexico_n_2284835.html) where an 11 year-old girl with leukemia was taken from Phoenix Children’s Hospital to somewhere in Mexico for “treatment”. Mexico has no extradition policy, so this child is effectively lost to follow-up (until perhaps her parents bring her back to the US half -dead). Frustratingly, given that this family had removed her previously from two California hospitals against medical advice, someone within social services at the hospital should have contacted Arizona Child Protective Services and had the child place in state protective custody.

“they’re in Canada”

Yeah, my home and native land seems to be going woo-ey in my absence. Two provinces even allow them to prescribe pharmaceuticals and do “minor” surgeries, though I don’t know how far minor goes. The University of Toronto has a fairly large naturopathy program. I once (3 or 4 years ago) got into an argument about that program with someone who had just been accepted into said program. She leaned on the “if UofT accepts it, it must be legit” aspect a little too much. UofT publishes more scientific papers than any other university in North America. And the University Health Network is world-class, Sick Kids is at the cutting edge, etc. Harvard beats it in total number counting all disciplines including humanities, etc. but UofT is high (2nd maybe?) even there. Which is funny, because she also leaned on the “Harvard has a whole centre” argument too.

My counter argument, which was not very well expressed, due to my state of inebriation at the time (she happened to be a non-drinker), was “it’s all about the money.” When you consider how much universities like Harvard get in overhead fees, and how liberally the NCCAM hands out money, they would be idiots (from a fiscal standpoint), not to. For UofT, there is enough people who demand such a program that it is perhaps inevitable that Canada’s largest and most prestigious university would want to be at the forefront. It takes a few words in the right ears, not scientific accuracy, to get the ball rolling.

As for why Canada is so open to the woo in general, is perhaps because we have a pathological fear of being paternalistic and trodding out “traditional beliefs”. Which is not entirely unfounded, my homeland’s historical and ongoing treatment of Aboriginal people generally makes me want to punch things. We tolerate those who have become so open minded that their brains have fallen out. Arguments can be made that it is better to err on that side than the other, but I sometimes wonder about the harm that is being done by neglected medical care when people put their trust in naturopaths.

Just because they’re said to have left the country does not mean that they have left the country. They are probably harder to find in-country since they don’t have to present papers to anyone. They can find all the woo and woo-enablers they want within the US, and stay out of sight/state.

@TBruce:

The woman I was talking to represented it as such, as far as I remember. I stand corrected. I have some faith restored in Canada.

You know what’s funny: they could have aborted her before birth and nobody would’ve cared!!! Let the mother still have control: she could still possibly live. My mother died of cancer with all the chemo treatments!! The outcome is not always great. If after all the family tries and this girl still dies: remember she could have been aborted!!!!
The people that get all mixed up in this don’t look at their decisions in different areas and realize how dumb it is!!!

Let the mother still have control: she could still possibly live.

Somebody is apparently unfamiliar with gender roles in Amish society.

Oh, and the buggy one is William Thomas Cain/Getty Images. I can find it going back to 2007.

ORAC@20

I took the bridge to Canada for an uncle’s funeral in April.
We needed passports, but they just glanced at them, compared the photos to our faces, and handed them back without looking anything up on a computer. Maybe they would check the names against a list/database if an Amber alert was on, but that would require prior knowledge the parents were going to run.

The woman I was talking to represented it as such, as far as I remember.

I should have predicted this: a pretend doctor going for a pretend U of T degree.

DaveH @#9:

So, why is it that much of the Middle east treats children like chattel and we find it abhorrent? What changed in Western society to make us believe that children are people and not property, and how can we change the people in the Middle East so that they do the same?

I’d really like to help them change, whether it be through the ballot box or the cartridge box….

A quck one, as I have to get my nose back to the grindstone:

Parental rights trump the child’s rights in the US – children are, in effect, the property of their parents.

This wasn’t even true in the common-law days, in which fathers had certain obligations to the child. In the meantime, parens patriae developed (so one could claim that the state has a property interest, I suppose) and so forth. It’s quite a way from sending children to the Colonies as indentured servants.

Ownership of a child’s earnings in the U.S. is still a matter of state law, though, as I understand it (cf. the Coogan law).

@Kemist – IIRC this has to do with the death penalty. ie, the charter forbids the death penalty for children (defined as under 18) whereas there are still states that allow juvenile execution.

H323 – so you DO consider your children your property, and believe you can do with them as you will – even if it will kill them?

Just asking.

@meg- no states still allow the death penalty for kids under 18 but some still allow life imprisonment, which is also prohibited by the treaty.

Hands up anyone who believes that H323 is really a Mennonite

Well, I don’t believe that “H323” (When the mother wants to make cancer treatment choices) isn’t “De” (Let the mother still have control).

“The head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man.”

@h323

What “god” to you worship?

Because that is a deity that I don’t want any part of, nor would I want to worship, if he/she/it allows parents to kill their children on a whim just because they feel like it.

I’m not an expert on the sect, but I have a hunch that H323’s opinion would get pretty short shrift at the Mennonite hospital here.

Lucario: “I’d really like to help them change, whether it be through the ballot box or the cartridge box…”

I prefer to save the latter for egregious cases, though I am not naive enough to forget about both the occasional necessity and the limitations of force. Iraq springs to mind, since the country, which had been a functioning but brutal state fell apart for a few years, and ended up with militias, etc. The use of force is a roll of the dice, and is only worth it if there is few if any ways it could get worse.

As for actual change, first and foremost, education. Educating children and women produces long-term change in a society. This should be the main goal. However, the political realities are that the West imports massive amounts of oil from the Saudis, so they smile and nod, and then do their own thing. If we got ourselves off our oil habit (a discussion for another time and place), we would be much less beholden to the Saudis, to the rampant human rights violations in Nigeria, etc. Once the Saudis have been forced off their oil extraction for everyone else economy, it will likely precipitate change from within, or at least it can’t hurt. Furthermore, that change MUST come from within for it to be lasting; any externally imposed change, however truly for good and well-intentioned, will only engender enough resentment to render it futile or simply cause new problems, like a hard-line opposition movement yearning for the “good old days.”

This biased article assumes (erroneously) that a) doctors and hospitals are always right and we, peasants, are stupid and must listen to them for our own good, and b) that doctors and hospitals have our best interests in mins NOT PROFIT!!!)
Well, most intelligent and informed people reject these assumptions and our number is growing. I can cite cases after cases proving that PROFIT, not our well being, is at the heart of the medical establishment. This, plus the hubris displayed by this author and the medical ‘authorities’ makes me want to vomit. By the way: who made them ‘authorities’? They are supposed to be public servants!

I could go through paragraph by paragraph and show you the thousand things that make you look stupid, but I’ll just say this instead: The tone you take towards the Hershberger family is incredibly insulting to the millions of people who have been killed or had their lives ruined by the way mainstream medicine treats cancer. Do you have any idea what you’re talking about or are you just a politically correct imbecile? Why don’t you seek out one of the tens of thousands of people on the internet who claim to have cured cancer through alternative means and ask them what they think? Why don’t you seek out a doctor who claims to be able to cure cancer through the means mentioned above and ask him why he might not want is name in the newspaper?

I know why you won’t do these things: You’re a daft, shallow, unwitting shill, who is in denial about the evil, greedy nature of main stream medicine.

I can say these things with confidence because I know that If you were any better than what I’ve claimed, you would not have been so disrespectful to the family in question.

H323, you’re speaking as if the bible were known to possess some inherent authority.

Why?

Why don’t you seek out one of the tens of thousands of people on the internet who claim to have cured cancer through alternative means and ask them what they think?

I’m too busy seeking out the tens of thousands of people on the internet who claim they were abducted by grey aliens flying advanced faster-than-light spacecraft and subjected to medical examinations (complete with, of course, the de rigeur anal probing).

You do believe in that aliens routinely abduct humans for experimentation, don’t you Mr Nigma? After all, the evidence in support of abduction is absolutely indistinguishable from the evidence that has apparently convinced you alternative medicine can cure advanced cancers.

Mr Nigma:

The tone you take towards the Hershberger family is incredibly insulting

Because, of course, the feelings of people are what’s most important to you, right? As long as they’re people who believe alt med cured their cancer, anyway. If not, well, sucks to be them, since you don’t seem to mind how horrifying the whole story is to people who have been cured of lymphoma by chemotherapy.

Many people claim they have been cured by herbs or prayer or sunlight or homeopathy or whatnot. Many people also claim to have spoken to deities, to be personally acquainted with Elvis (who is still living), to have traveled to other worlds via astral projection, to know the secret to guaranteed wealth, to have seen Bigfoot and the Loch Ness Monster, to be able to read minds (and I don’t mean cold reading). How do I evaluate these claims? With evidence. Many who claimed to have been cured by quack treatments later died . . . of the original cancer. Many others who made the same claim also had surgery to remove the tumor or used quackery in addition to chemo, yet do not consider the chemo to have been a factor.

The only way is through science. And so far, as unpleasant as it is, chemo seems to be the best bet for many cancers. Surgery is better, but not always applicable, unfortunately. I have seen no evidence that would convince me to try homeopathy, naturopathy, chiropractic, reflexology, acupuncture, reiki, the Gerson Protocol, nor any of the other strange ideas that people suggest in these circumstances. Show me the evidence, and I may change my mind. But I do not accept testimonials. Not when the stakes are this high. Testimonials can mislead, and can even outright lie. If my child gets cancer, I will not be able to afford a risk like that.

Now, you may call that insulting. But you know what? I don’t care. This isn’t about protecting anyone’s feelings. This is about science, and finding out what’s true. If you care more about people’s feelings than about telling them the truth, then I think you’re in for some real problems in your interpersonal relationships in life. Because even in life, avoiding unpleasant truths in the interests of not hurting feelings is not usually healthy.

You’re comparing me to some kind of UFO conspiracy nut and all I’m saying is that you run this blog where you run around trying to discredit alternative medicine, you’re completely insensitive and incredibly insulting to people who are victims of disease and should be treated with respect and humility, you have no concern or consideration for the emotional and human side of things (case and point you referred to the sudden amputation of a healthy girls arm as a cure numerous times… that’s a misnomer at best and at worst a symptom of a much grosser condition within your mind). You have a mainstream politically correct opinion and you have no real original content and nothing to say. This is basically a blog exhibiting your defensive and childish reaction to alternative medcine (because it challenges what you have invested your life in, and you can’t stand to imagine that your BWM represents a corrupt healthcare system that you tacitly support). This blog is inherently negative.

Where in all that did I ever mention UFOs? And don’t try to get out of this by saying that you were only making a comparison between the evidence for UFOs and the evidence for alternative medicine, because you have often talked about how people who believe in alternative medicine are also “UFO nuts”. It was a smug, shallow jab at me designed to incite laughter from your arrogant colleagues. It was an emotional reaction to my incisive comments.

I want to point out that your insult makes you a hypocrite.. You talk about others going ad hom to win an argument, but you aren’t any better. And you say “you went ad hom first” yes but I’m not on a pedastal like you, and I can admit that two wrongs don’t make a right. Can you? This whole blog is incredibly daft and immature.

Let me tell you something about Doctors. You are perhaps the most indoctrinated, defensive people in the world. First, most MDs are doing it for the wrong reason. Then, they invest so much money getting their degrees that once they have them, and they get even the slightest bit disillusioned, they go completely into denial about the corruption in mainstream medicine. They do this because they are paralyzed by the fear of losing what they have worked for and basically having their lives ruined, and they are too shallow to see the hegemony that is taking place. But deep down, subconsciously, they know that actually makes them accessory because their failure to defend themselves allows the establishment to go on continuing to use hegemony to keep doctors in line. Finally, they become these older professional who surround themselves with people who won’t tell them the truth about themselves, that they’re shallow, egotistical, and corrupt. They surround themselves with patients and employees mostly, people who want something from them and so won’t tell them what they really think.

You might be wondering about my ethos. Well my father is a Dr., and he is more or less a good man (as I’m sure you are), but hes just as indoctrinated as you. My grandfather is a Dr. My uncle. My brother. My mom is a nurse. I work for a Dr. at a Dr. office. I don’t know those are all the obvious ones I can think of. Anyway, aside from making me angry I don’t find this blog very interesting I think it’s a place full of bad emotions and wrongheadedness. You pick and choose which comments to post so I doubt this will get posted but I hope you read it goodbye.

I work for a Dr. at a Dr. office.

For both your sakes, you should consider a career change.

Let me tell you something about Doctors. You are perhaps the most indoctrinated, defensive people in the world.

Ahem.

Edward Nigma — consider the possibility that you might be wrong and that the people who criticize alternative medicine not only do so as a matter of conscience and concern, but are right to do so. Because you are engaging in conspiracy thinking, and assuming that the people who disagree with you are monstrous.

You’re comparing me to some kind of UFO conspiracy nut and all I’m saying is that you run this blog where you run around trying to discredit alternative medicine

First, I’m not comparing you to some kind of UFO conspiracy nut: I’m comparing the evidence you’ve offered in support of the efficacy of alternative medicine (anecdotal presonal accounts posted to the internet) to the evidence UFO conspiracy nuts offer in support of alien abduction (anecdotal presonal accounts posted to the internet) and finding them to be indistinguishable.

Second, Orac runs this blog–I merely comment here.

Where in all that did I ever mention UFOs?

You didn’t. I did, in order to make the point described above: anecdotal accounts are not evidence.

And don’t try to get out of this by saying that you were only making a comparison between the evidence for UFOs and the evidence for alternative medicine, because you have often talked about how people who believe in alternative medicine are also “UFO nuts”.

That is, however, exactly what I was doing., and I haven’t argued that ‘people who believe in alternative medicine are also UFO nuts’ (you’re confusing me with Orac once again.)

It was a smug, shallow jab at me designed to incite laughter from your arrogant colleagues.

No: it was a useful illustration of why your suggestion that we would profit by seeking out one of the tens of thousands of people on the internet who claim to have cured cancer through alternative means and asking them what they think would be a meaningless exercise.

It was an emotional reaction to my incisive comments.

No, it was a measured response to your failed defense of alternative medicine. I’d suggest it’s the post I’m replying to represents an emotional response to my reasonably dismissing your claims re alternative medicine being an effective cure for advanced cancers due to lack of evidence.

I believe Mr Nigma read Orac’s comments on the topic of crank magnetism and found it sounded uncomfortably familiar to him. I wonder why.

In other news, all divorced couples were first considered to be married couples, and all college dropouts were first enrolled in college.

ad homynym

Naturally, I meant ad hominem. I don’t know what I was thinking.

Nick Theodorakis – well said!

Nigma, please . . . don’t bullshit an old, ex-altie like me. Your love of Lifetime Original Movie™-level drama is palpale across the æther. You don’t work for a doc and nobody in your family is a doc. You are what we call a “liar.” Go away.

This message is for Orac: Do not confuse what is deceptively called “Holocaust denial” with any of the other behavior of these irrational people. There are crazy and hateful people who deny that reality of genocidal behavior against the Jewish population of Europe 70 years ago and at other points in history. There are also people who have exposed the exaggeration of the offenses. Several concentration camps have retracted their casualty claims–including Auschwitz, which admits the “gas chambers” were reconstructed after WWII and do not reflect the configuration of that camp during the war. Orac is being a bit irrational with these kinds of assertions. That detracts from the current problems and arguments.

I personally discount anything associated with the experience of inmates in the concentration camps of WWII without solid evidence of claims. I’m surprised that as a bright guy with a solid scientific background that he expects readers here to assent automatically to evidence-free and rather hysterical appeals to cliches that need to be supported by evidence.

And I am Jewish, so please don’t use the reflexive AS card.

@Sara – wrong blog, wrong topic & just plain wrong….you don’t have to be AS to be stupid, as you have most adequately proved.

Just a note to everyone — Edward Nigma is perhaps better known in certain circles as the Riddler, of “Batman” fame.

In other words, dude’s a bad joke.

Edith is clearly a paid shill

I can NOT believe how people are just like a herd of cattle! How is it that chemo is good for the body?? In some forms of cancer it is helpful but for the most part it s detrimental. WHY not go to herbs and God given remedies!! The Amish people are more to earth then many so I am not surprised that they would not want their daughter to suffer. We are responsible for the care of our children and when the government or Dr.s step in to make that decision it is JUST WRONG!! Get with it people!! Chemo and Radiation KILLS people!! We are letting Big Pharma and the Chemo pushing Dr’s kill us!! I AM CURING naturally! I CAN BE DONE! With a diet of no sugar, very little lean meats and more fruits and veggies, Green veggie drinks, fresh veggie juic and high antioxidant vitamins and more it can be done!!! People ARE curing cancer naturally! Why are we like sheep or a herd of cattle?? Are we in the dark ages!!?? Check out this website! http://www.cancertutor.com/

Is this Nina Danko the VERY BRAVE PERSON with the BROKEN CAPS KEY who is NOT AFRAID OF BILL GATES?

The arrogance and hubris of the medical and ‘scientific’ quacks is mind boggling. Equally mind boggling is their belief that children should be the property of the state to do with them as it pleases (for their own good, of course -lol) – a belief which was espoused by both: the Nazis and the Communists. This is not going to happen here as WE THE PEOPLE will not allow it, and we are legion!

@nina

Petty sure that 4chan won’t be happy with you trying to ursup their tactics.

@jp

[citation needed]

Nina, we aren’t saying that the children are the property of the state. We are saying they are human beings and should be treated as such. I suggest you consider sticking to the truth.

Gray : countless members here are bitching about the ‘folly’ of parental rights, and insisting that ‘authorities’ should make decisions about their treatments. Read them.

countless members here are bitching about the ‘folly’ of parental rights, and insisting that ‘authorities’ should make decisions about their treatments.

“Countless”? BTW, the only one who’s used the term “authorities” is you.

The arrogance and hubris of the medical and ‘scientific’ quacks is mind boggling.

Glad to be a scientific quack although I’ll disagree on the word quack. You see, I’m on the process of learning software carpentry and after that, I’ll be learning software engineering to a degree (read: PhD) where I’ll enlist the help of probably over 100,000 computers at google or amazon to digest through a large number of genomes in order to come up with the best atlas of brain functions in our really diverse brain.

Oh, you were speaking about herbs? I guess that’s useful a subject of studies for the tiny brain of those likely to prescribe raw herbs, vitamins and homeopathic remedy who’d have no clue about the kind of jobs to submit to a 100,000+ computer cluster if it bit them in the posterior.

Basically, I want to learn & publish about neuroscience by doing software engineering. I guess that makes me a quack but I fully endorse scientifically validated treatments for every illness if it’s medically recommended.

Alain

novalox, you silly lil’ ding-dong. You are so funny. You missed your calling. you should have been a clown

As Impressive as every doctor or scientist worth his salts. Your complaint is?

Alain

Alain: not complaint (as I don’t give a sh**) just an observation of: hubris, narrow mindedness, pomposity, bragging, intolerance, snottiness, self-importance and a bunch of other traits very prevalent among the nouveau geek. LMAO

not complaint (as I don’t give a sh**) just an observation of: hubris, narrow mindedness, pomposity, bragging, intolerance, snottiness, self-importance and a bunch of other traits

You seem to have those bases covered excellently yourself.

very prevalent among the nouveau geek. LMAO

Oh, the irony of the September that never ended.

novalox, Alain, Falcon: it is amusing to see pompous asses throwing hissy fits when challenged. YOU AND YOUR ILK CANNOT TAKE CHALLENGE NOR CAN YOU DISCUSS THINGS INTELLIGENTLY – YOU TRY TO PUT PEOPLE DOWN BUT WE WON’T LET YOU and it makes you mad! There are more of US than there is of YOU and we will prevail!

Are of you Nina. Are.

“YOU AND YOUR ILK CANNOT TAKE CHALLENGE NOR CAN YOU DISCUSS THINGS INTELLIGENTLY”

Oh, pot. Meet kettle.

#77 Nick Theodorakis

You crack me up!

#89 meg

Compare and contrast with chiropractors of the quackier sort, who want you to come in for “maintenance adjustments.”

#92 JPG

“How is it that chemo is good for the body??”

Answer: “To every thing there is a season, and a time to every purpose under the heaven.”

It is not always good for the body. Nothing is always good for the body, not even pure water, as if you drink enough of it, it will kill you.

“Chemo and Radiation KILLS people!!”

So does water.

#93 Nina Danko

“Now tell me: HOW MANY CHILDREN DIED MISERABLE DEATHS AFTER A COURSE OF CHEMOTHERAPY AND RADIATION?!”

How many children died miserable deaths of untreated cancer? Because if you look at the numbers across history, this number will be much, much higher than the number of children lucky enough to even be eligible for chemo and radiation–who at least have a chance to survive.

“Are we supposed to trust bureaucrats who don’t even know the child more than parents who know, love, and nutrured the child?”

I say we trust whoever is backed by solid science, from peer-reviewed, top-tier journals, whether that person knows the child or not.

“We had enough of the state and medical quacks usurping parental rights!”

You do not have the right to kill your child, nor allow him or her to die through inaction.

“…and the smart asses who believe that they are superior to us…”

Better a smartass than a dumbass, I always say. But that’s just me.

#96 “The arrogance and hubris of the medical and ‘scientific’ quacks is mind boggling.”

Why do you care about their arrogance? Surely all we should care about is whether they’re right, as their attitude will not magically make their treatments work any worse, or better.

“Equally mind boggling is their belief that children should be the property of the state to do with them as it pleases (for their own good, of course -lol)…”

Or, equally mind-boggling is the belief that children should be the property of their parents, to do with them as they please (for their own good, of course)…

#97 Erwin Alber

Unfortunately, your opinion is incorrect and not backed by facts.

#112 Nina Danko

“…just an observation of: hubris, narrow mindedness, pomposity, bragging, intolerance, snottiness, self-importance…”

Again, who cares? All we should be caring about here is whether they’re right or not. Their attitude is not relevant.

The arrogance and hubris of the medical and ‘scientific’ quacks is mind boggling.

If some doctor or scientist wants to keep a pet hubri, I do not see the problem.

“Why don’t you seek out one of the tens of thousands of people on the internet who claim”

…what? That any of a myriad of bogus remedies cured or prevented cancer? That water fluoridation, vaccines and aspartame are horribly toxic? That 9/11 was an inside job? That the Illuminati/lizard people control the planet? That Jews are the fount of all evil?*

Why should I accept what tens of thousands of dingbats on the Internet say?

*seeing as how you started in with the Nazi reference, turnabout is fair play.

@Sara – so what part of the historical events referred to as the Holocaust do you deny? That Jews (and other groups) were selectively taken into custody? That once in custody Jews (and other groups) were kept in inhumane conditions and in some locations deliberately killed on a massive scale? Or are there specific details in the common narrative you disagree with?

I have a feeling that Edward Nigma and Erwin Alber might be the same person. No evidence, mind you. You can get enigma out of Edward Nigma, but nothing equally obvious with Erwin Alber, but they have the same “ring” as do the gist of the comments.

Nina Danko actually made a few good comebacks to some who were unnecessarily rude or odd, but this is overshadowed by the much larger body of rantings she offers.

To whoever was asking about more remote border crossings: I crossed in Whitefish Montana with an expired (very old) passport and birth certificate a couple of years ago. It was midnight and I’m an unassuming pensioner with lots of easily seen camping gear.

@ Nina,

Oh! Me, MAD? come-on, I get along pretty well with the mass of peoples I meet every day and I do a fine job of educating them when they are open. But actually, do these peoples I encounter every day happen to be similar of you, the empowered crank?

Good luck overpowering us 🙂

In the meantime, I shall progress on my brain atlas which will be useful to the mass of peoples not having a science education but which are curious about their brain 🙂 Are you too?

Alain

there are just two countries in the world that have not signed the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child: the USA and Somalia.

That was true until South Sudan became a country. Now there are *three* non-ratifying countries.

The author states that he doesn’t know what treatment this child has undergone,…yet he calls it quackery. It would appear that anything other than chemo is quackery to you. Very close minded and unscientific.
Also,…..he insinuates that chemo is not poison. That is simply untrue.

@jowe

Ah, pulling out a Godwin, I see, as well burning a heaping good amount of strawmen.

So where in the article does it advocate “supporting the crime of kidnapping”, and “child abuse”?

Inquiring minds would like to know.

Oh, novalox, seeking custody through the legal system is just kidnapping; and providing access to lifesaving medical treatment for a critically -child is really child abuse.

You obviously haven’t been paying attention.

#135 Jowe

“But once the child is out of the womb, they no longer support the mother’s choice.”

No, we don’t. We support the child’s rights once he or she is born. That right includes not being killed or having proper medical treatment withheld.

Children are not owned by their parents. They are people. Small people, yes, but people.

#136 John

“…he insinuates that chemo is not poison. That is simply untrue.”

In a limited sense, yes, chemotherapy is poison. So is water. So is virtually every “herbal” supplement. If you take enough of either, it will kill you. Dose makes the poison.

Well, George, perhaps you could look at the alternative, like the former wife of Roel van Duijn.
http://www.skepsis.nl/kushi.html
http://www.skepsis.nl/flora2.html
And an English translation of the first article:
http://www.skepsis.nl/macrobiotics.html

Every person that I have ever known that had chemo died within three months. It wasn’t a pretty death either.

I suppose they would have been fine if only they hadn’t had the chemotherapy. I’m getting pretty fed up with these idiots who don’t understand that dying of cancer is nasty, and criticize chemotherapy when they have no effective alternative.

I have several friends and family members who are alive today because of chemotherapy. My mother-in-law would probably be alive today if she hadn’t refused it.

I think it’s the same lack of an historical sense as the anti-vaxers. They’ve never seen these childhood diseases (Because of vaccines, you morons!), so they can’t be much of a threat.

For a generation or two now, most have never seen anybody die of cancer without undergoing modern treatment, so they attribute all the ill effects to the treatment and not the cancer. Cause cancer never killed anybody before Big Pharma came along, amirite?

Top tip for all the swivel-eyed conspiracy/God-bothering loons, which might help normal people take your arguments seriously (well, the moment one of you actually provides one):

Learn basic spelling and grammar.

Seriously, why are you all straight fails at primary school standard literacy? It’s embarrassing. Learn to read and write like adults.

And then keep learning other stuff, like real medicine. Or how research and science actually work. And eventually, when you’re educated beyond Taliban-level, come back here and argue with the swivel-eyed loons that you no longer are.

God says it’s okay to kill your kids? How dare the State stop you? Total. Utter. Freaks.

If you want to live in a free country, you have to accept the ideas that children do not belong to the state and that sometimes peope wi make decisions that you do not agree with but are none of your business.

I have no doubt that the girl’s odds would be infinitely better with proper medical care, but the decision is not ours, or the government’s, to make.

#154 “If you want to live in a free country, you have to accept the ideas that children do not belong to the state and that sometimes peope wi make decisions that you do not agree with but are none of your business.”

Here, let me fix that for you.

“If you want to live in a free country, you have to accept the ideas that children do not belong to their parents and that sometimes people will make decisions that endanger children’s lives and require action.”

Somehow I think Joseph wandered onto the wrong website, and he certainly didn’t read Orac’s post.

Hashtags? Really?

Tyranny? Srsly???

*shaking my head sadly*

Hold on a second….this article is only telling one side of the story. Aren’t educated people supposed to hear both sides before rushing to judgement? There is only one interview with the family, and it’s on chrisbeatcancer.com. (Which, by the way, is a website where people who have cured their cancer with non-chemo treatments share their stories- and the author of this article left this link there…)

If you don’t want to listen to the long phone interview, this is the cliff notes version: Sarah was diagnosed with cancer, the doc recommended 27 months of chemo treatment. She completed the first round, was preparing for second round despite being violently ill, when they found out the “Treatment” was itself a carcinogen. The parents wanted to talk to the doc about this, when they did, the doc brought along a lawyer and PR rep and the whole situation blew up. Multiple unsuccessful lawsuits later, the hospital FINALLY found ONE judge who would side with them, and now they must turn their daughter over to an RN/lawyer “guardian”.

I challenge any parent in their situation to react differently. Wouldn’t you want your questions answered? Wouldn’t you see red flags everywhere? I mean, you want to ask your daughter’s doc a question, and he meets you with his LAWYER??? Come on!

This is NOT about religious quackery, as many other websites are claiming. This is about their overwhelming desire to keep their child safe. They don’t want her to die- they just want her to be treated in the safest way possible. And exploring alternative methods- i.e. non-other-cancer-causing treatments- is perfectly okay. Wouldn’t you want that for your daughter? Your mother? Yourself?

Why is chemo the gold standard? Why is trading one cancer for another okay? Why is curing your body (of cancer, headaches, stomach issues, acne, etc, etc) with nutritious, healing foods considered “crazy” but pumping your body full of toxins considered smart?

There are many, many, instances of people curing their own cancer without chemo- a simple Google search will blow your mind. Just because you choose not to believe them, doesn’t mean they aren’t real. (And let me save you the trouble- I don’t believe in Santa or UFOs.)

I am an RN who will NEVER work in “traditional” healthcare settings again, because I believe I was truly doing more harm than good.

@Orac – agreed. That interview really doesn’t say what people think it says….and it does validate the concerns that the Hospital had (and the parents are now being led down the “primrose path” by the alt-med wackos).

@Scottynuke

Joseph reminds me of this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=57dzaMaouXA

@Broccoli

(And let me save you the trouble- I don’t believe in Santa or UFOs.)

So? Whether or not you believe in Santa or UFOs is irrelevant to whether you accept the findings of medical science or opt for believing in fairy tale medicine. As others have noted already, the currently available tools for fighting cancer (chemo, surgery and/or radiation) are the best we have available. If diet and lifestyle changes alone were sufficient, don’t you think that doctors would recommend those instead? (I know, I know, you’ll probably play the whole “They’re in it for the money” card, even though you’d be wrong in the majority of cases.) Doctors try to use the least invasive means available for dealing with diseases. If diet or alt-med woo were viable options, they would be part of the suite of treatment options. That you cannot see that speaks volumes, and I have to agree with the others, that it is a good thing you’ve left the legitimate medical profession.

Broccoli is plainly just a shill for Big Vegetables.

@Broccoli:

I find it extremely tedious to have to sift through court records to correct people whose laziness leads them to the conclusion that talking out of their ass is an adequate substitute. Please do your own homework next time.

Multiple unsuccessful lawsuits later,

I count one lawsuit, with appeals. If Dorit Reiss is around, I hope she’ll correct me.

the hospital FINALLY found ONE judge who would side with them,

On July 9, Schimer filed for medical guardianship. The preliminary stuff was dealt with by a magistrate, but the upshot is that a guardian ad litem was appointed on July 10, and there was a full evidentiary hearing on July 26, with the matter now in the hands of the trial court.

The original decision, July 31, presumably* by Judge John J. Lohn (retired and sitting by assignment) in the Probate Division of the Medina County Court of Common Pleas, rejected the application for medical guardianship.

The appellate case, before the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Appellate District, reversing and remanding the judgment of the probate court, was decided by the Hon. W. Scott Gwin, presiding, Hon. William B. Hoffman, and Hon. John W. Wise on August 27.

Upon remand, Lohn did the same thing as before (September 3; he also seems to have failed to take note of the admonishment to counsel by the appeals court regarding disclosure of personal identifiers).

This time around, on October 1, Gwin, Hoffman, and the Hon. Sheila G. Farmer, reversed and ordered the probate court to appoint Schimer as medical guardian and further remanded.

That is four judges to one. (Or two, if you can demonstrate that it wasn’t Lohn the first time, which wouldn’t make a great deal of pragmatic sense.)

and now they must turn their daughter over to an RN/lawyer “guardian”.

Again, if you had actually read the case materials before spouting off about them, Schimer wasn’t even going to be physically present. The authority was to be exercised by telephone, with Sarah’s parents taking her to the treatments, staying there, and bringing her back.

* Based on the wording of the second probate judgment.

Separating truth from fiction is a very difficult thing, especially in the medical field. I know, I have tried. We lost my wife’s mother to cancer. Mine is still fighting it. The medical field sees health with tunnel vision. The ones that go aside from main line often get hung up with occultist practices and theories. The alternative guys are constantly shooting at the health care field. I have found both to be crooks at various times. I have also found some very nice, competent practitioners on both sides. But no one is the complete authority. Anyone who claims to have all the answers to cancer is lying. That is why it is called medical “practice”. Because of the difference in bodies people react differently to the same meds and treatments. So we should not be so proud in claiming one is right and all the others are wrong. How do you know there is not an alternative treatment that would work better? How do you alternative guys know that all medical professionals are crooks trying to make another dollar?

But really, all that is not the real issue. I am appalled at the direction that “law and order” is taking. Increasingly, big brother knows better and forces someone to do it his way and pay the bill. For the hospital to have control is conflict of interest. At the very least, it should have been left to another authority, who should have gotten opinions from multiple medical professionals before making a decision. But really, if a parent is doing what they think is best for the child … God gave the child to them, not to the hospital.

And what is really bizarre – in this country it is fine for a mother to pay someone to kill her unborn child, but it is not ok for a mother to choose a treatment she thinks is best for her child, when it run contrary to public opinion.

God help us!

That is why it is called medical “practice”.

No, it’s not. You’d do well to disabuse yourself of the notion that spurious teleoetymology-by-coincidence is good for anything.

The parents are doing their best to keep the child alive, however ignorant they might be. But part of the medical field is lawfully killing unborn babies. Please explain that logically.

Perhaps you could first explain logically what randomly tossing out an equivalence between fetuses and 10 year olds contributes to anything.

Jon Lee, #174:

The medical field sees health with tunnel vision.

Professionalism of a medical practitioner requires using practices and medicines that actually work for the benefit of the patient. Professionalism in medical research requires using practices that actually work, to characterize whether (and how well) a new practice or med is preferable to that which is already known. If limiting oneself to what actually works be tunnel vision, so be it.

The ones that go aside from main line often get hung up with occultist practices and theories. The alternative guys are constantly shooting at the health care field. I have found both to be crooks at various times.

A good example is Dr Oz, presumably a professional on operating days (including diagnosis, pre-op and post-op), but an occultist on Oprah days and an alt-med shill on wife-influenced days.
Jon, if you can see any meaningful difference between the alt-medders and their shills and marks vs the occultists and their shills and marks, your eyes are much better than mine.

it is not ok for a mother to choose a treatment she thinks is best for her child, when it run[s] contrary to public opinion.

Let’s rephrase that for accuracy:

it is not ok for a mother to choose a treatment she thinks is best for her child, when it run[s] contrary to reality.

And then the comparison I made is not so far out after all.

I take it you mean aside from the part where it has no bearing whatever on the item at hand, which furthermore centers around a stalwartly patriarchical subculture, making the attempt to slither in on the premise that this all comes together with the ability of “a mother to choose a treatment she thinks is best for her child” fall apart, just as with the two previous entries in the derailment sweepstakes.

why do women who have abortions struggle so much?

We seem to be drawing a general rule from the opinions of those women who *do* agonise over an abortion. Does a similar evidentiary status apply to the opinions of women who *don’t* agonise?

But God says of Jeremiah, ” Before I formed thee in the belly I knew thee; and before thou camest forth out of the womb I sanctified thee, and I ordained thee a prophet unto the nations.” Jer 1:5 You can’t know someone who isn’t someone.

Demonstrating yet again that the Reductio ad absurdum approach to reasoning simply doesn’t work with people who argue their way to an absurdity and see it as something to embrace.

Technically, since most abortions are spontaneous, you could argue that God nature is the greatest abortionist, despite allegedly “knowing” the aborted soul.

If God gave life, is it wrong for Him to take it?

If parents starved, beat or abused their child, would anyone mistake that for love? In this case, there seem to be well meaning people on both sides trying to look out for her well being. In cases of vast disagreement, shouldn’t the parents have the privilege to decide?

To the multitude of word-writers in this blog,
We are also among the “plain people” groups, members of a Mennonite church. Our hearts go out to the Hershberger family, although we do not personally know them. They are certainly fighting two battles: Sarah’s health and the God-given responsibility to make the best decisions for their absolutely loved child based on their beliefs.

Generally, in the plain communities – and of course this is never perfect among any group of human people – as Christians, they choose to work together and honor each other out of reverent fear of the Lord and love for their brethren. In our own experience, we do not communicate with each other as I have witnessed all of you on this blog do. Therein is found a very real one of our reasons for leaving the background we were born into and the churches we brought our family up in to join the plain people. I very much appreciate the humility and honor displayed on a daily basis by the kind people we have chosen to associate with.

I have been reading everything concerning this Hershberger case that has come to our attention. In the case of this article, I found another side that is in defense of the medical decisions made by the Akren Hospital. Because I am not God, I cannot decide the true merits of each side (I have a dear friend who is doing quite well several years after mainstream cancer treatment for breast cancer; and I also have friends whose grown son is completely healthy after having leukemia as a little boy and opting for natural treatment against the doctor’s advice and the attempts of Children’s Services to force them otherwise. In that case, Children’s Services stepped back because it was obvious that the parents were being responsible in every way to their child.)

Out of interest in reading the comments of others, my interest in what I hoped to be meaning wisdom and insight, I scrolled down through perhaps half of the comments given so far. I find myself left very unenriched for it. This is no longer about the Hershberger family or about parents who truly love their child doing their very best that they know how to provide for and protect them. It is about words -any and every word that anyone can possibly put together in any kind of assemblance to put out one’s own views and to defend those views and refute with ultimate disrespect, if necessary, the views of others, as if, with rare exception, these views have any merit based on knowledge or truth of one who sees all and knows all. I am very disheartened, and disappointed in myself for having wasted my morning reading through these wanting passages. I am sure we all have much better things to do with our time that are ultimately more profitable in eternity.

I said in the beginning that this dear family is fighting two battles necessary for their family and their conscience. I am very saddened that so many others are forcing yet this other battle upon them. We will not be a part of it. We instead will pray for God’s direction in their lives. He is the only qualified one to give them guidance and correction. You all would do well by them and yourselves to use your time, thoughts, and words to issue forth life rather than death by them.

If God gave life, is it wrong for Him to take it?

If I give you $5, is it wrong for me to take your wallet?

The parents are doing their best to keep the child alive, however ignorant they might be. But part of the medical field is lawfully killing unborn babies. Please explain that logically.

You’ve managed to try to make a comparison of two unrelated legal, not medical, questions. The law sets the distinction for what is (or is not) a “person” for the sake of various protections. Likewise, the law sets those things that may reasonably done by one “person” to another “person”. In this case it has determined that a fetus up to a certain number of weeks old and a child born through any method do not have the same protections in some ways. It may seem arbitrary to you, and that’s OK. That is what the law says.

Oops. Blockquote should end after “death by them”.

Probably bad wording on my part. I am speaking about vast disagreements between large, well meaning groups of people with different perspectives.

One of the basic problems here is that we have large organizations and systems who have too often proved themselves to be biased, money or power hungry and insensitive to those they have sworn to serve. This is happening in government (local and federal), big business including the medical field, and unfortunately, even in churches. When that happens, people become more and more afraid to trust that those they are accountable to are really looking our for their welfare.

I can not believe what is written on this tread. First of all argument comes from know only one side, second name calling is of pure ignorance and immaturity. I know both sides. Yes, chemo kills cancer and if your cancer is not aggressive you can go on and live a normal life. When chemo is pump into you as aggressive as the cancer itself you will end up with no immune system, neuropathy so bad it puts you in a wheel chair, kidney and liver failure. As a parent; we want to make the best decision possible, but we can not judge these parents on what we know unless we experience what they are going through. Now know what tradition treatment can do I would have to base on what I know and go natural. There is real doctors out there that practice natural and base that on what they know to make this choice. In natural treatment; the body becomes an environment that cancer cells can’t live in and kills off the cancer. Do you ever wonder why a body gets cancer? Natural treatment finds the cause, eliminates that cause, then creates an environment of oxidation, high ph levels, builds the immune system, detoxes, and some do a parasite kill if the body is contaminated with them. Have you ever gone to the doctors for instance high blood pressure like I did and been give a prescription and in fact it did lower the blood pressure but with side affects. Did your doctor ever try to find out why you had high blood pressure? I found out on my own in which I started to take in more potassium and went off the prescription and lowered my blood pressure and it has stayed that way for over a year. It is hard to argue against natural when you have experienced positive results. Don’t argue in your ignorance, educate yourself; it is more productive.

Darcy,

First of all argument comes from know only one side

That seems untrue on the face of it. Argument comes from having two people who believe things to be different, either the facts or their interpretation of the facts.

When chemo is pump into you as aggressive as the cancer itself you will end up with no immune system, neuropathy so bad it puts you in a wheel chair, kidney and liver failure.

It is true that chemotherapy can have side effects and these can be severe.

In natural treatment; the body becomes an environment that cancer cells can’t live in and kills off the cancer.

Please tell us what this natural treatment is, how it is known to work, and where the data for safety and effectiveness is published in a top tier peer-reviewed journal. it would be even better if you could point out the evidence that the data has been replicated by independent teams.

Natural treatment finds the cause, eliminates that cause, then creates an environment of oxidation, high ph levels, builds the immune system, detoxes, and some do a parasite kill if the body is contaminated with them.

Please provide evidence that any of this is true. Thanks.

Did your doctor ever try to find out why you had high blood pressure? I found out on my own in which I started to take in more potassium and went off the prescription and lowered my blood pressure and it has stayed that way for over a year.

Good for you. It is well known that lifestyle changes like diet, exercise, and weight control can significantly benefit hypertension. Please let us know how that applies to curing cancer.

Don’t argue in your ignorance, educate yourself; it is more productive.

Always willing to be educated, but I dislike being misinformed. If you have good solid evidence for anything you say (except for your blood pressure story, which I’m quite prepared to accept without further proof), please share.

Darcy: considering the high percentage of scientists and researchers who comment regularly on this blog, your post reeks of the arrogance of ignorance.

Educate yourself.

Chris:

Why not use the brain cells, free will and ability to reason that was endowed upon you by your deity?

“I do not believe that the same god who has endowed us with sense, reason and intellect has intended us to forgo their use.” — Galileo

Well, I am 6 years out from chemo. I am not dead. I am not in a wheelchair. My liver and kidneys are just fine, thank you very much. I do wish people would learn some facts about the things they spout of on. Here they will not get away with it. They will be met with people like me with personal experience and experts in the medical field. I wonder why they come here and spout such nonsense.

Calli Arcale, exactly.

My son had surgery at the Mayo Clinic a bit over a year ago. The Mayo family (father, two sons, and at least one nurse wife) worked with a Catholic order of nuns to create a hospital, and finally a world class medical center. They also brought a Methodist hospital into the center.

There is nothing in the Christians that helped create the Mayo Clinic that would reject learning how the natural world works, and creating treatments to help people. Though the difference between the historical display at St. Mary’s Hospital has a very different slant than the one in the lobby of the Mayo Building.

I am only willing to “Let go, let God” if it is some act of fate that I cannot control, just so I don’t get mad at the world. But if my son again complains with slurred speech that his heart is fluttering and his left arm is going numb, I’m dialing 911.

Why is it that whenever someone writes something like:

Don’t argue in your ignorance, educate yourself; it is more productive.

you can be sure it will be accompanied by the most ignorant uneducated nonsense imaginable? Have these people no sense of irony or insight?

In natural treatment; the body becomes an environment that cancer cells can’t live in and kills off the cancer.

That simply isn’t true. There is no natural treatment that can possibly do that. There is no natural treatment that is effective against cancer, or if there is, someone is keeping it very quiet indeed. Most, if not all, of the alternative cancer treatments currently being peddled have been tested and they don’t work. Even those that haven’t been tested don’t look too good when you look closely at the testimonials.

Do you ever wonder why a body gets cancer?

I have some knowledge on the subject, but from what you have written here I don’t think you have the faintest clue.

Natural treatment finds the cause,

No it doesn’t, alternative diagnostic methods are almost always either useless or are horribly misused.

eliminates that cause,

No it doesn’t, unless you mean it persuades a person to give up smoking, lose weight, get more exerise or somthing like that, all of which my conventional doctor is very keen on..

then creates an environment of oxidation,

I don’t believe it does that either – how do you think it does that, and how does that selectively kill cancer cells?

high ph levels,

If your body pH is lower or higher than normal it will adjust it back through buffering, respiration and by excreting or through complex actions by the kidneys. I have measured hundreds of people’s blood pH and seen how this happens personally. If your pH is high enough to kill cancer cells it is high enough to kill healthy cells, as we can easily see in cell cultures.

builds the immune system,

Which part of the immune system and how? This simply isn’t true either.

detoxes,

I have a liver and a pair of kidneys that do that perfectly well. Natural treatment cannot remove toxins from the body better than these organs can, in fact I don’t believe it does so at all. How do detox treatments work, what do they remove from the body and where is the evidence that they do so?

and some do a parasite kill if the body is contaminated with them.

You think parasitic infection is a common cause of ill health in the developed world? It isn’t. Anyway, which natural treatment kills parasites?

Years ago I picked up giardia in Egypt, but the initial course of antiparasitic drugs didn’t completely get rid of it. I tried various alternative health treatments, including a natural parasite-killing course that involved various capsules and foul tinctures in increasing doses for a month. It didn’t work. In the end it took a week’s course of a conventional drug to get rid of the giardia. It had side effects but it worked.

Have you ever gone to the doctors for instance

Sure.

high blood pressure like I did

You went to the doctor with high blood pressure as a complaint?

and been give a prescription and in fact it did lower the blood pressure

Yup.

but with side affects.

It depends on how you define “side affects.” In my case, the “side affect” was the main point; controlling the mild hypertension was gravy.

Dear “skeptic”, please add reading comprehension and statistics to the list of things you should learn. The odds with chemotherapy were discussed in the above article with links to the data.

The words that are in a different color (blue on my monitor) are links to other webpages. When you put your mouse over the words the (again on my monitor) little arrow turns into a little hand. If you click on it, you will find the evidence of chemo efficacy.

You could also read this other article by the blog owner, who is a surgical oncologist (try clicking on the word “Orac” under the title, again the different color means it is a link to another web page):
https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2013/10/30/so-chemotherapy-does-work-after-all-revisited/

Also, the Pharma Shill Gambit is old and boring. Try something new and interesting like actual evidence.

Please remove the word “science” from your blog
P.S. I am not a crank.

I totally support the parents decision! The government should have no right to force parents to submit their child to modern sorcery! Last year, the hospital/state forced my 13 year old son to take 5 months of heavy chemo for leukemia. The drug poisons that they pumped into him killed his system. When the leukemia came back, we used natural remedies to fight the leukemia and just before he died this June, his lab tests showed that our natural treatments had reversed the leukemia. The problem is that there was no natural remedies to undo the deadly effects of the chemo. All the symptoms that he developed as he was dying were listed “side effects” of the drugs they pumped into him. Most people don’t realize that chemo plants “seeds” in the system that can come back and kill you – even years later! Here is a view of his lab tests. http://www.swiftrunnerministries.com/why-i-believe-in-natural-remedies.php

“we used natural remedies to fight the leukemia and just before he died this June….”

Yet you associate the death with chemotherapy rather than leukemia. I am sorry for your truly tragic loss, but you have ascribed the death to the wrong cause.

” Its all about the miney, they do not want you to know about natural remedies; they do not get money from pharmaceuticals for them.”

Actually, a lot of pharmaceutical companies sell so-called “natural” remedies as well, under different labels. Perhaps you weren’t aware of this, but lots of drug companies make tons of money this way–and then there are the snakeoil salesmen who charge $25,000 for “administration” of treatment, but that’s the other thread.

By the way, “natural” isn’t inherently healthy–many of the world’s deadliest poisons are entirely natural.

mykaayah,

I have a friend who is in holistic natural remedies and she told me most of her clients are doctors; they do not take prescription medicine and would never take chemo or radiation, but they will give it to us.

I don’t believe your ‘friend’. I have known many conventional doctors over the years, some who have had cancer themselves or whose loved ones have had cancer, but not one of them has rejected conventional cancer treatment.

That’s because they know that holistic natural remedies are useless for cancer, and of little use for anything else.

Yet you associate the death with chemotherapy rather than leukemia.

Well, he apparently associated the leukemia with a bad meal. From a month earlier.

#230 … yeah, that’s not how leukemia works.

Did you miss the part of the article where Orac says

I find it highly unlikely that Akron Children’s Hospital didn’t get the appropriate informed consent. However, I never completely dismiss the possibility that I could be wrong. So here’s what I propose. If Andy Hershberger really thinks that Akron Children’s Hospital failed to obtain proper informed consent, he has only to report it to the OHRP. If the drug in the study is a new drug, then he could report the issue to the FDA as well. In fact, I would very much urge him to do so if he thinks that he was not offered adequate informed consent for a clinical trial.

Is the author of your link urging the family to submit these reports, or is he content as long as the donations are rolling in?

We just learned that a request of appeal was filed on November 12 to the Ohio Supreme Court to reverse the lower court decision. An amicus brief has also been filed by a powerful Ohio constitutional legal association.

Filings are here, if anybody cares to take a look. My dance card is pretty full. (I don’t get the impression that 1851, which is basically just Maurice Thompson, is particularly “powerful,” though.)

Seems to be a secret meeting was set up between Sarah’s guardian and her Grandfather.If what the Dr, is saying about her cancer is true,time is of the essence.I pray that these people will do what is best for this little girl and stop wasting what precious time she has left.Let her be with her family,Let her get the treatment that she needs because in the end she will pay the price for this disagreement between the parties involved.I fear that within the next few weeks I will be reading about the death of a child that should not have died if only the people involved would let go of their egos and truly do what is best for her!

@Bronwyn – perhaps your post would hold more water if it wasn’t a “word for word” verbatim post from the various cranks and quacks that have posted here and in other places before….

@Dallas,
I too am sorry for your loss, but bewildered that you insist chemotherapy killed him when the story indicates he died from progressive leukaemia.

Five days before he died, blood tests show that his blasts were down to 23% and his white blood cell count, even though it was elevated, was 2/3 less than it had been when we originally took him to the hospital. The natural remedies appeared to be fighting off the cancer, but Trenton died June 9, 2013. So why did he die? His counts suggest that his bone marrow was dead from the chemo and unable to replace the blood cells.

With respect, you are wrong. I say this not just because I am a doctor and you are not (but a firm believer in “natural remedies”), but because the progression and lab tests indicate it was so, and I have seen many children with leukaemia.

You place undue reliance on the fact that Trenton’s blast count had “reduced” from earlier higher counts, and say this means the leukaemia did not kill him. Yet you misunderstand what leukaemia is and how it affects the marrow. Initially, Trenton initially had a total WBC of 211, and this was 76% blasts – evidence of severe acute leukaemia. The fact that he “survived” these levels is directly attributable to the conventional medical care he received, and the chemotherapy.

You make much play of the fact that when he relapsed and was readmitted to hospital (having stopped chemotherapy and now being reliant on “natural remedies”), that his percentage blast count was 56%, and had apparently fallen further to 23% before his death. According to you, this is a sign his marrow was poisoned by chemotherapy and had sustained irreversible damage.

There are several things wrong with this interpretation, not least the fact that when you look at the total white cell count, this had risen from 19 at readmission to 82 before his death. This indicated a responsive, productive marrow, and if it had been damaged then the total white cell count should have been below 5, and in other cases I have seen of marrow failure, would probably have been below 1.

You will also note that although the percentage of blasts had apparently declined between these two tests (56% to 23%), in fact the absolute number of blasts (a truer indication of whether leukaemia has relapsed) has actually risen from around 10 (56% of 19.1) to 19 (23% of 82.2). In other words, his absolute blast count nearly doubled during this time you claim the marrow was supposedly damaged, his leukaemia was supposedly not relapsing and while he was supposedly “responding” to “natural therapies”.

It is patently clear there was no bone marrow failure consequent to chemotherapy, but that this was relapse of AML from which he died, having not been receiving further induction chemotherapy.

Then they were taken to court, not once or twice but around 6 times, every time the parents won and the hospital appealed.

Congratulations, you can’t even successfully follow the narrative of your own third-hand talking points. Perhaps you’d like to further opine on the most recent filings, in which the family’s counsel flatly states that chemotherapy is to be filed under “life-sustaining” on the way to arguing that that the family has the right to “pull the plug,” in a direct comparison to an infant in a vegetative state, because they haven’t been completely stripped of custody.

Bronwyn, Perth, Australia, November 24, 2013:

but since you say so many other people have made the same word for word comments, perhaps there is some truth to it.

Experience tells us that the same text, published under a multitude of names without attribution to an original source, is almost certainly some sort of astroturfing — trying to sell an idea by argumentum ad populum rather than on its merits.
Your inclusion of the change.org URI adds credence to the astroturfing scenario: that’s the idea you’re peddling. Astroturfing is not an indication of “some truth” to the idea being peddled. On the contrary, it tends to indicate a distinct lack of merit in the idea, so much that even the proponents don’t bother with merit-based argumentation.

“My source, as posted above, is from a telephone conversation with Sarah’s Grandfather and its the first time the family have commented.”

Um did you miss this: https://www.respectfulinsolence.com/2013/11/04/chris-wark-spins-the-story-of-the-amish-girl-with-cancer-whose-family-refuses-her-chemotherapy/

“We are told to avoid anything that could possibly cause cancer, yet we think its totally ok to use a cancer causing man made poison on children without their consent, that’s just cruel and inhumane.”

And exactly what poison is that?

Bronwyn @247

As if my address has anything to do with my ability to research!

Remember posting this?

Actually I watched an interview

The comment number is now 243 instead of 242 when I first read it.
Watching a video about someone else’s phone conversation is not doing research.
Research requires work, and thought.

I just think Orac could have looked at both sides . . . its dead obvious to me very little, if any actual research was done on the story to begin with

Orac has written about this story extensively from his point of view as a doctor who specializes in cancer research. Had you poked around the blog a little more before commenting, you would have discovered this for yourself.

Instead, you chose to voice your opinion, based on watching a video , and you seem to think that this opinion compares to the opinion of the blog author trained in the field being discussed (albeit in a different subspecialty). It’s a bit mind boggling, really.

Bronwyn,

Krebiozen ok whats with the comment “all the way from Australia?” As if my address has anything to do with my ability to research! Aussies have access to the same websites as the rest of the world.

Personally I’m in the UK, and I would have to be very sure of myself indeed before I started telling an American oncologist that he had completely misrepresented the facts about a cancer patient in America. I wondered if you had access to some information that Orac had not referred to, and that had not been published anywhere, but that doesn’t appear to be the case.

I stated some of the facts of the case in my previous comment, the misrepresentation of the facts I was referring to is the bias of the entire blog,

The alleged “bias of the entire blog” does not constitute a “complete misrepresentation of the facts”. It seems you can’t point to any specific facts that have been “misrepresented”.

its dead obvious to me very little, if any actual research was done on the story to begin with, then he picked and chose which info to present as facts.

It’s dead obvious to me that Orac has researched the case considerably more thoroughly than you, yet you feel justified in accusing him of misrepresentation? Orac is more than capable of defending himself, but this sort of behavior is all too common, and it greatly irritates me.

My source, as posted above, is from a telephone conversation with Sarah’s Grandfather and its the first time the family have commented.

Yes, I have seen this interview; Orac discussed it at some length in a previous blog post here that he links to in his post above. This is not new information.

I definitely agree each patient should be entitled to receive adequate medical treatment, however, I don’t feel anyone either child or adult should be forced to suffer the side effects of chemo, which can cause cancer down the track.

You are seriously suggesting that a child should be condemned to almost certain death because if the treatment saves her life she might possibly get cancer again later down the road? You do understand that her chances with the treatment are very good indeed, and without it are very bad indeed? That’ makes no sense to me.

We are told to avoid anything that could possibly cause cancer, yet we think its totally ok to use a cancer causing man made poison on children without their consent, that’s just cruel and inhumane. Obviously most of you think that’s perfectly moral, I find it disgusting we treat dogs with more dignity and respect when it comes to death and dying then we do our own people.

Personally I think it is allowing a child to die a miserable death from cancer when there is a treatment that stands a very good chance of saving her life is inhumane. I also think it’s despicable that you think a child should be put down like a dog rather than have her life saved by chemotherapy. This is not a child with terminal cancer – what’s the matter with you?

Death is a natural part of life, we will all die and if we can’t choose not to have a drug, essentially a poison that kills every living cell in your body in order to live maybe 5 more years but with a damaged body, then how free are we really?

Firstly chemotherapy is not “a poison that kills every living cell in your body “, that’s a despicable lie that is designed to frighten people away from live-saving treatment.
Secondly, where did you get the idea that Sarah’s life expectancy is only five years after treatment? That’s another despicable lie. With treatment she stands a very good chance of living a normal healthy life without getting any further cancer. You would rob her of that chance?

Please Bronwyn, in future think before accusing people of “completely misrepresenting the facts” when they have a much better grasp of the facts than you do, and especially stop spreading lies about cancer treatment that could easily lead people to make life-threatening errors of judgment if they believe you.

Chemmomo- I couldn’t care less if Orac is a doctor, the blog is bias, he could have looked at it from both sides, the absence of which is bias and not credible. First off It wasn’t a video, had you known anything about the Amish is that they refuse to be photographed or filmed, it was a phone conversation. My mistake for saying “watched,” it started as a video with the interviewer then led to a phone conversation. You would have known that had you bothered to enlighten yourself with the other side of the story, so you are bias also.

Narad- actually you don’t have to be American to know where Ohio is or about Amish practices, as it so happens I was born in Seattle, I grew up there, half my family is American and I am also a dual citizen. Its not wise to assume my background given that all you know is where I am currently living and I still don’t see how where I live has anything to do with me posting the other side of the story! I would have hoped that such intellectual minds would welcome others with differing opinions to join in on the conversation, but it seems you can’t join in if you disagree with the blog, pointless really.

I stand by what I have said, I’m entitled to my opinion like the rest of you. Unlike the rest of you I don’t have the time to attack personal opinions all day long, its tiresome and accomplishes nothing. I offered the other side of the story not mentioned in the blog and my personal opinion and I really couldn’t care less of your opinions with regard to my opinion, seriously the lot of you need to get a life!

Bronwyn
You are digging a hole.
10/10 for having an opinion. 0/10 for your other side of the story. Chemo may have very likely cured this girl.

@ Bill Price
The people who frequent this blog are (with a few exceptions now and then) are deeply concerned with life. That’s why we take death merchants (like Bursynski, woo-peddlers, antivaxxers and the like) seriously.,,,,,

As a non medical person and a BC sufferer, I am indebted to my wonderful (science based) medical team and to unknown virtual heroes that do take life seriously and continue to expose the woo-ers.

@Bronwyn
No, you wouldn’t care less…..you have made your point.

Bronwyn,

I stand by what I have said, I’m entitled to my opinion like the rest of you. Unlike the rest of you I don’t have the time to attack personal opinions all day long, its tiresome and accomplishes nothing.

You have stated that chemotherapy “kills every living cell in your body” and that Sarah would only live another 5 years after treatment. Both these statements are completely and demonstrably wrong. I hoped you might have the honesty and integrity to admit this and apologize for spreading dangerous misinformation about conventional cancer treatments. But no, you continue to defend this nonsense.

I offered the other side of the story not mentioned in the blog

Except it was mentioned in the blog, in more detail, at more length and far more accurately than in your comment.

and my personal opinion

Which is apparently based on wildly erroneous beliefs about chemotherapy and prognosis in acute lymphoblastic lymphoma.

and I really couldn’t care less of your opinions with regard to my opinion, seriously the lot of you need to get a life!

You come to a blog, falsely accuse its host of misrepresenting the facts, make some dangerously inaccurate statements about cancer treatment, suggest that a child would be better off being euthanized* than receiving a treatment that has an 85% chance of success, and then you tell those who try to point out your errors that they should “get a life”? I’m almost lost for words, and those that come to mind are not kind, so I will leave it there.

* Unless there is another interpretation of, “I find it disgusting we treat dogs with more dignity and respect when it comes to death and dying then we do our own people” that I have overlooked.

Nearly half of all patients admitted to hospitals are killed or maimed? Gee, you’d think someone would have noticed. In other words, [citation needed]

Yeah, I’d love to look at the citations for that.

The hospital kept appealing and appealing until they got their own selfish way. Sounds fishy. I guess if you look hard enough you’ll find a corrupt judge sooner or later!

Is it that hard to believe that the hospital fought for the best care for this child because it’s the right thing to do?

Also, see comment #172. Are all 4 judges who ruled independently in favor of the hospital “corrupt?”

It’s selfish to give a child an 85% chance of survival rather than none?

Chalk me up as being that kind of selfish, I guess!

Albert: “The hospital’s motive was profit plain and simple, not the so-called “best interests” of the child”.”

So you would rather that the child died?

So which to believe? Bronwyn’s deep knowledge of Amish custom, or my own lying eyes? It is difficult.

Ordnung are, basically by definition, charismatic idiosyncrasy in action. For a nominal cult of humility, the Amish/Mennonite history reads an awful lot like a trashy novel.

Hello wake up

William Hewitt forgot the obligatory SHEEPLE.

Khani,
Lose several appeals, then win after the sixth try.
That’s evidence enough in my book.

Can’t be arsed looking it up—this “six appeals” sounds made up to me—but if there really were five judges who ruled that “parental rights” extend to denying a child a treatment that would give her an 85% chance of survival, in favor of no treatment with an almost 0% chance of survival, those judges need to be: A) removed from the bench, 2) disbarred, and III) prosecuted.

The right-wingers have packed the courts with so many troglodytes, and blocked every new appointment for the last five years, so I don’t suppose any of that will happen.

Lose several appeals, then win after the sixth try.
That’s evidence enough in my book.

Do you understand what an “appeal” is? Some problem on this front seems to be the only generous explanation for your simply misstating the facts repeatedly.

Alain, I agree with you wholeheartedly. As evidence, I give you Rob Ford. People still say they will vote for him.

Albert,

The cost of all these stupid appeals by this profit driven hospital were minor in comparison to the funding they will lose if this child discontinues this experimental and unproven ‘treatment’, which was making her violently ill.

Firstly, why do you think the hospital would lose money if one patient withdraws from a clinical trial? Hospitals don’t usually make money from clinical trials.
Secondly, this treatment is neither experimental nor unproven, the treatment used for children with this type of cancer has been developed over several decades to give the very best chances of survival with the least side effects. The clinical trials being done with children suffering from lymphoblastic lymphoma are fine-tuning a treatment that we know already works very well, to make it work even better. This child will almost certainly suffer a recurrence of her lymphoma and die if she is not given further treatment. With further treatment she stands a very good chance of surviving, better than 85% according to the hospital.
What part of this are you having trouble understanding? Do you need evidence of any of this to convince you? It is readily available if so – the links given by Orac in his blog post are a good place to start.

So if I understand correctly, the fundamental argument is that libertarian principles/parental rights trump this child’s right to live? The hospital’s alleged fascistic conduct is somehow completely unrelated to our accepted social standard that vulnerable children must often be protected by institutions? All of the complexities of these arguments boil down to whether the family accepts that they are taking an increasingly weakened Christian Science stand.

I’ve lived near and had a few substantive conversations with Amish families. In that area (middle Tennessee) the Old Order Amish were surprisingly open to interaction with others and after surmounting some trust issues were not reluctant to discuss their beliefs. They showed me, though, that they often have real difficulties accepting that this country was founded on the principle of freedom FROM, not OF, religion. They seemed to think they are exempt from some forms of assimilation even in matters of safety and welfare.

This child has the right not to have her life shortened by the imposition of religious belief to the detriment of her personal freedom and right to be protected from harm. I suspect the people I knew would find that concept disconcerting and perhaps unacceptable.
.

Albert: “Don’t tell me otherwise”

That should be featured on the official Alt Med banner.

I picture the words on a scroll, beneath which is an altie with fingers firmly inserted in ears, chanting “Na na na na na”.

Still working out design details, but I anticipate it’ll sell a lot of T-shirts.

After skimming some of the comments about the Amish, I just have to weigh in on some non-medical misinformation in this thread. First, there is no monolithic “Amish” culture or set of norms for their communities.

I think things have been broken out to the level of the Isaac Keim/Andy Weaver/Joe Troyer/”Mosey Mosies” Swartzentruber schism, if you look a bit closer.

Re: Amish.
I’ve had limited contact with Amish and related Mennonite people. They are good people and in general accept modern medical care, and take very good care of their children. I don’t think this is a story about the Amish. It is just another story of a family who believes the alt med liars–the real villains here– who tell them that ALL can be cured by means other than chemotherapy. We all wish this were true because if so, we would be able to put children through much less of an ordeal to save a life. Of course, there is no evidence it is true.

As a result, this child won’t go through the ordeal of chemotherapy but will go through the ordeal of death of ALL. We can only hope the truth will dawn on the family before it is too late. However, they may now be surrounded by too many quacks.

@Madison – I tend to agree. Due to the number of very serious genetic diseases that are rampant among the Amish, they tend to be a bit more educated about modern medicine than we would expect…..is this case, it is a single family that has been taken in by the woo-meisters…..

I don’t think this is a story about the Amish. It is just another story of a family who believes the alt med liars–the real villains here– who tell them that ALL can be cured by means other than chemotherapy.

I’ve said this before, but keep in mind the following: “‘We told them if it gets to the point that we cannot do anything for her, we would come back,’ [Andy Hershberger] said.”

Sure, one can make the case for a degree of sophistication among the “plain people” on the basis of having to deal with hereditary issues and eschewing insurance,* but when, on principle, formal schooling beyond the 8th grade is off-limits, it strikes me as difficult to maintain that the residue of cultural strictures isn’t in play.

The current press coverage suggests that Mr. Hershberger is burrowing deeper into the hole, but roughly 12 weeks ago, he certainly seemed to give the impression that they could just have a “do over” if things didn’t pan out. The issue with hierarchical advocacy of simple-mindedness is that sometimes it’s going to work.

* The WSJ ran an item verso, under the fold, on the front page several years ago about this situation requiring personal negotiations with hospitals.

the “plain people”
These are just simple farmers. These are people of the land. The common clay of the new West.

For Narad–Your post above:

I think things have been broken out to the level of the Isaac Keim/Andy Weaver/Joe Troyer/”Mosey Mosies” Swartzentruber schism, if you look a bit closer.

Please tell me how does this abstruse (meaningless to most) reference advances this discussion in any way.

I hope we may please ditch the pretentiousness and return to the issue of how this little girl can be helped to get the care she needs by illuminating this issue publicly and finding the means to convince her family that without followup care her chances of survival may be very, very small. Or use the nuclear legal option of forcing her family out of the picture.

I personally don’t care to wade through someone else’s obscure references (and thus self-styled, presumed erudition) in a discussion about a child in crisis.

It’s very disappointing to read so much arrogant crap here, frankly, that contributes nothing to understanding how to help this little girl and bring the larger issues that her situation reveals into public discourse.

Sara, for the love of Mike would you stop taking yourself so g-d seriously?

Did Orac die and leave your prissy little self in charge? Sheesh.

It’s very disappointing to read so much arrogant crap here, frankly, that contributes nothing to understanding how to help this little girl and bring the larger issues that her situation reveals into public discourse.

But it was totally relevant to bring up Amish puppy mills? That really contributed a lot.

I myself am most puzzled by Sara’s reference to “contributes nothing to understanding how to help this little girl”. I’d very much like to know what Sara thinks we can do to help Sarah Hershberger.

Chris,
“Albert, why do you want this child to die?”
Don’t put words in my mouth! I never said that.

Albert, if all the hospital cared about was profit, they wouldn’t have pushed chemo on her. They would have been obsequious to the parents, offered painless alternatives, herbal remedies, iridology, aromatherapy, pet therapy, music therapy, outings to the local zoo and cultural events, a personal concierge, spa services…..

…but that’s not what they did. Rather than focus on the things the parents could easily be enticed to pay for, they focused on the things that would help the girl get well.

I do find myself wondering who really is profiting off of this family. Someone has promised them something they can’t deliver, something they refuse to share with the world because they are more interested in profit than in healing. It’s a story that has played out many, many times. And I fear it is playing out once again.

It works!! There are two Amish from the community that were treated for the same type of cancer.One a six year old boy who was treated at Saint Jude’s seven years ago.He is a healthy thirteen year old now.Another also treated seven years ago by Akron was a twenty two year old with stage three cancer.She was expecting her first child when they found her cancer. The child is seven and she is expecting her third child.Yes the treatments were hard.Yes they both got sick.But both are healthy and enjoying their lives to the fullest.Yes they both used holistic methods combined with the chemo.If not for the chemo they both would have died without a doubt.This type of cancer is extremely aggressive and will no doubt will come back with a vengeance.These people have been convinced that they are doing what is best for their child.Unfortunately in the end Sarah and her family are the ones who will pay the ultimate price for their choice!

Albert, then why do not want the child get the 85% chance for a cure?

There would seem to be two answers to that question:

1. You are the alt-med practitioner who would profit by diverting patients from to the hospital to you.

2. You want the child to die.

Then you said: “If it works and it’s so successful, then why does it need to be fined tuned.”

That is the nirvana fallacy, thinking you should only use something if it is perfect. Which leaves the third possibility: you don’t have a clue.

Perhaps you should go up and read with better comprehension all of the articles wrote about this issue, and stop making stuff up.

Albert:

The hospital would lose money because they are paid according to the number of patients who are undergoing the experiment.

Do you labor under the delusion that this hospital only does exactly one treatment? That if a patient refuses oncology for lymphoma, that there is absolutely no other way they could possibly make money off of them? Balderdash. Plenty of less scrupulous hospitals (i.e. for-profit ones) know this is not the case, and are happy to offer all manner of worthless but billable malarkey.

This hospital would make more money if they just gave up on her. That’s what quacks do; when a patient turns away, they just give up on them, focusing their efforts on more credulous and therefore profitable patients. They would make more money by not spending their financial resources on this girl, and moving on to more profitable efforts.

They’re not in this for money. You’ll have to find a different way to villify them.

“This hospital would make more money if they just gave up on her.”

There’s potential for _someone_ to make a lot of dough in cases like these once the cancer returns – beyond salvage chemotherapy and other modalities, there’s hospitalizations to deal with the complications of out-of-control cancer and hospice…probably plenty of extra $$$ compared to just doing the life-saving chemotherapy up front.

I’m reminded of those people who attempt to burn off their skin cancers with bloodroot salve, thinking they’re putting one over on the greedy doctors and saving money. But once you add in the cost of plastic surgery to repair grievous burn scars, as well as radical surgery to contain the extensive carcinoma or melanoma that develops because you didn’t get the deep microscopic extensions of tumor (and maybe drugs/radiation later on), that turns out to be very expensive salve indeed.

Grammar fail – “is remarkable”.

Don’t put words in my mouth! I never said that.

Albert, the words that are already “in your mouth” are problem enough, to the point that, like the preparation of a glace de viande, you seem to be intent on reducing your sauce to the point that it contains nothing but thoughtlessly yet tediously rendered blobs of firm gelatin that you forgot to give a hayride with a bit of starch.

God bless you and your son,But believe me I know these parents and they will not be able to forgive themselves if she dies because they made the wrong choice.They are being conned by people who are benefiting from their plight.They need support and education on what will happen to their daughter if she doesn’t get the chemo.Maybe a letter from you may help.If nothing else your prayers!

“They are being conned by people who are benefiting from their plight.”

People who sell quack cures to people with curable cancer deserve a special place in hell. And people who do that to children are the lowest of the low.

Angel, if I had a means to actually communicate with them, I would give it a try, but I know the hospital explained everything to them. And all of the information on treatment outcomes is available on the web. I despair sometimes at the willful and proud ignorance of so many these days. How did we get to a point in this world where people believe the person selling them homeopathy/supplements/whatever with no actual research behind it (and a HUGE profit motive) more than the people who spent decades in school and have data and studies to back up their decisions? It seems that the majority of the people who claim that doctors and hospitals and pharmaceutical companies are only in it for the money are perfectly fine with buying overpriced herbs/mud baths/whatever.

Chemo doesn’t work for everyone, and it wasn’t working for her. It was causing her excruciating pain, and she begged her parents to have it stopped, and so they did. Chemo itself is a cure that’s worse than the disease. It’s carcinogenic and causes heart, lung, kidney and nerve damage. This has been well documented by the medical profession time and time again. It’s rough when it’s done on adults, much more so on a child. If any of you are stricken with cancer, undergo chemotherapy and then come back and tell me it’s a safe and effective treatment. Also, this gestapo hospital failed to fully inform the parents of the deadly side effects of this experimental treatment that their daughter was receiving. They were using this child as a guinea pig without the parent’s knowledge or consent, and they were evasive when asked direct questions about the safety of the treatments that were being administered. They were dishonest and unethical from the beginning, and then to add insult to injury, they imposed additional financial burdens and stress upon the parents by taking them to court. These parents were going through hell enough already, and the hospital’s actions were reprehensible and unconscionable, and only made matters worse. This family did the right thing by escaping, and I applaud them for putting their daughter’s interests ahead of the financial interests of this greedy and arrogant hospital.

@Albert – again, where are you getting this information? What we do know is that the child was getting better, but was suffering from some of the known side-effects from chemo….but again, she was getting better.

Now, she’s probably going to get worse (much worse) and most likely now die….how does that make you feel?

If any of you are stricken with cancer, undergo chemotherapy and then come back and tell me it’s a safe and effective treatment.

My wife would tell you this–she had cervical cancer in her 20’s, was treated with chemotherapy and has been cancer free for three decades.

And I’m willing to bet so would Sharon Osbourne, Melissa Etheridge, Lance Armstrong, Tom Green, Kylie Minogue, Richard Roundtree (aka ‘Shaft’), Kate Jackson…well, you get the idea.

Albert, did you read ANYTHING I wrote? Or did you just stick your fingers in your ears and keep typing, regardless of the factual information I provided?

After re-reading your comment, I am sitting here pretty much boiling mad. “Chemo itself is a cure that’s worse than the disease. It’s carcinogenic and causes heart, lung, kidney and nerve damage.” Are you possibly saying that my son was better off certainly dead than taking on the small chance of a secondary cancer from his treatment? Really? Also, did you know that there is no such drug as “chemo”? There are many different drugs that are used as chemotherapy, and they all have benefits and side effects, all of which are painstakingly explained by hospital personnel.

And I am telling you that there is ZERO chance that the “clinical trial” was not explained to and signed off by the parents. ZERO.

As I’ve mentioned, I ‘ve been in 2 clinical trials and my handlers in both had me read the salient docs in front of them and ask any questions I may have. The docs were quite explicit for anyone with more than middle school degree.

For example, ANY ATTEMPTS AT CONCEPTION WERE VERBOTEN. Caps, if not phrasing, in original. Otherwise, the probs of success and or all known side effects – temp or perm – were laid before you along with a plea to let them know if you experience anything not on the list.

Big $CAM doesn’t really do this.

One handler said “Science doesn’t know everything” when poked aboot acupuncture. The other demurred comment or elided. Memory is muddy.

speaking of imbeciles…

that should read “chemo is not worse than dead…”

^ (And if I weren’t so deep in other obligations that I need a diving bell as it is, I’d be inclined to confirm my suspicion that the candidate list of “clinics” south of the border isn’t really that long.)

Albert, it’s time to put an end to your evasions. We’re going to go to ultimatum questions.

You’ve been insisting since your very first comments here that the hospital “stands to lose a fortune” if Sarah Hershberger discontinues chemo treatment.

Now it’s time for you to answer the question: How do you know that to be the case?

Have you seen an original signed contract spelling out that the hospital has a duty to keep certain patients enrolled in a clinical trial and failure to fulfill this duty will result in revocation of remuneration?

Have you, in fact, not seen any documentation at all of these supposed deals, but just accepted a stranger’s word that such deals did in fact exist? And then come here and swore to it as if you personally knew it to be so, when you were simply repeating hearsay?

Or have you in fact invented everything you’ve purported to know about the hospital’s supposed financial incentive to keep Sarah Hershberger in chemo? Have you simply said “Oh, well, my prejudices say that the hospital must be a bunch of nasty money-grubbers, so logically there must be a big pot of gold waiting for them”?

You haven’t been the least bit shy about hurling your accusations, Albert, so now it’s time for you to answer the question about what facts you have to back it up.

If you make three comments, on this or any other post, and within those three comments you do not answer the question, it will be taken as you affirmatively answering the question “I never had any evidence for any of the accusations I made about the hospital’s financial situation. I simply made up everything I pretended to know about the financial aspects of this affair, out of my imagination and my prejudices.”

I know what I know from an interview with the family, who I tend to trust more than the hospital, I’m sorry if that upsets anyone. Also, if people believe that chemo is the best way to treat cancer, then they have the right to make that decision for themselves only, not for anyone else. Courts and hospitals should never FORCE anyone to undergo chemotherapy against their will. Many doctors have told me repeatedly that they themselves would not want to undergo chemotherapy if they had cancer, so why should anyone else have to suffer through it.

Albert,

I know what I know from an interview with the family, who I tend to trust more than the hospital, I’m sorry if that upsets anyone.

Why would you expect a family with no medical training to know what their child’s prognosis is with or without treatment? Surely you can see that those who have spent their lives studying this and treating children with the same condition would have the best and most accurate information on this, can’t you?

Also, if people believe that chemo is the best way to treat cancer, then they have the right to make that decision for themselves only, not for anyone else. Courts and hospitals should never FORCE anyone to undergo chemotherapy against their will.

If that person is equipped to make that decision and is properly informed, I agree. A child is not able to make that decision, legally or practically. If her parents are unable or unwilling to provide their child with adequate medical care I think it is quite right that the courts should intervene.

Many doctors have told me repeatedly that they themselves would not want to undergo chemotherapy if they had cancer, so why should anyone else have to suffer through it.

“Many doctors” have told you this? I’m sorry, but I don’t believe you. This is a lie that is frequently told by people who for some reason do not like conventional medicine. It is usually based on a single research paper from several years ago about one experimental treatment for one specific form of cancer which was of limited efficacy and which had severe side effects. It has since been abused as evidence that all doctors would reject any form of chemotherapy for any type of cancer which is just not true at all.

If what you claim is true perhaps you would tell us where you met these doctors and how you knew them. Only naturopaths or other “doctors” who have no experience working with cancer patients are likely to be dumb enough to make such a foolish statement.

I have known several doctors who have had chemotherapy, including my own father. He knew it would only buy him a bit more time, but he had it anyway because that time was valuable to him. There may be isolated cases when a doctor has rejected chemotherapy – sometimes in advanced terminal cancers the risk and benefits may be about equal, and there is a rational basis for rejecting it, but in the vast majority of cases I don’t believe it.

I know what I know from an interview with the family, who I tend to trust more than the hospital, I’m sorry if that upsets anyone.

So in other words, your whole position and all your accusations are based on circular logic. You told us the reason to take the family’s word over the hospital’s was that the hospital purportedly stood to rake in big cash. But the only reason you thought that was the case is that someone from the family made that claim, and you decided to take the family’s word over the hospital’s.

By that same logic, Bernie Madoff is an utterly trustworthy guy, ’cause he says he is, and an utterly trustworthy guy would never think of lying to us and saying he’s a trustworthy guy if he wasn’t actually a trustworthy guy…

Albert
“If any of you are stricken with cancer, undergo chemotherapy and then come back and tell me it’s a safe and effective treatment”
I did and I am.
That’s better. Sorry.

“If any of you are stricken with cancer, undergo chemotherapy and then come back and tell me it’s a safe and effective treatment”

Wait a sec’ I’ll get my brother to the phone.

@Albert – I have at least three good friends that all went through standard Chemo regimens – all are now in remission and living healthy, vibrant lives….I do currently have family members undergoing Chemo – haven’t heard of them suffering the side-effects you mention & they are currently doing great.

Antaeus:

By that same logic, Bernie Madoff is an utterly trustworthy guy, ’cause he says he is, and an utterly trustworthy guy would never think of lying to us and saying he’s a trustworthy guy if he wasn’t actually a trustworthy guy…

[DRWHOQUOTE]
DOCTOR: “Scringe stone” found in a dead man’s pocket? A lost mine? A phoney map? Are people still falling for that old guff? I mean are they?
ROMANA: You mean you didn’t believe his story?
DOCTOR: No.
ROMANA: But he had such an honest face.
DOCTOR: Romana! You can’t be a successful crook with a dishonest face, can you?
ROMANA: Oh.
[/DRWHOQUOTE]

chemo is a form of chemical that was patented in the 1980s-and is profitable…go look it up. You have to research the effects of these drugs…it does work sometimes. But it can also kill the person receiving it. There are limits to suffering and im so surprised that anyone would dismiss a parent that would try to avoid any suffering. The writer of this article seems to chuckle at “natural remedies” as if they could not exist. Lets not forget that hospitals are for profit systems. I see this article as a hospital who is trying to cover up a possible natural cure for cancer…..we wouldn’t want that because it isn’t profitable. I like one of the comments “backed by science based medicine”….and who funded those studies? There are TONS of studies of people who have cured themselves and other by homeopathic treatments. Im not saying in all cases this will work but it sure is strange that this isnt even considered a possibility? common sense would tell you other wise.

Shhh… Shay! Logic has no place in conspiracy theories!

Rob – have you ever actually read about the assumptions underlying homeopathy and looked at the contents of homeopathic medicines? If you do, you might understand why claims that it is effective as a cure for pretty much anything would require some very strong evidence to take seriously.

Lets not forget that hospitals are for profit systems.

Yet another person is convinced that nothing exists outside the borders of the US.

chemo is a form of chemical that was patented in the 1980s-and is profitable…go look it up.

Some suggestions about where to look up this interesting claim would be welcome.