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Cancer Medicine Politics Popular culture Quackery

Noah McAdams: Another story of “parental rights” to choose quackery versus the rights of a child with cancer

Noah McAdams is a three year old boy with lymphblastic leukemia. His parents want to treat him with cannabis. The court says otherwise, but not strongly enough.

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Popular culture Quackery Religion Science Skepticism/critical thinking

Sarah Hershberger: “Cancer-free” and proof that natural healing works? Not so much…

One of the more depressing topics that I regularly write about includes of analyses of news stories of children with cancer whose parents decided to stop science-based treatment (usually the chemotherapy) and use quackery instead. There are, of course, variations on this theme, but these stories take form that generally resembles this outline: A child […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Naturopathy Politics Quackery Religion Science

An Ontario court dooms a First Nations girl with cancer

A few weeks ago, Steve Novella invited me on his podcast, The Skeptics’ Guide to the Universe, to discuss a cancer case that has been in the news for several months now. The case was about an 11-year-old girl with leukemia who is a member of Canada’s largest aboriginal community. Steve wrote about this case […]

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Cancer Popular culture

Once again caring more about “parental rights” than the rights of the child being subjected to quackery

When last I wrote about the sad saga of Sarah Hershberger, the 12-year-old Amish girl from northeastern Ohio with lymphoblastic lymphoma whose parents, Andy and Anna Hershberger, decided to stop her chemotherapy resulting in legal action by Akron children’s Hospital to have a medical guardian appointed to make sure that Sarah continues effective science-based therapy […]

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Cancer Complementary and alternative medicine Medicine Politics Quackery

Children are not their parents’ property

Yesterday’s post about Sarah Hershberger, the Amish girl from northeast Ohio with lymphoblastic lymphoma who refused chemotherapy, prompting a court battle that led to the appointment of a medical guardian for her to make sure she receives treatment, got me to thinking (always a dangerous thing). Actually, I had to think back over the years […]