Court Orders Parents to Get Medical Treatment for Their Child

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There's a very very good chance it is. And if it isn't we don't know it isn't. We have absolutely no grounds for believing anything other than the conventional methods are the best.

For sure, some alternative methods may work and in these cases we should conduct research to understand why they work so that we might make use of them. It's deeply irresponsible to advocate treating someone by any means other than what we know is the best one available.

 

I think you would be amazed at the amount of people who would say that.

I wouldnt take chemo, no cancer is completely treatable, 10 months down the line I would need further treatment, and again and again, its just prolonging the inevitable... I would rather die.

 

Deise, when the medical establishment blatantly refuses to educate itself on what little research has been funded into the area, I believe they have lost their claim to credibility. I trust them on the 90% recovery with chemo. I don't trust them on the 5% with the alternative. From what I've seen of the American medical establishment, that's about as reliable as those same medical doctors telling me that Asteroid X has a 5% chance of hitting the Earth next month.

 

I get that but we've absolutely no idea what the % is for the alternative treatment, or even if it works at all. The conventional treatment is the only one the judge knows might work so I cannot see how he can rationally say it's ok to use a different treatment instead.

I'm not going to be as close minded to say all alternative treatments are useless. Some herbal remedies and the like use substances which we don't understand fully but do seem to do good. In these cases I'd prefer to see us investigating what is the beneficial effect so that we can isolate it and use it to its full potential. A lot of alternative methods though, such as homeopathy, leave absolutely no room in our current scientific knowledge to work. If somebody does find them working they'll have uncovered a revolution in scientific knowledge but I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for this to happen.

 

For something like mild depression or a minor physical ailment I can hardly see the government stepping in and forcing the parents to seek conventional medical aid. But in a life and death situation, which this appears to be, then of course the parent's rights end when their actions (or inactions) are likely to result in the death of the child.

Let them pray and do herbals all they want -- and then also follow what appears to be a really successful conventional treatment.

Stories like this piss me off because not all religious people are like this and it paints us all, undeservedly, with a bad brush. Those parents should have their <donkeys> kicked around the block.

 

Well Deise, I have no problems going on record saying most alternative methods are a scam. The vast majority do not work and cause harm by delaying adequate treatment.

I have yet to hear of any alternative treatment method for cancer that works at all.

And, yes, we are talking about cancer here -- life and death -- not just somebody's hangnail needing treatment. Children are extremely susceptable to parent's influences. The most probable explanation is the kid does not want treatment because his parents have convinced him not to want the treatment.

 

lets say, the court forces treatment, which preserves the life of the child.

what if the parents not longer wish to care for the child, what if for what every reason (religion etc...) they see the child as an abomination. Will the state still force them to pay child support? for a child which they forced against the parents will to recieve a treatment the parents dont agree with. Should they?

 

uhm yes. children ain't objects, you don't just throw them out when you don't want them anymore

 

Apologies yes, I get angry when I hear of anybody going to alternative treatments. I have heard of cases (can't remember which) where scientists have isolated a positive effect in them and are working on drugs which concentrate that. These are extremely rare though.

I certainly didn't wish to imply that I though it was ok for something like cancer. Obviously something like that absolutely needs real medicine.

 

I believe that not only should courts, it should be their duty to overrule the decisions of the parents. And that the court also has the right and the duty to force the 13 year old to undergo the conventional treatments. After all, if they were ready to do that kind of decisions by themselves, we'd call them "adults".

And I also do think that the court would have full right to reassign custody to someone who'd actually take care of the child. As opposed to idiots who would rather kill their child.

 

Look, I'm not saying that herbal treatments are all completely ineffective. But the parents are actually not saying they want to use these herbal treatments in conjunction with chemo and radiation. They want to use the herbal treatments in lieu of the chemo and radiation. The judge didn't even give the order to cease and desist the herbal treatments. They very well could continue to do both.

I guess my point is, are you so confident in the effectiveness of these herbal treatments, that you are willing to bet your life on it? Because if those treatments don't work, there's a pretty good chance that you'll die. And that's my major point: If you want to try an herbal treatment to cure your poison ivy, regrow your hair, or increase the size of your manhood, be my guest. I think it is completely irresponsible to the point of negligence on the part of the parents to forego modern medicial treatment that has a proven 90% effective track record, in favor of an herbal treatment that may (but most likely will not) work.

Well, I do think it's mostly bunk - you're right there, but I wasn't using the term medicine man in a derogatory sense. I was using it because the treatment is a native American Indian treatment, and I thought most native peoples refer to their shamans as medicine men.

 

This is a very good point, but I think the logic in this is a little misleading. The truth that you've just pointed out is that the judge is really in no better place to make a decision than the parents are, and may be in a worse place (not being emotionally connected to the child). The decision faced is whether to take a statistically known risk with potentially serious consequences (even in success, chemo isn't exactly anything people are jumping to experience) versus a statistically unknown risk with very few likely consequences (though this isn't certain).

Honestly, I think the best method may actually be to combine the two, as long as the doctors are monitoring for potential complications. If the doctors can't think of anything that herbal teas and steam baths will do to mess up chemo, then it may at least give the child greater personal expectations of recovery (and most any doctor will tell you that personal expectations can be statistically linked to actual results in many areas of medicine, especially cancer).

Unfortunately, that doesn't seem to have been a discussed option in this case. Given the facts we know in this case, I would order monitoring for as long as possible without substantially increasing the risk to the child (if this is something that could go untreated for a month or two without serious changes, then let it). If no changes were detected by then, re-start chemo, whatever else may be done at the same time. If the cancer does seem to respond, order the doctors to continue monitoring and to pay closer attention to what treatment methods are being used.

 

This is a false choice, NOG. We know that conventional treatments in this case are 90% effective. We also know that most people who refuse conventional cancer treatment in favor of "natural alternatives" die. In other words, we are looking at a strong likelihood of life vs a strong likelihood of death.

 

As I addressed two posts earlier (it looks like I posted while you were writing, so maybe you missed it), there may be very few likely consequences to the herbal treatments, but one of them is death.

EDIT: Drew beat me to it.

 

What if the Chemo kills the kid, is the court to be held accountable?

 

Perhaps I misread the story. I was of the opinion that the 90% chance was for a cure. I did not think that the remaining 10% would be because the chemo/radiation would kill the child. If the treatment fails, the likely result is the child will die, but it would be the cancer, not the chemo that would be the cause. Clearly, if there is a 10% chance that the chemo flat out causes the child's death you cannot give him chemo.

 

Let's put it this way then. In general, in any case where the courts step in, what if the treatment that is chosen by the court kills the child. Will the courts be held accountable? If they are to have the right to move against the wishes of the parent, to muscle in and take control of the situation, they also need to be held accountable when their decision fails.

 

I'm still not getting it. I have never heard of anyone dying because of chemo. I know lots of people who die from cancer. But I'm not even sure this works in a hypothetical case. I mean, do people die from chemo? Would you be able to prove it was the chemo and not the cancer? And if it is overwhelmingly likely that he will die without the chemo, then isn't it a chance you should take?

I guess I still stick by me original answer - if there is a statistically significant chance (say even as little as 1%) of dying from the chemo, then I think you should be able to refuse the treatment. But I've never heard of someone dying because of chemo, so I think the chance is way lower than that - so low as to be negligible. If it is negligible, then sure, I guess the courts can be held accountable if it can be conclusively proven that it was the chemo and not the cancer that killed him.

 

Chemo kills both good and bad cells. It severely impacts the immune system, making those undergoing chemo much more vulnerable to other diseases.
A list of the side effects of chemo include the following:
Pain
Nausea and vomiting
Diarrhea or constipation
Anemia
Malnutrition
Hair loss
Memory loss
Depression of the immune system, hence (potentially lethal) infections and sepsis
Weight loss or gain
Hemorrhage
Secondary neoplasms
Cardiotoxicity
Hepatotoxicity
Nephrotoxicity
Ototoxicity

Like a lot of treatments, sometimes the side effects are as bad as the disease.

 

Aldeth - I am asking about the hypothetical... Not just this case. I believe the courts should step in, but i wonder when or how do we decide the regulations on when they can step in? Again, where is the line drawn? Is it when the court-ordered treatment has a greater chance compared to the preferred treatment of the parents? Perhaps a 2:1 ratio? Or should it be greater? Or lesser? There will be a time when it is not as black and white as this case....