Healthcare: Personal choice or the state's decision?
By now I'm sure you've heard of Daniel Hauser, the 13-year- old who refused chemotherapy and chose to treat his Hodgkin's lymphoma naturally. He and his mother ended up fleeing the state, and a warrant was put out for her arrest when the pair didn't show up for a court hearing. They ended up returning after several days, and Daniel is now preparing for chemotherapy. Pretty outrageous, right? The state stepping in where most of us think they have no business at all—our healthcare decisions. Of course, nothing is ever as simple as it seems on the surface. Dive deeper into this story, and things become much less clear. Learning disabled, Daniel cannot read, and claims to be a medicine man and church elder in the Nemenhah, an American Indian religious organization his parents joined nearly 20 years ago. He refused the chemotherapy after experiencing the severe side effects of his first treatment. Some are saying they led Daniel to recall the death of his aunt, who died after receiving chemotherapy. This was when Daniel was only five. He says he believes the chemotherapy would kill him. So, this raises a big question—can a minor child, especially one with a learning disabilty, fully understand the risks and benefits of treatment options? Where do we draw the line on state intervention? The way I see it, though, there's an even BIGGER issue raised. Take the media coverage. Hodgkin's lymphoma, it's reported, is considered "highly curable." Interesting, considering there is no cure for cancer. And, of course, not an opportunity to discredit natural medicine is missed in this story. It's all about the crazy family doing their son harm—nobody considers the fact that many "alternative medicines" (no, it didn't escape me that this term appears in quotes in quite a few news articles) actually WORK. Of course, in Minnesota, where the Hauser family lives, state statutes require parents to provide necessary medical care for a child—and, under those statutes, alternative and complementary health care methods are not enough. Ah, here we go. This, you see, is the crux of the issue for me. Alternative medicine is, for all intents and purposes, not considered REAL medicine. If our country would start putting stock in the very promising research behind many natural and alternative cures, it wouldn't be seen as some kind of "death sentence" when compared with conventional approaches to cancer (such as highly toxic chemotherapy). Are we to accept a single (conventional) treatment option for cancer? One that leaves the body ravaged? To me, the answer is clear: Absolutely not. If alternative medicine were "proven" (if we were allowed to look at the EXISTING evidence behind many therapies), situations like this might be easier to handle—families would be able to choose viable natural treatments without persecution. Collectively, we need to stop thinking that the only medicine worth anything is that which has been created in a lab. Sources:
"Arrest ordered for mom of boy, 13, resisting chemo." Yahoo! News (news.yahoo.com), 5/19/09.
"Father urges mom and sick boy to come back ." CNN.com (www.cnn.com), 5/20/09.
"The case of chemotherapy refusenik Daniel Hauser." Science-Based Medicine (www.sciencebasedmedicine.org), 5/18/09. | 
