Daniel Hauser: The Issue Behind the Issue
Monday’s post highlighted the plight of 13-year-old Daniel Hauser who, with his mother, fled Minnesota to avoid chemotherapy treatment. Now, both are back and have agreed to receive the treatment. Much could be written about the issue of rights to reject medical treatment, minority and parental medical rights, freedom of choice over one’s own body, and laws that force infusion of toxic chemicals into the body. However, I believe the real issue in this case and others like it is the lack of options made available to anyone who suffers from cancer.
The court gave Abraham Cherrix (see yesterday’s post) the right to choose a reduced level of conventional therapy complemented by natural immune strengthening therapy which proved successful. This ruling came only after a lengthy and expensive court battle. Indications are that Daniel Hauser received no such compromise offer. It was either stop seeking alternative therapies and submit to conventional therapy exclusively or face serious legal consequences. Now that the family has agreed to the conventional therapy, there is no apparent plan to consider any other therapy to complement it.
The best scenario for the Hausers dilemma would have been for the medical and legal advisers to have consulted with the family about reducing the chemotherapy to a tolerable level along with natural immunotherapy, mind-body and spiritual counseling, physical therapy, and a host of other proven integrative practices. That would likely have satisfied all concerned from the beginning. And, remission, like that of the Cherrix experience, would likely come sooner with much less pain and agony. Unfortunately, the doctors and the lawyers probably didn’t even consider this option.
How long will we continue to tolerate the myth that aggressive chemotherapy, radiation, and surgery are the only way to fight cancer? A wide and virtulally harmless array of modalities have proven themselves in clinical trials and other experiments to make conventional treatment much more effective and less debilitating. Yet, the cancer care community generally pays them little attention. Integrative oncologists are working hard across this country and around the world to provide this new strategy for their patients. They are overwhelmed with patient load. I urge you to seek them out. Find out what they are doing. And, if you need an oncologist, choose one of them. The sooner demand for integrative therapy increases, the sooner conventional oncologists will get the message and train in that practice.