By ORAC - RESPECTFUL INSOLENCE
Added: Sun, 10 May 2009 23:00:00 UTC

I and I'm sure others would disagree with the title and some of the text; a 13 year old child raised in a religious family of 8 can hardly be making this decision. This is a clear case of child abuse and brainwashing by his parents.
This is not purely a religious issue but deals with the same quackery spouted by Jenny McCarthy, Oprah, Deepak Chopra and others.
Orac's post is good as this story has been developing for several days and nicely summarizes and comments on some of the main points.
/Mike
Thanks to Crapsquire for the link.

http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/05/another_child_sacrificing_himself_on_the.php

Regular readers here know that I really hate to see stories like the one I'm about to discuss, specifically that of 13-year-old Daniel Hauser, a boy with Hodgkin's lymphoma who is refusing chemotherapy based on religion and his preference for "alternative" therapy, whose parents are also supporting his decision.

Since I'm a bit behind on this story, its having percolated through the blogosphere for the last three or four days, let me start with a bit of context. If there is one theme that I've emphasized time and time again here, it's science- and evidence-based medicine. That means treatments that have been scientifically shown to be efficacious and to have an acceptable risk-benefit ratio. If there's one other point that I've made time and time again, it's that competent adults have the right to choose whatever treatment they wish--or to refuse treatment altogether. That is not to say that quacks have any sort of "right" to provide them with quack treatments, especially since providing such treatments inherently involves making claims for them that are not supportable by science, but, if a competent adult wants to refuse treatment and is aware of the consequences, then I will call him a fool if what he has is a potentially very curable disease like Hodgkin's disease, but it's his call.
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http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2009/05/another_child_sacrificing_himself_on_the.php

TAGGED: ABUSE, CHILDREN, IRRATIONALITY, MEDICINE