Quote:By AMY FORLITI, Associated Press Writer Amy Forliti, Associated Press Writer – 1 hr 18 mins ago
MINNEAPOLIS – A Minnesota judge ruled Friday that a 13-year-old cancer patient must be evaluated by a doctor to determine if the boy would benefit from restarting chemotherapy over his parents' objections.

In a 58-page ruling, Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg found that Daniel Hauser has been "medically neglected" by his parents, Colleen and Anthony Hauser, and was in need of child protection services.

While he allowed Daniel to stay with his parents, the judge gave the Hausers until Tuesday to get an updated chest X-ray for their son and select an oncologist.

If the evaluation shows the cancer had advanced to a point where chemotherapy and radiation would no longer help, the judge said, he would not order the boy to undergo treatment.

The judge wrote that Daniel has only a "rudimentary understanding at best of the risks and benefits of chemotherapy. ... he does not believe he is ill currently. The fact is that he is very ill currently."

Daniel's court-appointed attorney, Philip Elbert, called the decision unfortunate.

"I feel it's a blow to families," he said. "It marginalizes the decisions that parents face every day in regard to their children's medical care. It really affirms the role that big government is better at making our decisions for us."

Elbert said he hadn't spoken to his client yet. The phone line at the Hauser home in Sleepy Eye in southwestern Minnesota had a busy signal Friday. The parents' attorney had no immediate comment but planned to issue a statement.

Daniel was diagnosed with Hodgkin's lymphoma and stopped chemotherapy in February after a single treatment. He and his parents opted instead for "alternative medicines" based on their religious beliefs.

Child protection workers accused Daniel's parents of medical neglect; but in court, his mother insisted the boy wouldn't submit to chemotherapy for religious reasons and she said she wouldn't comply if the court orders it.

Doctors have said Daniel's cancer had up to a 90 percent chance of being cured with chemotherapy and radiation. Without those treatments, doctors said his chances of survival are 5 percent.

Daniel's parents have been supporting what they say is their son's decision to treat the disease with nutritional supplements and other alternative treatments favored by the Nemenhah Band.

The Missouri-based religious group believes in natural healing methods advocated by some American Indians.

After the first chemotherapy treatment, the family said they wanted a second opinion, said Dr. Bruce Bostrom, a pediatric oncologist who recommended Daniel undergo chemotherapy and radiation.

They later informed him that Daniel would not undergo any more chemotherapy. Bostrom said Daniel's tumor shrunk after the first chemotherapy session, but X-rays show it has grown since he stopped the chemotherapy.

"My son is not in any medical danger at this point," Colleen Hauser testified at a court hearing last week. She also testified that Daniel is a medicine man and elder in the Nemenhah Band.

The family's attorney, Calvin Johnson, said Daniel made the decision himself to refuse chemotherapy, but Brown County said he did not have an understanding of what it meant to be a medicine man or an elder.

Court filings also indicated Daniel has a learning disability and can't read.

The Hausers have eight children. Colleen Hauser told the New Ulm Journal newspaper that the family's Catholicism and adherence to the Nemenhah Band are not in conflict, and that she has used natural remedies to treat illness.

Nemenhah was founded in the 1990s by Philip Cloudpiler Landis, who said Thursday he once served four months in prison in Idaho for fraud related to advocating natural remedies.

Landis said he founded the faith after facing his diagnosis of a cancer similar to Daniel Hauser. He said he treated it with diet choices, visits to a sweat lodge and other natural remedies.

___

On the Net:

Hauser case final argument briefs: http://www.courts.state.mn.us/?pageNewsItemDisplay&item45848

Nemenhah Band: http://www.nemenhah.org

(05-17-2009 06:32 AM)Tripster Wrote:  .

All "Daniel's Parents" need to do is file in the 9th Circuit Court to have Daniel "ABORTED" and then they will have Planned Parenthood, ACLU, NAACP, NOW, NAG, PETA, The Flaming Gays, Sean Penn, Alec Baldwin, and scores upon scores of others running to the aid of "Aborting Daniel", THUS, killing two birds with one Stone !!!!!!!

If they "Late Term Abort Terminally Ill Daniel", this gets rid of the Court Case and Cures Daniel's Cancer (embalming fluid kills Cancer Cells ya know) !!!!!!

See how easy all this is ????????????????????

Just "LATE TERM ABORT the KID" and STFU about it all !!!!!!!!

I am sure we could get the Little-god and his "Health and Human Services Czar" handled up on this one chop-chop ....

.

(05-17-2009 07:39 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Just imagine how much better the world would be if we could abort you?

(05-17-2009 08:12 PM)Ninerfan1 Wrote:  

(05-17-2009 07:39 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Just imagine how much better the world would be if we could abort you?

But think of all the satisfaction you'd miss out on since it would mean one of your buddies couldn't strap on a bomb and blow him up.

(05-17-2009 08:24 PM)RobertN Wrote:  

(05-17-2009 08:12 PM)Ninerfan1 Wrote:  

(05-17-2009 07:39 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Just imagine how much better the world would be if we could abort you?

But think of all the satisfaction you'd miss out on since it would mean one of your buddies couldn't strap on a bomb and blow him up.

Yeah, but if there were fewer Trippy and Ninerfan1s in this world, there would be fewer people who would want to strap on bombs to blow up Americans.

(05-17-2009 08:53 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  

(05-17-2009 08:24 PM)RobertN Wrote:  

(05-17-2009 08:12 PM)Ninerfan1 Wrote:  

(05-17-2009 07:39 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Just imagine how much better the world would be if we could abort you?

But think of all the satisfaction you'd miss out on since it would mean one of your buddies couldn't strap on a bomb and blow him up.

Yeah, but if there were fewer Trippy and Ninerfan1s in this world, there would be fewer people who would want to strap on bombs to blow up Americans.

Bug, what's the fashionable terrorist wearing this season? Do the explosives go on the outside or inside of the vest and should the trigger match the bombers shoes?

The world is a better place with guys like Trip and Niner in it....but that's probably why you want to kill them. And let me let you in on a little secret; there really aint no 71 virgins waiting for you and if they were they'd be Muslim virgins, women with moustaches, one eye brow and bad toofers. Sound more like hell than heaven.

(05-17-2009 05:41 PM)Jugnaut Wrote:  As much as I hate gov't intervention, the boy's parents shouldn't be allowed to kill him for their crazy religious beliefs.

(05-17-2009 05:41 PM)Jugnaut Wrote:  As much as I hate gov't intervention, the boy's parents shouldn't be allowed to kill him for their crazy religious beliefs.

(05-18-2009 01:17 AM)nomad2u2001 Wrote:  

(05-17-2009 05:41 PM)Jugnaut Wrote:  As much as I hate gov't intervention, the boy's parents shouldn't be allowed to kill him for their crazy religious beliefs.

I have no idea how right or wrong this ruling is. On one hand it is a religious decision made by the parents with the consultation of a religious figure. On the other there is a life at stake here and the doctors told the court that the boy would have a 90% survival rate.

(05-18-2009 01:55 AM)Tripster Wrote:  .

Where was all this Fake Ass Outcry for John Travolta's son's Scientology Medical Enslavement ???

L. Ron Hubbard's religion of Fluff and Fodder created just 60 years ago and it is the End All Beat All of Religious Genius.

I wonder why no one came to the aid of Jett Travolta to save him ?????

.

(05-17-2009 05:41 PM)Jugnaut Wrote:  As much as I hate gov't intervention, the boy's parents shouldn't be allowed to kill him for their crazy religious beliefs.

(05-17-2009 08:24 PM)RobertN Wrote:  

(05-17-2009 08:12 PM)Ninerfan1 Wrote:  

(05-17-2009 07:39 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Just imagine how much better the world would be if we could abort you?

But think of all the satisfaction you'd miss out on since it would mean one of your buddies couldn't strap on a bomb and blow him up.

Yeah, but if there were fewer Trippy and Ninerfan1s in this world, there would be fewer people who would want to strap on bombs to blow up Americans.

(05-18-2009 10:26 AM)georgia_tech_swagger Wrote:  

(05-17-2009 05:41 PM)Jugnaut Wrote:  As much as I hate gov't intervention, the boy's parents shouldn't be allowed to kill him for their crazy religious beliefs.

+1

(05-17-2009 08:24 PM)RobertN Wrote:  Yeah, but if there were fewer Trippy and Ninerfan1s in this world, there would be fewer people who would want to strap on bombs to blow up Americans.