[Wil H]

Dont blame the kid for his parents' choice.

The child is suprisingly bright, well informed, well read, articulate, and very gracious in the face of outrageous governmental abuse.

He has already experienced the side effects of chemo and therefore speaks from experience.

For you to dismiss his valued judgement base on his research and experience based solely on your disdain for the the name he was given by someone else is, frankly, mystifying.

[Red RN]

Having worked in oncology I can tell you that the side effects of chemo can be terrible. But I can also tell you that those "clinics" in Mexico do nothing but take desperate people's money.

[PzLdr]

I knew a young woman many years ago who had Hodgkins lymphoma. She also did not want to deal with the effects of chemo [which is the young man's real complaint. If it didn't affect him badly, I think we could assume he'd stay on the regimen]. She was bright, well informed, well read, a college graduate. And like Mr. Cherrix she grasped at straws that would allow her [a]to avoid chemotherapy, [b] offer a course of treatment with surface plausibility that a cure was theoretically possible and [c]pretend that all was or would be well. The result was her death at an early age. So I have a basis for questioning his 'valued judgment', which seems more concerned with the treatment he's received than the disease that treatment is intended for. [See, for example the inconsistency of his position that he would rather to die than undergo further chemotherapy, while seeking some quasi-holistic cure to save his life.

As for noting his name, it's a lot like the phrase, "You are what you eat". Holistic medicine and "hippy" go together like 'peanut butter and jelly'. And the value system that produced the name may well have influenced his thought process and his choices. Mystify away.