Teen with cancer can forgo chemotherapy

A 16-year-old cancer patient 's legal fight ended in victory Wednesday when his family's attorneys and social services officials reached an agreement that would allow him to forgo chemotherapy.

At the start of what was scheduled to be a two-day hearing, Accomack County Circuit Judge Glen A. Tyler announced that both sides had reached a consent decree, which Tyler approved.

Under the decree, Starchild Abraham Cherrix, who is battling Hodgkin's disease, will be treated by an oncologist of his choice who is board-certified in radiation therapy and interested in alternative treatments. The family must provide the court updates on Abraham's treatment and condition every three months until he's cured or turns 18.

Tyler emphasized that the decree states that the parents weren't medically neglectful.

Abraham saw the doctor last week, and defense attorneys told the judge that the doctor has indicated that he thinks that Abraham can be cured.

After the short hearing, the judge looked at Abraham and said, "God bless you, Mr. Cherrix."

Last summer, the teen was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymphatic system considered very treatable in its early stages. He was so debilitated by three months of chemotherapy that he declined a second, more intensive round that doctors recommended early this year.

He since has been using an alternative herbal treatment called the Hoxsey method, the sale of which was banned in the United States in 1960.

After Abraham chose to go on the sugar-free, organic diet and take liquid herbal supplements under the supervision of a Mexican clinic, a social worker asked a juvenile court judge to intervene to protect the teen's health. Last month, the judge found Abraham's parents neglectful and ordered Abraham to report to a hospital for treatment as doctors deem necessary.

Lawyers for the family appealed, and an Accomack County Circuit Court judge suspended that order and scheduled a new trial to settle the dispute. The judge scheduled the trial for two days but has indicated he would like to finish in one, said John Stepanovich, a lawyer for the parents.

Abraham is still on the Hoxsey method, but Stepanovich stressed that the family hasn't ruled out other possible treatments, such as immunotherapy or radiation treatment in small doses.

According to the American Cancer Society, there is no scientific evidence that Hoxsey is effective in treating cancer in people. The herbal treatment is illegal in the United States but can be obtained through clinics in Mexico, and some U.S. naturopathic practitioners use adapted versions of the formula.

It was not unreasonable of the social worker to seek court intervention, given the basic facts of the situation, nor was it unreasonable for the court to intervene.

I couldn't disagree more strongly. The parents and their son collectively agreed that he would not take a second round of chemo due to his reation to his first round, which had already failed. They made a decision the social worker disagreed with, and she or he therefore used the powers of the state in order to coerce them into a different course of action.

What is reasonable about that? It's an abuse of the system - outright declaration that the parents (and their son) do not have the right to make an informed decision about the care of their child. Why not allow social services to outlaw ice cream - after all, there are a lot of fat kids (and adults) who would benefit. Right?

The social worker didn't coerce anybody. She NOTIFIED the court of a situation that looked like it might constitute child neglect: a boy had what is generally a fatal disease if not treated aggressively, mainstream medical experts agree on what is the best course of treatment in most cases and that multiple rounds of treatment are often necessary; the boy had one round of treatment, didn't like it, and the parents were refusing to follow doctors' advice to repeat the treatment. It's not for a social worker to make a definitive decision in a case like this; her job was to notify the court of her reasonable suspicion that court intervention was warranted. The court intervened, consulted with medical experts, consulted with the parents and nearly-adult child, and the parties came to an agreement that the parents and child are apparently comfortable with.

We'd have a lot more dead children if social workers just blindly ignored worrisome parental decisions. Over the years several children have been killed, and more permanently brain-damaged, by parents who for either religious-whacko or new-age-enviro-whacko reasons insisted on keeping their infants/young children on extremely restricted (usually vegan) diets. When social workers encounter a thin sickly child, whose parents are yakking about stuff like "raw foods only" and "no animal products" and feeding the kid nothing but raw vegetables, it's appropriate for the social worker to alert a court, and for the court to intervene.

"The social worker didn't coerce anybody."

Just to make sure I understand, what you are saying is that if you were in this same situation you would desire to have someone else make this decision for you and your family. For example, if you believed that radiation treatments were the best choice you would rather have a judge decide if that's best or if maybe there was some other therapy he could choose that. You might decide a certain course of action is best but you believe that it would be better to have a judge make the final decision for you.

After all, that is what you are prescribing for this family, so I assume that you would want this for yours as well in a similar situation.

I haven't faced this type of situation, but the point is not what the parents want, the point is a reasonable degree of state protection for the child. In this case, it was reasonable for the state to scrutinize the situation, and also reasonable to conclude what it did -- that in this case, the child was competent to participate in the decision-making, and that the parents and child were willing to undertake an alternate type of treatment which, while not the first choice of mainstream medicine, would be under the direction of a legitimate medical professional and completely unreasonable, and that the state should NOT coerce the family into pursuing the recommended therapy they had already tried once and did not want to try again. The state did not yank the boy out of his home while the proceedings were underway.

However, there are plenty of cases -- often discovered too late for the child -- where parents are undertaking dangerous "therapies" for their children, and/or withholding therapies that provide an excellent or even virtually certain chance of saving the child from dying before reaching adulthood. The 4 year old girl who died from "forced water drinking therapy" and a 10 year old girl a few years earlier who died from "rebirthing therapy" (smothered to death while rolled up inside a heavy blanket from which the idiot "therapist" and mother were forcing her to struggle to get out of in a supposed re-enactment of birth), are two examples. Another family starved an infant to the brink of death, and to certain brain damage, by restricting it to a bizarre vegan diet that the parents believed was healthy. I would certainly find it appropriate for the state to respond to those tragedies by tracking down any other families who were participating in "therapies" under the direction of the same "therapists", or imposing such clearly non-life-sustaining dietary programs, and ensuring -- coercively, if necessary -- that they cease doing so.

Would I want the state to intervene if I was one of the idiot parents doing this crap to my kids? Of course not. But being sane, I most certainly do want the state to investigate reasonable suspicions of serious child abuse/neglect, and intervene if investigation finds clear proof that intervention is necessary to protect the child from severe harm. Are there going to be gray areas, where the state may step over the line, inappropriately imposing its own values or pursuing investigations which turn out to be unfounded? Yes, but that's not a reason to abandon the whole concept of state intervention in situations where there is reasonable suspicion of child abuse or neglect. And it is a reason for reasonable parents -- like the ones in this case -- to cooperate with reasonable legal proceedings.

Yes, there are definitely wackos out there and that's not good for the children involved. There are cases where people have done awful things to kids with their misguided ideas.

I saw my cousin go through chemo treatment with his 17-yr. old daughter, who later died. As you can imagine he has very strong opinions about this subject and what the family is going through in making decisions like this. I'm not arguing with the way this turned out, I'm saying that you are setting two different standards here.

"Would I want the state to intervene if I was one of the idiot parents doing this crap to my kids? Of course not. But being sane, I most certainly do want the state to investigate reasonable suspicions of serious child abuse/neglect, and intervene if investigation finds clear proof that intervention is necessary to protect the child from severe harm."

Sounds like you are saying they have no reason to ever investigate you but it would potentially be warranted for anyone else. IOW, you would welcome the involvement for everyone else but since you are a sane and reasonable person (by your own admission) then it would not be appropriate or necessary for you.

Well since I have no children yet, I'm not a candidate for state intervention re child abuse/neglect. I'm just pointing out the obvious fact that people who are legitimate targets for any kind of state intervention, are almost by definition opposed to it in their own case. But that doesn't change the fact that it's appropriate for the state to intervene. Shoplifters don't like getting arrested, drunk drivers don't like getting their licenses revoked, child abusers don't like state intervention in their parenting practices -- and all of these are prone to denying that they actually did what they're accused of doing.

I saw what happened with my cousin. It was the most horrible thing that can happen to parents, IMHO.

It reached a point where they could have done more radiation but the effects were causing such unbelievable pain for her that they had to make a decision to continue, with indeterminate chance for success, or let nature take its course. After many hours of research and consultation and many more hours of agonizing, plus many, many sleepless nights they decided to forgo more therapy. This situation was not unlike what the family in Virginia is going through, except that they believe they have found an alternate therapy which will cure their son. My cousin didn't find any alternates that they believed would give them hope.

I was thinking about what would have happened in my cousin's situation if someone had gotten the authorities involved because they disagreed with the decision to discontinue therapy. The family was already traumatized by what they had been through, then to have someone step in and take away their chance to decide what they all believed was the best course of action would have been heaping even more abuse on them. I can't imagine having to make the choice to see your daughter living every day in agony or letting her die a peaceful death. But I am certain that the family would not have wanted someone else to make the decision for them.

The boy in the Virginia case was apparently in much better shape, with a consensus of mainstream doctors believing that he had a good chance of a complete cure with the treatment they were recommending. I haven't heard of any cases where courts got involved in ordering treatment for a minor who was in an advanced stage of a fatal illness and the recommended treatment offered little chance of a long-term cure. There probably have been such attempts here and there, but they probably don't get far, because there are plenty of mainstream doctors who will testify in favor of the no-treatment choice. And in the case of a child who's legally a minor, but clearly old enough and competent to have his/her wishes factored into the decision, I think it's often appropriate for a court to get involved and make sure that loony beliefs of the parents aren't being imposed on a near-adult child who doesn't really share those beliefs. In the Virginia case, a court heard about a 16 year old boy whose parents had named him "Starchild" and were refusing standard medical care for a fatal condition, and instead taking him to some sketchy alternative clinic in Mexico, and decided it had better get involved and check things out.

It's often hard for a child -- even a teenager -- to voice opposition to the parents' choices. The parents have usually been the day-to-day caretakers of the very sick child, creating a sense of loyalty in the child, and have also had tremendous opportunity to "brainwash" the child into their own views, no matter how loony. Thus a child who, for example, has been drilled from birth in how evil it is to eat any animal product, even dairy that doesn't involve killing the animal, is likely to say s/he supports his/her parents decision to continue that dietary program, even when doctors say it is causing severe illness and permanent damage, and even when the child is really so sure that it wouldn't be a good idea to try eating what the doctors recommend.

Is it infringing on the rights of the parents for a court to intervene there? Well, yes. We start with a basic assumption that parents should be allowed to raise their children as they see fit, and these parents hold very dear their belief that eating animal products is evil and unacceptable. But it would be infringing on the natural rights of the child for a court NOT to intervene. And if court interevention is ever acceptable, then we also have to accept that there will be cases where a court sees reasonable cause to take formal action in order to fully investigate a situation, and then ultimately finds that the parents' choices are within reason and should be allowed to stand.

I'm glad that your cousin's family wasn't subject to any court intervention, but as I noted, I think it would be very unusual in a case such as you described (as it should be).

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