RSS13 Year Old Minnesota Cancer Patient Daniel Hauser and Mother Colleen Hauser Still Missing … Believed to be in Mexico
The case of missing Daniel Hauser has also turned into one of ethics. Is it right for parents to 
withhold medical treatment from their son because of religious beliefs. Is it right for a state to force medical treatment?
13 year old cancer patient Daniel Hauser and his mother Colleen Hauser continue to be missing as an arrest warrant was issued last Thursday for the mother who fled with her son to avoid chemotherapy treatments. The new warrant for the mother is for deprivation of parental rights. It is thought that the two are on their way to Mexico for alternative cancer treatment. It is widely held that Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a highly curable form of cancer when treated with chemo and radiation.
Colleen Hauser’s son, Daniel, has Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The two from Minnesota were seen in Southern California on Tuesday morning and authorities have said they could be in Mexico.
“Hopefully we’ll find Daniel, for Daniel’s sake,” Brown County Sheriff Rich Hoffmann said Thursday
Authorities believe the mother and son fled Monday after a court-ordered X-ray showed a tumor in Daniel’s chest was growing. Doctors have said the tumor will likely kill Daniel without conventional treatment, but Colleen Hauser favors healing methods of an American Indian religious group known as the Nemenhah Band.
Daniel Hauser
Although Hodgkin’s lymphoma is a highly curable, the parents of Daniel Hauser rejected chemotherapy after a single treatment, with the boy’s mother saying that putting toxic substances in the body violates the family’s religious convictions. However, Brown County District Judge John R. Rodenberg in an order to “apprehend and detain“ Daniel and Colleen Hauser as it was “His best interests require it.”
During the hearing, Dr. James Joyce testified he saw the boy and his mother on Monday at his office. He said the boy had “an enlarged lymph node” near his right clavicle and that the X-ray showed “significant worsening” of a mass in his chest.
In addition, the boy complained of “extreme pain” at the site where a port had been inserted to deliver an initial round of chemotherapy. The pain was “most likely caused by the tumor or mass pressing on the port,” testified Joyce, who called the X-ray “fairly dramatic” evidence that the cancer was worsening.
Rodenberg ordered custody of the boy transferred to Brown County Family Services and issued a contempt order for the mother.
Boy Refusing Chemo Ordered to Foster Care (and Other Updates)
To date, there are no new leads in the case of missing Daniel Hauser as both mother and son are still on the run.
UPDATE I: Interpol joins search for missing Minn. mom, son
Posted May 24, 2009 by Scared Monkeys Bizarre, Child Welfare, Civil Rights, Government, Healthcare, Legal - Court Room - Trial, Mexico, Missing Persons | 7 comments |
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7 Responses to “13 Year Old Minnesota Cancer Patient Daniel Hauser and Mother Colleen Hauser Still Missing … Believed to be in Mexico”
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This is not good if she went to Mexico to get treatment…
AMAZING!
We live in the best country for health care and we still have those that believe in some miracle cure that might lie in a third-world nation.
They’ll be back…
This is a tough one. You won’t believe what I think. I won’t say.
Jerry
lets hear it Jerry as I am conflicted on this one as well. I do not believe the govt should be able to dictate care. However, I also have a bit of an issue with the parents.
I know people that went to Mexico to clinics for cancer care when there were told to go home and take care of their affairs, basically sent hoem to die. They lived for years.
R
When I heard a talk show mouthpiece say that the boy should be strapped down and given the chemo treatment, I just shuttered.
No one can guarantee this boy a cure, not the doctors not the lawyers. Chemo treatment is painful and we have no idea how this boy was treated. Maybe he was restrained and he was strapped down. The parents are rejecting the chemo treatment because they feel it is torture. Were they given any other choices in the US?
If the feeling is that the law can force treatment, then we need to haul in all the people in hospice and force them into painful treatments, that may or may not extend their lives.
There is a fine line between medical good and medical evil. There is a fine line between individual freedom and big brother. I do not believe that in this case it is child abuse. These parents have a faith that allows them to know that what exists on this earth is not all. I believe that they truly want what is best for their child.
WOW! This is a tough one. I don’t think the government should tell anyone they can or cannot take medical treatments, I think that should be left up to the family. However, I can’t understand a parent not wanting to get the treatment when it is a highly curable form of cancer. You cannot make that decision based on one treatment. This doesn’t sound much different from Scientology. This is why we have doctors and especially if there is a high probability of a cure from taking the treatments. I understand that the mother doesn’t really want to put toxins in her child’s body but you have to do something or just let cancer take over. I would at least give it a shot. There is nothing wrong with having faith but it doesn’t mean to stop all treatment, this is not the dark ages. As Hope pointed out, we have the best health care in the world, why would you not use it?
I am a firm believer in the fact that they government should never be allowed to dictate healthcare. Just like I believe they should never be able to deny it.
SM fought vigorously to prevent government and courts from having starvation be justice.
Scared Monkeys on CNN – Terri Schiavo Case
http://treyjackson.typepad.com/junction/files/cnnblogs.wmv
This is a ticklish situation especially in this administrations recent need to apply socialism to every aspect of our society. The fact that the boy is a minor obviously compounds the issue. Technically, I believe that there is no law that say a parent has to make their child get immunized. Of course there are consequences, like they could never attend school and would have to be home-schooled.
The question that arises is I wonder how often something like this occurs and the authorities never know a child has cancer.
My belief is that a childs welfare should always come first no matter what one’s religious beliefs are. God would never want harm to come to a child in the name of religion.
R
Nearly 30 years ago, my wife worked with a pediatric cardiologist who treated a lot of Jehovah Witness patients. As you may know, Jehovah Witness refuse to have a blood transfusion. This was before AIDS.
He would take the child’s own blood and save it (this was really novel at the time). He would also add plasma expanders to the blood to make it go further, but without the parent’s permission, he would also get a court order for a transfusion if it were needed. (As far as I know he never used it, but he would have the children typed and cross-matched—which the parents didn’t know about either).
I’d do the same if I were in this Physician’s shoes. I would not let a kid die needlessly, even if it meant going to jail or being sued.
This boy has a 90% plus chance of being cured if chemo is started within the next 3 months. He has about a 1% chance if he does not receive the treatment.
Socialized medicine becomes rationed medicine after a few years. I don’t want the government dictating my treatment or lack there of.
I’ve really wrestled with this boy’s story. Call me a hypocrite, but I’d rule in favor of forced treatment. I’m sorry, it goes against everything I believe, and it’s a very emotional response with no analysis of the potential implications—which can’t be good when government gets involved.
Jerry