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Parents of a 13-year old girl with Hodgkin's disease, a cancer that targets lynphatic tissues, is in a legal battle with the State of Texas over her treatment, according to the latest Associated Press story. The patient was diagnosed with the disease in January and has received chemotherapy, but the parents came to believe that continued radiation therapy, which was recommended by the doctors, would do more harm than good.
"After a doctor informed Child Protective Services that her parents were interfering with treatment," the mother fled with the child, "prompting the state to take custody of the girl," according to the AP story. The parents are seeking the Court's permission to take the girl to a treatment center in Kansas that would perform intravenous Vitamin C treatment--an "alternative" considered worthless by most physicians. Last week, a District Judge ruled that the girl must undergo chemotherapy first.
Clearly, parents have genuine and understandable concerns about and distrust for the drastic radiation therapy, but the current medical knowledge does not support their choice to put their daughter through a Vitamin C treatment only. The state also has a clear interest in protecting the child from parents' misguided and harmful medical decisions, but the instruments of the state that is readily available--the Child Protective Services--is too extreme and ineffective at addressing the child's best interest in medical decision-making. As a less drastic alternative, Judge should have appointed a medically knowledgeable case worker to represent the interest of the child foremost and allow that person to negotiate with both parents and physicians.
Posted by Emi on Oct 23, 2005