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.

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.

barlio wrote:No conflict my butt. Medicine man does not a doctor make.
I read a story a couple of days ago about a guy in India who hadn't bathed in 30+ years. He would smoke marijuana in a sweatlodge to "cleanse" himself. He could only get a job working out in a field so that people wouldn't smell him. He had lost the business he owned because people were offended by his smell.
The connection between these two, their both bats**t crazy.

barlio wrote:I read a story a couple of days ago about a guy in India who hadn't bathed in 30+ years.

smiling Assassin wrote:Well, I did exagerate somewhat, but what I mean is that you can't press what you see as our modern medicine onto people. Look at Christian Scientists -- people don't often call them crazies.
sA

"A seer once told Kalau that if he does not take a bath, he would be blessed with a male child,"

mcfly wrote:I agree, he should have chemo, but the judge is in the wrong. The government should not have the right to take a child away from his parents and force him to have treatment.

Minors can't make their own medical decisions because they're too young (and this kid sounds not too bright). If a child's parent's aren't acting in his best interests, its' the job of a family judge to do so.

mcfly wrote:

Minors can't make their own medical decisions because they're too young (and this kid sounds not too bright). If a child's parent's aren't acting in his best interests, its' the job of a family judge to do so.

See, the kid has been told by his parents that God will heal him, so there is no problem to him. They're too religious. But how is it right for the government to tell you how or how not to raise your child? And if you do it wrong, they can take you away, put you in foster care, and mess the kid up forever. (yes, every kid I've ever known that was in foster care was screwed up)

Now, I don't support people that are poor, and raising their kids in horrible circumstances. I am assuming this family is a middle class family, with a home, that has a bit of a nutcase church. If I am wrong, then my argument is invalid. But if he has a good home life, I feel its not the governments choice to ruin his life and mess up his family. Heck, if he's gonna die, then so what. People die ever day, and the worlds overpopulated. If he dies, his parents will be sued anyway...

I agree, he should have chemo, but the judge is in the wrong. The government should not have the right to take a child away from his parents and force him to have treatment.

barlio wrote:No, people always call them crazies. Jk, sort of. I'm not saying that religous medicine is crazy, I do feel that emotion and personal strength does a lot for the body. For some reason (in very extreme cases) natural methods do work. Look at somebody who is always miserable. Chances are they feel sick.

barlio wrote:@smiling assassin: I know that you are exaggerating, but you have to realize that these people are mixing mysticism (sp) with Catholicism. I'm not catholic, but I know for most that is a major no-no . If they actually believe that their beliefs systems are not in conflict then they do have a psychological problem. To deny their child every "reasonable" form of medicine (be it chemo or whatever) would indicate to me (and others I believe) that they're a few bolt shells short of clip.

barlio wrote:/rant over. Sorry sA if I was over preachy. Your my dawg, right?

mcfly wrote:I agree, he should have chemo, but the judge is in the wrong. The government should not have the right to take a child away from his parents and force him to have treatment.

There is a line between taking a child into care because he is being passively or actively abused, and taking a child into care because of his parents' choice of medical treatments.

smiling Assassin wrote:

barlio wrote:No conflict my butt. Medicine man does not a doctor make.
I read a story a couple of days ago about a guy in India who hadn't bathed in 30+ years. He would smoke marijuana in a sweatlodge to "cleanse" himself. He could only get a job working out in a field so that people wouldn't smell him. He had lost the business he owned because people were offended by his smell.
The connection between these two, their both bats**t crazy.

That's the imperialist attitude that takes you on a downhill slope to ethnic cleansing, repression of culture, and ultimately the degradation of many of what we see now as "Primative" practices.

Well, I did exagerate somewhat, but what I mean is that you can't press what you see as our modern medicine onto people. Look at Christian Scientists -- people don't often call them crazies.

sA

I wonder what happens in the case of Jehovah's Witnesses?

You're right, psychosomatism is a very unexplored and relatively useful way to cure the body of illness.

That's the imperialist attitude that takes you on a downhill slope to ethnic cleansing, repression of culture, and ultimately the degradation of many of what we see now as "Primative" practices.

I am catholic, whoopty do! Not so strict (e.g. I believe in Birth Control, Sex before Marraige, Homos O.K. etc. etc.), but Catholic. And there are the sects of crazies, but more often than not, these people are rare and somewhat outcast. It would not only indicate to me, by denying their child medicine, that they're a few BMGs short of the headshot, but they are dangerously neglecting the needs of the child, through their own selfish beliefs. This is a criminal offence, wherever you look at it. I'd put it next to child abuse, and beating, in the books of gaks.

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