Remember Daniel Hauser? He was the boy with Hodgkin’s lymphoma whose mother refused to let him undergo chemotherapy because she wanted him to get better with “natural remedies” (like herbs and vitamins). This would likely have led to his death.
Then a judge intervened and said Daniel had to undergo chemo.
(Then the mother kidnapped him for a couple days… because how dare anyone try to save her son with modern medicine!?)
Anyway… cut to this week. Guess what’s happening to a cancerous tumor in Daniel’s chest?
It’s shrinking! Looks like the chemo is paying off, right?
Of course not, says the family:
… the Hauser family attributes much of his progress to the complementary use of vitamins and minerals to boost his immune system, [family spokesman] Dan Zwakman said.
In fact, the family seems to be going out of their way to offer Daniel all possible pseudoscientific alternatives to real medicine — including acupuncture and an osteopathic doctor (they can cure cancer by treating the “whole self”?):
“We don’t know what all the benefits might be, but we know [acupuncture] helps many people cope with pain. This is sort of uncharted territory,” said the attorney, Barbara Gislason, of Fridley.
The family is continuing to comply with court-ordered chemotherapy, Gislason said. But the Hausers also are working with a Mankato osteopath “who is helping them build a local integrative and complementary team to best serve their son’s needs,” she said.
Of course, the Hausers had been trying alternative medicines for months to no avail. Meanwhile, two sessions of chemo and the tumor has shrunk significantly.
How badly do you have to hate science to go through all of this?
(Thanks to Nick for the link!)
