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medpundit |
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Tuesday, November 19, 2002His decision says the Canton Township couple has the right to use a certified holistic doctor and that it is not the court's place to determine whether the alternative treatment will be effective. ``This court cannot find as a matter of law that the treatment option exercised by these informed and caring parents is improper treatment,'' Stucki wrote. ``These are not parents who refused medical treatment or who elected to take Noah to a witch doctor or a shaman, or some other method of treatment which is not recognized by the medical community as legitimate.'' Stucki noted in his ruling that survival for leukemia patients treated in the usual way is not assured and that the chemotherapy can have long-term toxic side effects on the child. ...``The last thing (the Maxins) need is to simultaneously do battle with the medical and legal community over their own well-informed, researched and compassionate decisions regarding medical care for Noah,'' the judge wrote. If the conventional therapy they were rejecting offered a 100% cure with a very low incidence of side effects, I would probably feel differently about this, but the truth is, the treatment has a high incidence of toxic side effects, has to be taken for three and a half years, and has an 85% cure rate. Even if the parents opted for no treatment, I think it would be within their rights to do so. A lot of physicians will disagree with me on this. I know doctors who dismiss patients from their practices if they refuse to immunize their children. And I know doctors who report parents to Children’s Services if they admit to as much as spanking their children. But, they truly do a disservice to their patients by taking such an authoritarian approach. In the end, most parents are better qualified to make decisions about their children’s care than the state. We should reserve the state action for the truly negligent and abusive, not merely those whose decisions and parenting philosophy we disagree with. UPDATE: This, for example, would warrant state intervention. posted by Sydney on 11/19/2002 08:26:00 AM 0 comments 0 Comments: |
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