Woo woo, parental rights and the life of a child

[swellman]

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/ap/20030506/ap_on_re_us/surgery_debate_5

From the article:

Surgeons say 2-year-old Noshin Hoque will probably die within a year or two unless the tumor growing deep in her brain is removed. But the operation itself will probably kill her or leave her blind or paralyzed.

Given those odds, the little girl's parents, Jalal and Shaheda Hoque, decided not to let doctors operate, and instead started taking her to a Montreal homeopath for herbal and nutritional treatments in hopes of curing her.

But now Michigan prosecutors have taken the Hoques to court to force them to go ahead with the surgery in a case that revisits the question of who should decide what is best for the child when it comes to lifesaving medical treatment.

...

Such disputes occur from time to time around the country, and judges have generally ruled that parents cannot withhold lifesaving medical care from a seriously ill child.

...

Lawrence Schneiderman, a doctor of internal medicine and a medical ethicist who teaches at the University of California at San Diego, said the Hoques' situation is also different because surgery in this case is so risky.

"The clinical condition of the child is so serious that quality-of-life considerations should take precedence over a prolongation of life. Therefore, the parents have a right to decide what they think is in the best interest of their child," he said.

But Schneiderman warned that any suggestion that homeopathic treatment can cure or ease cancer is quackery. He suggested that the Hoques instead concentrate on making their daughter as comfortable as possible.

"There are nicer, easier, better things you can do for her than take her up to Canada for this foolishness," he said.

A tough case to sort out. Does the government have the right to force a child to undergo a drastic treatment that will likely kill her? Or is it just a complex case of child neglect when the parents resort demonstrably bogus healing techniques?

Glad I am not the judge in this case.








edited for typo

[Dancing David]

As someone who did not recieve adequate medical treatment as a child I usually favor intervention, this one however is different. Two bad choices, so the prosecutors want to step in, bet they regret it at election time.
This is not like keeping a diabetic from insulin.

Peace
dancing David

[ImpyTimpy]

This is a pretty nasty case actually.. They're damned if they do and they're damned if they don't. I think the alternative medicine decision by the parents is a last ditch effort to try and save their child. Surgery is basically either a death sentence or a sentence to live with horrible complications. No surgery is an outright death sentence too. The alternative medicine is the last glimmer of hope for the poor parents. I feel really sorry them and their child.

[Hazelip]

The parents have chosen a medical treatment.
The treatment they have chosen will not work.
The treatment that will work, they have refused because of risk.
I think a requirement that all treatments used for children be medically sound might not be a bad idea.

I'm just not sure how to feel on this one. The kid's gonna die. Does she die in blissful drug-induced comfort, or knocking back the homeopathic swill that's only a lie?

[swellman]

My father died of cancer in 1995. He underwent conventional medical treatments, but in the end it could not save him. Nothing could have. And I resent to this day all the woo woo advice, articles and miscellaneous junk "science" people threw at me, well meaning they might have been. Shark cartilage, herbal remedies, ad nauseum - I heard it all. I would have done anything to save him, but to resort to such crap is false hope at best, and likely bringing the end sooner.

That said, I now have kids. If one of them had a tumor like this child, I would not resort to nonsense treatments. But I cannot say for certain whether I would approve the operation. It would be a family decision working with our doctor.

I think the state got involved in this case because they abandonded sound medical practice. If they had worked with the pediatrician and privately come to a decision not to proceed with the operation, I doubt we would be reading about it.

[Roadtoad]

I'm torn. Both alternatives are bad, (the homeopath is the worst of the two), but when you consider the surgery could kill the kid as well, what do you do?

If it were me, I'd go with the surgery, and hope for the best. At least there, the kid has something resembling a fighting chance. With the homeopath, this child will die.

But the prosecutor, in this instance, is going too far. I agree, surgery is the best hope, but this is not the way to handle it. I'm not sure what the best way is, but this ain't it. (God, I hate questions like this.)

[Hypocolius]

Originally posted by swellman
My father died of cancer in 1995. He underwent conventional medical treatments, but in the end it could not save him. Nothing could have. And I resent to this day all the woo woo advice, articles and miscellaneous junk "science" people threw at me, well meaning they might have been. Shark cartilage, herbal remedies, ad nauseum - I heard it all. I would have done anything to save him, but to resort to such crap is false hope at best, and likely bringing the end sooner.

I'm not sure I totally agree. My dad died 3 years ago, of something called "Cerebro-spinal dystrophy". The effect on him was basically like Parkinson's, he was mentally sharp, but his motor control was deteriorating rapidly. After trying every conventional doc in the book, we sent him down to Durban for Hyperbaric Oxygen Therpay (basically sitting in a decompression chamber in a high pressure oxygen environment). We'd heard it was used for kids with cerebral palsy, and thought why not? Of course, it didn't work, but the fact that we did it, we tried to beat this f*cking awful thing that was happening to my dad... we couldn't not try. False hope it may have been, but it felt better than sitting around waiting for him to die.

Everybody's situation is different, and sometimes placebos aren't just for the person who's sick, but for those that love them as well.

[Bjorn]

Originally posted by Hypocolius
Everybody's situation is different, and sometimes placebos aren't just for the person who's sick, but for those that love them as well. Very good point. My father-in-law died of lung cancer, and he/we went through quite a few of the non-working fashion-'cures' of the time.

They didn't work and he died as the doctors predicted, but maybe it helped him/us that we were doing something.

On the other hand, if/when it is me, I hope I have the willpower and courage to chase a few dreams (sailing to that island) instead of chasing the 'miracle cure'. :confused:

[reprise]

I'm inclined to agree with the viewpoint that we wouldn't even be hearing about this if it weren't for the parents' decision to involve a homeopath.

Would I subject a child of mine in the same situation to that operation - most definitely not, and I'd resent any court trying to force me to do so unless I was failing to provide my child with appropriate palliative care (and you can bet I'd be seeking the best palliative care available).

Does anyone remember the case in Britain a year or so ago when the parents of conjoined twins were forced to have the children separated against their wishes (knowing that one twin would certainly die during or soon after the operation and the other might not survive either)? That's another case in which I felt that the legal system had no right to interfere beyond ensuring that the children were receiving adequate palliative care.

We had a case in Queensland last year where the parents of a 2 year old with leukaemia refused convential treatment on the grounds that chemotherapy was an extremely distressing experience to which they did not wish to subject their daughter. The court - quite rightly, IMHO - ruled against the parents on the grounds that the chances of the child surviving childhood and beyond following chemotherapy were extremely high (upwards of 70%), that chemotherapy could be discontinued if it was found not to be working, and that the parents could offer no reasonable proof that their child would suffer any less distress from untreated leukaemia than she would from chemotherapy. That's one case in which a court really DID act to protect the interests of the child.

[Advocate]

This whole situation seems very sad to me. I don't think the government should be interfering. Unless the homeopathic treatment has been shown to be dangerous, then using it is basically the equivalnt of doing nothing. From what I have seen, the standard treatment is likely to kill the child anyway, so doing nothing (except trying to relieve pain and discomfort) seems like a viable medical option. Since the homeopathic treatment has not been shown to either help or harm the child, why is it even a consideration? If it was being used instead of a more effective procedure that would be a different story, but even there the problem would be in not using the effective treatment, not in using an ineffective or unproven one. Otherwise you end up making things like praying for the sick illegal as an unproven "treatment".

[DialecticMaterialist]

Personally I think the parents are sick and am more then supposing that some sort of new age beliefs have clouded their judgement.

Yes the case is nasty, damned if you do, and damned it you don't.

But more precisely damned if you do and even more damned if you don't.

What standard am I using? That of keeping one's options open. An inevitable death vs a risk of death. The surgery has two options for an outcome, refusal has one.

If the parents do not let the child jave surgery, then it is almost certain the child will die. If surgery is allowed though at least the child has a better chance.

[Eos of the Eons]

Originally posted by Advocate

If it was being used instead of a more effective procedure that would be a different story, but even there the problem would be in not using the effective treatment, not in using an ineffective or unproven one. Otherwise you end up making things like praying for the sick illegal as an unproven "treatment".

The problem is that people think the idiotic homeopathy is more 'humane', and 'more effective'...blah blah blah.

For people to get sucked in and give those people money to continue their deception is not 'doing nothing'. It drives the homeopathy industry, and then people do choose it over effective treatment that would help them.

It's like buying the Enquirer...sure they don't hurt much, but your paying to have that mindless drivel remain in business. People are making money off of the deception, outright lies, and misinformation.

Don't buy it.