First Nations Girl who Refused Chemo has Died

[Argus]

How about 80-90%?

How about if the chance of living without treatment is 0%?

[Guest]

And if their 11 year old daughter decided she wanted to have sex with a forty year old man and their parents agreed to that you'd want them in prison for life.

If their 11 year old daughter decided she wanted to climb a mountain, without ropes or safety gear, and she fell to her death you'd want them imprisoned for that, too.

11 year olds are not old enough to make decisions of this consequence. They're not even old enough to decide to get a tattoo or a piercing! Most 11 year olds don't even get to decide what they're going to have for dinner.

Yeah, all that's true. I still can't see forcing the kid to undergo a treatment she doesn't want to. Suffering and pain with no definite outcome. I know it's not a popular view. It's not even that rational a view. Still, I support the kid's right to say no.

[-1=e^ipi]

My point was just that if we are going to force parents to treat children, especially with painful long term procedures, that many doctors avoid for themselves, how good does the prognosis have to be?

How about, if the stastistical value of the child's life times the increased probability of living exceeds the costs of the medical intervention?

[Smallc]

Yeah, all that's true. I still can't see forcing the kid to undergo a treatment she doesn't want to. Suffering and pain with no definite outcome. I know it's not a popular view. It's not even that rational a view. Still, I support the kid's right to say no.

It was pretty close to definite.

[guyser]

I'm not sure how what the doctors did was disrespecting them. They were doing their jobs. A bunch of hocus pocus does nothing but get in the way.

Thats fine, but there may be some underlying lack of respect that was there ( I dont know)

Maybe it means for the Docs to try a different approach to them. It doesnt say disregard what youve learned in Med school

[Mighty AC]

How about, if the stastistical value of the child's life times the increased probability of living exceeds the costs of the medical intervention?

Not bad. Would a little sociopath have a lower statistical value?

[Boges]

We'll leave all that to those Death Panels the Amurikans say we have.

[-1=e^ipi]

Not bad. Would a little sociopath have a lower statistical value?

There are many attempts at trying to objectively measure the value of a statistical life.

http://scholar.google.ca/scholar?hl=en&q=value+of+statistical+life&btnG=&as_sdt=1%2C5&as_sdtp=

[cybercoma]

Technically, you don't know that and that hypothesis is unfalsifiable.

Ok. Well you hold out faith that you'll live forever and the rest of us will operate within reality.

[cybercoma]

It's extremely close. She had an almost absolute certainty of survival. Now she's dead.

90% is not almost absolute. A 10% fail rate is enough to ban medications in trials. Squawking about numbers misses the point though. The point is that it's her and her family's choice. Chemo therapy is torture. You're poisoning yourself to try to destroy the cancer. I don't blame anyone who doesn't want to go through that agony and there are many who don't.

[cybercoma]

She isn't old enough to understand death and consciousness in a way that would allow her to make this decision properly.

Nobody understands death and consciousness in a way that would allow them to make that decision properly. Unless you want to specifically define what constitutes "understanding" and "properly." What I think you mean to say is she and her family made a decision you don't understand and don't agree with so it must be wrong.

[cybercoma]

I would have to say that I think the parents were wrong in not giving their daughter chemo treatment.

They did give her chemo, saw the effects, and chose to stop. That's very different from never seeing a doctor or having her treated at all. Edited January 28, 2015 by cybercoma

[Boges]

Nobody understands death and consciousness in a way that would allow them to make that decision properly. Unless you want to specifically define what constitutes "understanding" and "properly." What I think you mean to say is she and her family made a decision you don't understand and don't agree with so it must be wrong.

Rhetorical Question I know but how many young people commit suicide because of things that an adult would find hilariously common place?

Children have no perspective, that comes with age and experience. But not when the parents thinks traditional native methods are better than modern medicine.

This kid would have been taken away from her parents if they were white. The judge pretty much said as much when he told the doctors to be respectful of the native perspective.

[cybercoma]

I'm not comfortable with saying that it's all up to the parents.

In this case, maybe there's an argument to make that the chemo was too awful and wouldn't have guaranteed survival anyway. I still don't agree, but let's leave this case aside for the moment and look at the more general case when parents' religious beliefs come into conflict with modern medicine.

We've had court battles where Jehovah's Witnesses went to court to fight against life-saving blood transfusions. We've had numerous cases of children dying of easily treatable causes because their parents only believe in faith healing. In the case of this Native girl, you can press the argument that there's no guarantee that chemo would have saved her, but that can't be said of all these cases. There are plenty of cases every year where children die needlessly because of their parents' beliefs. So I'm simply not comfortable saying "it's up to the parents, end of story."

I believe that people have the right to raise their children as they see fit, but that right doesn't extend to include abuse or negligence or failure to provide the essentials of life. Abuse, negligence, and failure to provide the essentials of life are three things that can definitely be said faith-healing parents let children suffer and die by withholding medical care.

As a general principle, I completely reject the idea that parents have carte-blanche to withhold medical care for religious reasons.

Now, maybe you can argue that in specific cases that declining medical treatment is a reasonable decision. Maybe you could even convince me that this was one of those instances, although I'm skeptical of that. But in the general case, no.

-k

As I said in my last response. They didn't withhold medical treatment. They tried chemo, saw the effects, then declined further treatment. That's very different from refusing to bring a sick child to a hospital.

[cybercoma]

http://www.nationalpost.com/m/wp/blog.html?b=news.nationalpost.com/2015/01/20/makayla-sault-likely-died-from-rebounding-cancer-not-chemotherapy-effects-specialist

The end of this article is extremely disturbing. A judge choosing traditional rights over a child's life is bad enough, but a group of doctors - the group of doctors - telling other physicians to ignore their training and be culturally sensitive even when they know something is wrong is insane.

Why even bother training doctors? Why not just let everyone go to medecine men and cure themselves through tradition and prayer? Oh that's right, we tried that, and it doesn't work. This is a dangerous strain of political correctness that has absolutely no place in issues of science and life and death healthcare.

You need to learn how to listen to what people are saying.

[cybercoma]

How about if the chance of living without treatment is 0%?

That's not true either.

[cybercoma]

Rhetorical Question I know but how many young people commit suicide because of things that an adult would find hilariously common place?

Children have no perspective, that comes with age and experience. But not when the parents thinks traditional native methods are better than modern medicine.

This kid would have been taken away from her parents if they were white. The judge pretty much said as much when he told the doctors to be respectful of the native perspective.

I'm not basing my opinions on some hypothetical strawman scenario you dreamed up about the courts taking away white people's kids. You know whose kids were taken away in our history though, right? Edited January 28, 2015 by cybercoma

[Boges]

I'm not basing my opinions on some hypothetical strawman scenario you dreamed up about the courts taking away white people's kids. You know whose kids were taken away in our history though, right?

Sort of like this? http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/australiaandthepacific/australia/10338656/Jehovahs-Witness-teenager-loses-bid-to-refuse-blood-transfusion.html

[Black Dog]

They did give her chemo, saw the effects, and chose to stop. That's very different from never seeing a doctor or having her treated at all.

I hope they are happy with their decision to have a permanently dead daughter instead of a temporarily sick one. Yay.

[Black Dog]

The kicker for me in this is that they weren't even pursuing "traditional medicine," but garden variety quackery from a Florida "naturopath."

I wonder what kind of precedent this sets for other idiots with sick kids who don't have the First Nation angle to fall back on. After all, if aboriginal people can murder their children in this way, why can't the rest of us?

[Boges]

The kicker for me in this is that they weren't even pursuing "traditional medicine," but garden variety quackery from a Florida "naturopath."

I wonder what kind of precedent this sets for other idiots with sick kids who don't have the First Nation angle to fall back on. After all, if aboriginal people can murder their children in this way, why can't the rest of us?

It's reverse racism. I've read a lot of opinions asking why First Nations children aren't afforded the same protections other children have from CAS.

[AngusThermopyle]

I hope they are happy with their decision to have a permanently dead daughter instead of a temporarily sick one. Yay.

At the end of the day, when one eliminates all the hand wrenching and hyperbole over the evil and torturous effects of treatment this is the only point that truly matters.

[Smallc]

That's not true either.

Actually, according to more than one Oncologist, it is.

[Smallc]

The kicker for me in this is that they weren't even pursuing "traditional medicine," but garden variety quackery from a Florida "naturopath."

I wonder what kind of precedent this sets for other idiots with sick kids who don't have the First Nation angle to fall back on. After all, if aboriginal people can murder their children in this way, why can't the rest of us?

Now do you see the danger in over compensation? This never should have been allowed to happen.

[Bonam]

We hear today that a women left her 6-year-old at home alone for 90 minutes has been charged and her child has been taken away. I'm not defending this woman but it's an example of the state stepping in for the "benefit" of the child.

I missed that story. That is just freaking stupid. Completely destroying a family for that? A parent can't go for a quick run to the grocery store while their kid is watching TV at home anymore?

Edited January 28, 2015 by Bonam