....religious zealots.

Chemo refusal spotlights medical, religious fight
By Ben Jones and Carolyn Pesce, USA TODAY
NEW ULM, Minnesota — The need of states to protect children who are
suffering from life-threatening diseases is increasingly colliding with
religious choices of parents, including one case where a child has died.

As a Wisconsin woman stood trial Wednesday for the death of her
daughter, authorities nationwide were searching for a Minnesota mother
who vanished with her cancer-stricken 13-year-old son, refusing
chemotherapy that doctors say could save his life.

Colleen Hauser and her son, Daniel, who has Hodgkin's lymphoma,
apparently left their southern Minnesota home sometime after a doctor's
appointment and court-ordered X-ray on Monday showed his tumor had grown.

Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg, who had ruled last week that
Daniel's parents were medically neglecting him, issued an arrest warrant
Tuesday for Colleen Hauser and ruled her in contempt of court. Rodenberg
also ordered that Daniel be placed in foster care and immediately
evaluated by a cancer specialist for treatment.

Meanwhile, Leilani Neumann, 41, of Weston, Wis., is on trial on a charge
of second-degree homicide for the March 23, 2008, death of her daughter,
Madeline Kara Neumann. The 11-year-old died as a result of untreated
juvenile diabetes. Dale Neumann's trial is scheduled for July.

***In the Minnesota and Wisconsin cases, the families believed religion
would save their children.*** (Ignorant fools...)


The Hausers belong to a religious group that believes in "natural"
healing methods. Daniel has testified he believed chemotherapy would
kill him and told the judge that if anyone tried to force him to take
it, "I'd fight it. I'd punch them and I'd kick them."

The Neumann family believed prayer would save their daughter. In
testimony Wednesday, Jennifer Peaslee said she saw Madeline that
morning, lying unconscious on a bathroom floor.

She said she knew the parents wouldn't take her to a doctor because they
believe the Lord can heal.

Peaslee said she prayed with the family and read Scriptures around the
girl and left convinced God was going to heal the child.

A non-profit group called Children's Healthcare Is a Legal Duty is
tracking five criminal prosecutions around the U.S., all cases that
involve children being denied health care because of religious beliefs.
Including the Wisconsin case, there are two cases in Oregon; one case in
Tennessee; and one case in Pennsylvania.

Since 1983 the group, which says it works to stop abusive religious and
cultural practices, has tracked 66 similar prosecutions.

"It's a small number of children compared to the total problem of child
abuse and neglect in this country but they still deserve the right to
live," said Rita Swan, the group's executive director.

Swan said in many cases religious exemptions in state law have
discouraged prosecutors from filing charges and police from
investigating cases.

Wisconsin state Sen. Lena Taylor plans to introduce legislation that
would eliminate the state's current exemption. Eric Peterson, Taylor's
chief of staff, said the bill will would replace the exemption with an
"affirmative defense" mechanism.

That defense could protect parents from being prosecuted if they can
prove they provided reasonable medical care.

Swan said only five states —Hawaii, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Maryland
and North Carolina— have no religious exemptions for child abuse and
neglect in state civil or criminal codes.

"(And) they are hard to prosecute too for other reasons from the law,"
she said. "These are grief-stricken parents and they can be sympathetic
defendants. They love their child and they were doing what they thought
was in their child's best interest."

Swan, a former Christian Scientist, lost her son to meningitis, a
treatable disease after forgoing medical care in favor of spiritual
"treatments" practiced by her church.

"The Christian Science practitioners were pooh-poohing our fears and
telling us that our fear was a sin and showed a lack of trust in God and
a lack of faith in them, that our fears were causing our baby to be
sick," she said.

Swan left the church after her son's death and became an activist on the
issue.

Anthony Hauser said in Tuesday's hearing he didn't know where he wife
was and that he was disappointed she didn't show up for the hearing.

In Wednesday's editions of the Star Tribune of Minneapolis he said he
and his wife had a plan for Tuesday's hearing and he was a "bit
disappointed" she didn't follow it.

"We were going to present a treatment plan to the court. If they didn't
go with it, we would appeal it," he told the newspaper.

"I know many people around here who have had cancer, they did the chemo,
it would come back," Hauser told the newspaper. "They did the chemo
again and again and they are all in the grave. Chemo isn't foolproof."

In both cases the children's illnesses are treatable.

Daniel's Hodgkin's lymphoma, diagnosed in January, is considered highly
curable with chemotherapy and radiation, but the boy quit chemo after a
single treatment.

The judge has said Daniel, who has a learning disability and cannot
read, did not understand the risks and benefits of chemotherapy and
didn't believe he was ill.

In Wausau, Dr. Michael Stier, a forensic pathologist from the University
of Wisconsin-Madison, said Madeline lacked insulin which would have
allowed glucose, a simple sugar, to go from her blood to tissue.
Instead, the glucose built up in her body, which began to break down fat
and produced acid.

The girl began to exhibit symptoms including excessive thirst and
frequent urination, according to police reports. Because she had not
suffered severe brain swelling, she might have survived had she been
taken to a doctor the morning of her death, Stier said.

"This is not an acute event," Stier said. "This didn't happen in minutes
or hours. This progressed over days, if not weeks."

Sara Sinal, a professor and physician at Wake Forest University Baptist
Medical Center in Winston-Salem, N.C., said preventable deaths are often
associated with small sects where the children don't attend public schools.

"There's not a lot of ability for (medical) recognition and
intervention," said Sinal, who co-authored an article on Religion and
Medical Neglect in the July 2008, Southern Medical Journal.

The Hausers are Roman Catholic and but also believe in the "do no harm"
philosophy of the Nemenhah Band, a Missouri-based religious group that
believes in natural healing methods advocated by some American Indians.
Colleen Hauser testified earlier that she had been treating his cancer
with herbal supplements, vitamins, ionized water and other natural
alternatives.

The founder of Nemenhah, Philip Cloudpiler Landis, said it was a bad
idea for Colleen Hauser to flee with her son. "You don't solve anything
by disregarding the order of the judge," Landis said.

The family's doctor, James Joyce, testified by telephone that he
examined Daniel on Monday, and that an X-ray showed his tumor had grown
to the size it was when he was first diagnosed.

"He had basically gotten back all the trouble he had in January," the
doctor said.

Joyce testified that he offered to make appointments for Daniel with
oncologists, but the Hausers declined, then left in a rush with lawyer
Susan Daya.

"Under Susan Daya's urging, they indicated they had other places to go,"
Joyce said.

Daya did not immediately respond to a call Tuesday from the Associated
Press. The court also tried to reach her during the hearing, but got no
answer.

Minnesota statutes require parents to provide necessary medical care for
a child, Rodenberg wrote. The statutes say alternative and complementary
health care methods aren't enough.