(no subject)

[theweaselking]

Survival rate of Hodgkin's Lymphoma, with treatment: 95%.
Survival rate of Hodgkin's Lymphoma, without treatment: 5%.
Going to court to prevent your son from receiving treatment for Hodgkin's Lymphoma because you're stupid and think God will intervene if you just leave it untreated long enough: Priceless.

Comments

[elffin.livejournal.com]

Oh, they're treating it all right, with herbs and vitamins. Which means that they're not objecting to treatment, they're objecting to "Big Pharma".

An there were justice, someone would tell them: Your child is now a ward of the state, motherfuckers.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Oh, they're treating it all right, with herbs and vitamins.

No, they're *not* treating it. If that was "treatment", then praying about diabetes would also be treatment, and pointing and laughing would be treatment for blunt trauma.

[unknownpoltroon.livejournal.com]

Actually, these people aren't religious, they're just fucking stupid. If they were real zealots, and were just praying a lot, ok, but the fact that they ARE changing his diet and giving him herbs and granola means they seem to think prayer is not enough.
And, while Id be the first one to say modern medicine dosen't know everything, and if you have evidence that an all tomato diet cures it, AND your Dr. Oks it along with whatever treatment and chemo they got, GREAT.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

As far as US law cares, administering a substance to a person to counteract a disease is a treatment. This means that they're treating the kid for the disease. This distinction is the basis of all the "This product has not been evaluated by the FDA for the treatment or prevention of any disease or disorder and this product is not marketed for nor intended for the treatment or prevention of any disease or disorder" fine print swirling around "Herbs, Supplements, and Vitamins."

They're treating the kid with snake oil. If the government can demonstrate that they're doing so as medicine for the disease - and it's kinda vague in the news report as to whether they have or not, but it tends to imply that they have - then they're demonstrably legally incompetent loonies instead of merely well-understood to be incompetent loonies.

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

I think I like you.

[maps-or-guitars.livejournal.com]

If you're going to abandon science that far, what the hell are you doing on the internet? The science and industry which make it possible to say something so patently ridiculous here are the same science and industry that could treat that kid's cancer.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

The internet has nothing to do with science and hasn't since 1993! (the year .com became a TLD).

[elffin.livejournal.com]

Priceless: "Chemotherapy is known to be dangerous. It's a killer."

THAT IS WHY IT WORKS

Ward of the state, motherfuckers.

Using your comment as a springboard for a babbly-thing itching to get out

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

Aye. Every so often I find myself contemplating how many drugs are poisons by design (as opposed to merely poisonous in too-large doses, which is true of ... uh, everything but O₂? I also recall the day Jehova's Witnesses in the middle of an intermittent months-long argument with me about magic, pulled out some NT verse about witches and I pulled out my then-housemate's Greek interlinear NT, read the verse in Greek, and pointed out that the word that got translated 'witch' (and which some folks translate 'poisoner', which is what makes it relevant here) was the root of the English word 'pharmacist'.

Chemotherapy: "We're going to feed you poison and hope that the poison kills the cancer before it kills you." Which, when you put it that bluntly, would sound like a pretty stupid idea except for the fact that it so often works because oncologists are pretty damned good at picking the right poisons and handling the balancing act involved.

General anaesthesia: "We're going to almost kill you and then keep you perched in that state while we work." Which is pretty f'ing dangerous (how many people die from anaesthesia each year despite the skill of anaesthesiologists?), but still Beats The Alternative. (As I understand it -- and somebody please correct me if I'm mistaken -- not only does it make some needed surgeries not-toture, but I get the impression that some surgeries would be nearly impossible (or anyhow much less survivable) without anaesthesia, because shock would kill the patient. Have I got that right?)

Antibiotics: "Here, take this stuff that's poisonous to the bacteria making you sick. Oh, and it's also poisonous to the symbiotic bacteria in your gut, so you may need to replenish those later." I don't know how toxic-to-humans antibiotics are (ignoring, for now, allergies), so maybe they're exquisitely well-targeted poisons, but it's still, "swallow this to poison the germs making you sick." Quinine too, when used to treat malaria, right?

Digitalis (uh, and Belladonna??): "Eat these deadly poisons, but just a tiny amount, because the effects on your heart that'd kill you if you took more, just happens to be the opposite of the effect on your heart that's killing you now. So if we balance the two, they'll cancel out ..."

And then there are the mostly recreational toxins: let's start with alcohol. In wee doses it just tastes good; in moderate to immoderate doses it'll mess you up temporarily -- you'll be intoxicated -- (and can leave some residual long-term damage behind); drink it too fast, and it'll kill ya'.

Ayup. Poisons everywhere and we ingest them on purpose! Sometimes (as you pointed out) specifically because they're poisons ... and in the right doses and the right circumstances, they're healthier than not taking the poison. Wheeee!

Re: Using your comment as a springboard for a babbly-thing itching to get out

[elffin.livejournal.com]

Pretty much. Even oxygen in too-large doses will dissolve in the blood separate from being bound to hemoglobin, and proceed to oxidate whatever it reaches - blood vessel walls, antibodies, white blood cells, organs, retinas, brain tissue etcetcetc.

Re: Using your comment as a springboard for a babbly-thing itching to get out

[jerril]

(As I understand it -- and somebody please correct me if I'm mistaken -- not only does it make some needed surgeries not-toture, but I get the impression that some surgeries would be nearly impossible (or anyhow much less survivable) without anaesthesia, because shock would kill the patient. Have I got that right?)

That, and it's very hard to do eye/heart/liver/brain surgery on a person who keeps screaming, twitching, flinching, jerking, and punching you in the face. Honestly, you'd be hard pressed to just get an inflamed appendix out without rupturing it. It's VERY IMPORTANT that you stay PERFECTLY STILL while the nice man with the very sharp object is poking around in your viscera.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Let him die. Natural selection works.

[mhoye.livejournal.com]

It's astonishingly hard to kill a dumb idea.

[elffin.livejournal.com]

"Natural selection works"

Until humans over-ride it. If natural selection still worked, humans would likely have a much shorter life expectancy.

And, while it would in fact kill the stupid kid, the stupid kid is a product of insular, controlling, and stupid parents - and doesn't have the facts, reasoning ability, or freedom of choice to make it be about him - this is entirely about the parents and their "freedoms". And it would not stop /them/ from furthering their anti-science views if the child dies.

[ikkarus01.livejournal.com]

If only the court could rule that the kid's cancer be transferred to his idiot parents instead. It only seems fair and just.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Intelligence is natural. Their stupidity isn't.

[lafinjack.livejournal.com]

Stupidity is plenty natural, which is why natural selection works.

[ronebofh.livejournal.com]

Yes! Thank you for completing my thought.

[itlandm.livejournal.com]

I'd like to see Christians demonstrate outside the court with signs saying "Killing your kids is bad", "God hates murder" etc.

[dglenn.livejournal.com]

This.

[kierthos.livejournal.com]

The judge should remove the kid from the parents' custody and make the kid get chemo.

[sivi-volk.livejournal.com]

Read the entry for the difficulties with that. They'd basically have to restrain and sedate him for every treatment, and it is a hard enough course of treatment with a cooperative patient.

The spectacle would be a huge PR boon for quacks and wackos.

[sanityimpaired.livejournal.com]

This is being portrayed entirely as being the child's choice. The parents have testified that they are refusing to force the child into chemo he doesn't want. This isn't really about religion or treatment at all, the question is whether or not a 13 year old is capable of making an informed decision to decline treatment, and whether he's made that decision himself or under coercion.

I'm very curious what was said in that closed session. I think it would go a long way into determining whether this is really the kid's decision, or whether it's the parents and he's just going along with it.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

The child is
A) 13, and thus by definition incapable of making informed decisions
B) being lied to by his parents

[sanityimpaired.livejournal.com]

B is insignificant without A. If he's able to make informed decisions, then he's also able to recognize that the medical community is a tad more qualified than his parents with regards to medical practices.

And I'm not convinced of A. I'm sure there is a legal definition, but that doesn't make said definition correct.

[faeriemuriel.livejournal.com]

At what point is the answer "I learned about it on the internet" going to possibly translate to performing medicine without a license?