Mom, Boy On The Run After Refusing Chemo

(AP)  A courtroom clash between medicine and faith took a criminal turn, with police around the country on the lookout Wednesday for a Minnesota mother who fled with her cancer-stricken 13-year-old son rather than consent to chemotherapy.

Colleen Hauser and her son, Daniel, were seen as recently as Tuesday morning in Southern California and might be headed to Mexico to seek treatment for Daniel's Hodgkin's lymphoma, authorities said Wednesday night. They would only say the pair's location was based on "reliable information."

A court-ordered X-ray on Monday showed a tumor growing in Daniel's chest, and doctors said it will probably kill him without conventional medical treatment.

Before she took off, Hauser told a judge that she wished to treat her son's cancer with natural healing methods advocated by an American Indian religious group known as the Nemenhah Band. But even that group's founder said Hauser made a mistake by running from the law.

"I just wish we could get to Colleen and tell her to come in. This is not going to go away. It's a court order," Brown County Sheriff Rich Hoffmann said. He said Hauser's husband was cooperating with investigators.

Hodgkin's lymphoma is a highly curable form of cancer when treated with chemo and radiation. But the teen and his parents rejected chemo after a single treatment, with the boy's mother saying that putting toxic substances in the body violates the family's religious convictions.

Hauser said she had been treating the boy's cancer instead with herbal supplements, vitamins, ionized water and other natural alternatives - a regimen based mostly on information she found on the Internet.

The Hauser family had been ordered to appear before a judge Tuesday for a hearing to consider chemo. But mother and son failed to show, and a warrant was issued for the mother's arrest.

Daniel's father, Anthony Hauser, said in an interview Wednesday at the family's farm near Sleepy Eye, a town of 3,500 people about 80 miles from Minneapolis, that his wife and son left without telling him their plans, and that he hadn't heard from them.

He said he hopes his wife is either getting their son treatment for his illness or will bring him home. "If he's being cared for, and it's going to help him, I think it's going to be a good thing," Anthony Hauser said.

James Olson, the attorney representing social service authorities in Minnesota, originally asked the judge to cite the father for contempt of court, but later backed off and said he believed Hauser didn't know the whereabouts of his wife and son.

An alert issued to police departments around the country said mother and son might be traveling with a California lawyer named Susan Daya. Daya didn't return telephone messages Wednesday.

The alert said they might also be with a Massachusetts man named Billy Best, who as a teenager in 1994 ran away from home to escape chemotherapy for cancer similar to Daniel's. Best, who says he was cured by natural remedies, had appeared at a news conference in Minnesota recently to support the Hausers.

Best, in a phone interview, said he was in Boston and hadn't talked to the Hausers since they fled. He said he last saw the family May 9 when he was in Minnesota for court hearings.

"I just want to help this kid. I just feel like people are ganging up on him and it's not fair," Best said. "He's a nice kid, the family's nice, and they love him, and they want him to live."

The Nemenhah Band, based in Weaubleau, Mo., advocates healing methods tied to American Indian practices. The Hausers are not American Indian.

The Nemenhah Band

Phillip Cloudpiler Landis founded Nemenhah about a decade ago and calls himself its principal medicine chief. He said it was prompted by his own bout with cancer, which he claims to have cured through diet, visits to a sweat lodge and other natural remedies.

Landis served several months in prison in Idaho for fraud tied to the sale of natural remedies. Nemenhah members are asked to pay $250 to join and a monthly $100 fee.

On Tuesday, Landis said Hauser should not have run, adding: "You don't solve anything by disregarding the order of the judge."

There have been at least five instances in the U.S. in recent years in which parents fled with a sick child to avoid medical treatments.

They include the celebrated case of Parker Jensen, who was 12 when his family fled from Utah to Idaho in 2003 to avoid court-ordered chemo after doctors removed a small cancerous tumor under his tongue. Daren and Barbara Jensen pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor in a deal that brought no jail time or fines, and went on to lobby for legislation to strengthen the rights of parents. Parker survived without chemotherapy.

In Minnesota, District Judge John Rodenberg ruled last week that the Hausers were neglecting their son, and ordered them to consult doctors. He cited a state law requiring parents to provide necessary medical care for a child.

Most states have similar laws. A few have exemptions allowing parents to refuse treatment on religious grounds, and Minnesota was one of them. But Arthur Caplan, director of the Center for Bioethics at the University of Pennsylvania, said he helped push a bill through the Legislature to remove it two decades ago. He said the impetus was a case involving Christian Scientist parents who refused insulin for a diabetic child in the mid-1980s.

Caplan, one of the nation's foremost medical ethicists, said religious exceptions are bad public policy because effective medical treatment for a child shouldn't be sacrificed for a parent's beliefs.

[countrygirl294]

ENDUROROB

How do you know chemo wouldnt kill him, he actually has a 10 to 1 chance of getting rid of the cancer and living if he does alternative medicine instead of chemo, it is proven. Some people are so dumbed down by the government and and the so called docs. Thats why they call them practicing doctors because they are only practicing they don't really know much when it comes the healing anyone, just on what to prescribe to make them feel better for the time being, and then giving them more and more medications for the symptoms those one cause, they DON"T CURE just COVER-UP. Maybe you should actually look some of this stuff up before you go and down it. It just shows you don't know anything.

[countrygirl294]

It is so sad how so many people think chemo is the best thing for cancer, it is the worst thing you can do for cancer, except for in very few cases. It is proven that if you have cancer and do alternative treatments that you will have 10X more chance at beating cancer, and also with better chances of it not coming back. And I bet most of you have never heard of Apricot seeds to cure cancer. Sounds weird I know, they say that it's almost impossible for cancer to survive in a a body who consumes raw organic apricot seeds. It destroys cancer cells on contact. Most of the time when they say you have cancer it really isn't cancer , but once they open you up to try and remove it the air makes it grow like cancer. Or has anyone ever heard of MMS (miracle mineral supplement) It cures cancer and aids and many other viruses. I am very proud of this mom for taking her sons life into her own hands and doing what she knows is right. I would do the same. How does the judge and so called docs know that chemo is best for him. They don't care, ALL they want is your money. God put every plant and herb on earth to heal, and made our bodies to heal themselves with the food we eat and what we drink. I know most of you probably don't believe that, but I know it's true. We would have so mush less cancer and diseases if we didn't eat all the crap we put into our bodies, and that the FDA says is "good" for our bodies and all these chemicals they allow into our bodies. This world has twisted so much stuff, and is so lost.

[melonie2009]

I agree with koomfro :) Whether a person believes in alternative medicine or not, that is really not the point. We should be asking ourselves why the government and the courts have the right to make a decision like this at all. What one needs to realize is that as Americans, we are not as free as we think we are. If as a free American, I cant choose my method of treatment for an illness, there is something wrong. Can you imagine a warrant out for your arrest for doing what you believe is the best thing for your son? Come on people wake up. Step outside your belief of allopathic and alternative medicine and look at the real issue here. This is about government controlling you and I. P.S. Fact: Cancer is the #2 industry in the world next to the oil industry. Hmmmmmm.

[koomofro]

What ever happened to the whole Freedom and Liberty thing? I applaud this woman for doing what she thinks is right for her family. A person making a decision based on what he or she feels is right for them....WOW, what a concept!!! What gives the government the right to step in and say "no, no, no, we the state know what's best for you and your son, not you!!" I find the fact that the court ordered this kid to recieve medical treatment against his and his parents will absolutely scary. If I was that woman, I wouldn't have run though. I would have been standing by my door with a shotgum waiting to plug the first person who tried to take my kid away!!!!

[MrBag]

Stands up and throughly applauds

"My concern is not over survivability percentages.

It's over JACK-BOOTED TACTICS used to THREATEN AND FORCE rather than negotiate and alleviate well-founded concerns.

Even the well advertised "cancer centers" have learned to incorporate "whole person" approaches that may have been more acceptable to the parents and may have even been more effective AND LESS COSTLY than the current heavy-handed MANDATED tactics.
" - by homespunlady May 21, 2009 12:09 AM PDT

[YCantWeAllGetAlong]

The mother clearly stated that "there is nothing medically wrong with her son". That ALONE is enough reason to take matters into their own hands. He's 13 and can't READ people. If you beat your child with a belt, they take your child into custody. If he has an extremely fatal form of cancer that left untreated will make him die a horrible and unnecessary death, this is worse than beating him with a belt. Just because the abuse is intangible doesn't make it less of an abuse. The parents are uneducated abusers. If it were them, fine, let them die, but not brainwash the mind of their illiterate child and make him think the chemo is bad. It's not exactly chocolate candy but it will give him the chance to grow up and have a life.

[democracy1]

psychophuck-babble bulllshyyt, and this is what happens!
Posted by edward113 at 12:47 AM : May 21, 2009 "

"psychophuck"="psycho ****" and "bulllshyyt"="bull ****"

[democracy1]

Why is it that everyone will freak out about the "Daddy ate my eyes" story and not this one where the parents are also obviously being abusive because their child will DIE without treatment?

It's still an extremely negative consequence to the child due to the actions of the parent. You can quibble about differences in the details, but the end result is the same. In this case, even worse because the child will DIE!

[democracy1]

Here's my two cents...with all the crap going on in this world...I could care less about continuously hearing this story. Leave them alone and let nature take its course...that means you, liberals, conservatives, the doctors, the hospitals and the government. It's none of your business! As Bill Cosby said to his children, "I brought you into this world and I can take you out".
Posted by TryTakingMyMoney at 7:07 PM : May 20, 2009

After reading your screen name and seeing your posts on other stories, I can only conclude that you are one of the most self-centered, materialistic jerks that I've come across in quite some time.

What goes around, comes around, honey. May you reap as you sow.

[erasmus111]

What I see is a lot of people that aren't so much concerned over whether the child lives or dies, but more concerned that someone is telling them what to do. And because someone is telling them what to do, then they are going to do the exact opposite.