He’s a Nemenhah Band medicine man
Several members of my family have died as a result of cancer. Most of the deaths occurred when I was very young, so my family shielded me from some of the heartache. I knew it was something horrible, something that tore at the fabric of life and left the tatters in a heap. The loved one dies. Family and friends are left wondering what they would have done with one more day, one more memory before the curtain closed.
Daniel Hauser has Hodgkin’s lymphoma. With chemotherapy, his doctor predicts he currently has a 90 percent chance of survival. Without it, “It is almost certain that he will die.” Yet Daniel and his family are refusing the draining, invasive treatment. They wish to opt for more natural methods practiced by Hauser’s chosen faith, the Oklevueha Native American Church of Sanpete. He is a spiritual adoptee of the Nemenhah Band.
Now it’s in the hands of a judge
Patrick Condon reports for the Associated Press that Minnesota District Judge John Rodenberg will rule as to whether Daniel Hauser and family can refuse chemotherapy for the 13-year-boy’s cancer. A much more serious and worthwhile decision than a judge wasting time determining whether consumers should have access to payday loans and cash advance.
“It is almost certain that he will die,” said Dr. Bruce Bostrom. Bostrom is pushing to make Hauser submit to chemotherapy, even though Daniel and his parents believe it to be potentially more dangerous than the cancer itself. The doctor puts Daniel’s chance of survival without chemo at five percent. Two other doctors have backed up Bostrom’s diagnosis.
What does Daniel want?
As a medicine man of the Nemenhah Band, Daniel is convinced it is best to use nutritional supplements and other alternative treatments. According to their Web site,
Nemenhah Band Medicine Men and Women declare that Natural Healing is part of their Spiritual Orientation and that they will ‘First Do No Harm.’ If you can make this declaration, the Nemenhah Band invites you to request Spiritual Adoption and join with the Community of the Nemenhah.
Membership is only by Spiritual Adoption. It is also the only way the Nemenhah Seminary can accept you into the program and designate you a Medicine Man or Medicine Woman. As a Nemenhah Band Medicine Man or Woman you will be able to practice your Healing Ministry under the full weight and protection of the Native American Free Exercise of Religion Act 1993 (NAFERA) and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act 1993 (RFRA).
They actually tried chemo
Bostrom diagnosed Daniel in January, and recommended he undergo chemo once a month for six months. That would be followed by radiation treatment. After a horrifying trip that sent their son to the emergency room a week later, Daniel’s parents consented to chemotherapy. But they changed their minds before the second treatment, despite the fact that Bostrom said the first treatment actually shrunk Daniel’s tumor.
“My son is not in any medical danger at this point,” Daniel’s mother Colleen said. She also testified that Daniel is a medicine man and elder of the Nemenhah Band. “I think he understands he has the right to choose healthier forms of dealing with this cancer.”
Cloudpiler’s natural remedies tour
Brown County, Minnesota disagrees. County Attorney James Olson has stated the county’s belief that Daniel Hauser “does not have a complete understanding of what it means to be a medicine man or an elder.”
The Nemenhah Band was founded in the 1990s by Philip “Cloudpiler” Landis, who claims to be one-fourth American Indian. He has said he founded the Nemenhah Band after a cancer similar to Daniel’s. His chosen avenues of treatment included diet, visits to a sweat lodge and “other natural remedies.” Mr. Landis’s advocacy of natural remedies once landed him in an Idaho jail for four months on fraud charges.
“The issue is Danny’s right to decide how he wants to live his life,” Landis said. “What if they make him take chemotherapy and he dies from that? The band will mourn with the family if that’s the case, but we’ll rejoice that Danny had the opportunity to test the law of the land.”
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Obviously, none of us can really tell the parents what to do. Well, a court can. There’s a growing body of cases in which parents have refused treatments for their children which would save their lives, and they’ve been stripped of their rights as medical proxy over their children. Some of them even wind up facing criminal charges, like reckless endangerment and so forth over this sort of thing. Everyone has the right to follow their religious convictions, no one in their right mind should try and interfere with it as it is one of the fundamental rights this country was based on and a cornerstone of democracy, but I remember an adage that was supposedly from Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr, the Supreme Court Justice, that “the right to swing my fist ends where the other man’s nose begins,” and that has a significance in the face of medical care refused on religious grounds. A person that does so of their own free will has the right to do so, but no one does on the behalf of another, which is why courts appoint medical guardians ad litem.
It’s definitely a contradicting subject. I have mixed feelings about the issue here. For instance, I was raised with a growing, solid opposition towards blood transfusion. Both my parents are Jehovah Witnesses and although I personally am not one, I still hold the same grounds (to some extent). I refuse to take blood, not because of my parents, but because of what I believe in. On the other hand, at times I do think to myself, ‘What would I do if my daughter’s life was at stake? Would I really have the courage to turn down the treatment if it was the only way to save her?’ I am not known to have a heart of the indecisive. But then again as I said, it’s no doubt a contradicting subject on my part.
People need to realize there are alternate treatments that are available that are very real. Because there is less money dumped in pharmacutical pockets, they are not used and there is no big testing done. Now if someone tries to persue alternatives, they become criminals. Wake up people. Chemotherapy is a poison designed to kill human cells. Good cells, bad cells, it cant distinguish between them. Hoxie teatment or the “Rick Simpson Story” or the 16 year old that had the same cancer who ran, treated, and now cured. Thease are real cures. CANCER=BUSSINESS=MONEY “Wake up world”