Follow Up On The Kid Who Refused Cancer Treatment

[Aught Six]

Va. teen needs more cancer treatment

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070106/ap_on_re_us/sick_teen

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I can't imagine the pain and suffering of going through cancer and its treatment, but I hope this kid sticks with legitimate medicine...if he wants to live.

[Fox72]

I have watched several family members die of cancer after receiving conventional treatments. In two cases they died more quickly after receiving the "treatments" than the cancer itself could have killed them. Many doctors offer these treatments despite the pain they cause and the patient dies anyway. Good for him for trying something that hopefully works.

[WVCritter]

I watched my brother in law die from the treatment rather than the disease. The chemo he was on starved him down from 200 lbs. to a mere 100 lbs. He got pneumonia and was too weak to recover and died after 3 chemo treatments.

[Aught Six]

I have watched several family members die of cancer after receiving conventional treatments. In two cases they died more quickly after receiving the "treatments" than the cancer itself could have killed them. Many doctors offer these treatments despite the pain they cause and the patient dies anyway. Good for him for trying something that hopefully works.

How could you possible know that could have lived longer without treatment? That's a pretty wild claim.

Oh, and the kid is getting radiation because the "natural" treatments didn't work.

Life sucks sometimes. Don't blame medicine for mortality. We've beendying long before medicine was even imagined.

[Buster T]

my buddy died because of " legitimate " medicine

in a world where little girls breasts and uterus are removed and she's given high doses of raditaion to keep her "small" ............ I'll take my chances with alternative medicine that is meant to cure the disease instead of going to "legitimate " doctors who know nothing but trreating the symptoms

[Californiadoctor]

Cancer is a difficult disease to treat without causing severe side effects for patients. Cytotoxic (cell killing) agents such as chemotherapy and radiation have to be used to eleminate the cancer cells but it is very difficult to achieve significant differential toxicity (killing malignant cells without harming healthy ones). However, significant strides have been made in this area with new drugs that are much more selective in targeting tumor cells without harming normal ones and radiation therapy techniques that concentrate more radiation on the tumor and less on healthy tissue. This has resulted in longer survival with less treatment toxicity for many cancer patients in recent years.

Alternative medicine advocatestakes advantage of the fact that the treatments for cancerhave traditionally been punishing for patients and often fail, byoffering alternative therapies that have few if any sideeffects. In addition, these alternative therapies have never been subjected to clinical trials so there isscant evidence oftheir efficacy which allows practioners of alternative medicine to make claims that can not be substantiated but are also difficult to disprove. Clinical trials by legitimate researchers comparing conventional therapies to alternative therapies would be considered unethical by physicians since it would almost certainly condemn the patients in the alternative arm of the test to early death when they could have had better outcomeswith traditional treatments.

Caldoc

[Charlie P]

my buddy died because of " legitimate " medicine

Thought he died from smoking a couple packs of cigs everyday for years?

[Fox72]

We were told by the doctors. In both cases, my relatives didn't become extremely sick until after the treatments started. My father was doing farm work 10+ hours a day before the treatments, even after being diagnosed. Immediately after the treatments, he was unable to work. With in a month he was totally bedridden. That did nothing to help him.

I don't blame medicine for my Dad's or Grandmother's or my Uncle's deaths. I do believe that their "conventional" medicine increased their and oursuffering. Radiation and chemo are all doctors seem to know. Sometimes, people should be allowed to die.

[Aught Six]

I hear you loud and clear. It really does tear some people up, but I'd hate to see them not bother trying. However I do respect a person's right to determine their own fate, and I think refusalof treatment should be universally permissible. I just don't think alternative treatments do any better at all.

[Charlie P]

Radiation and chemo are all doctors seem to know. Sometimes, people should be allowed to die

If your an adult and don't want it tell them no.