A 13-year-old cancer patient could soon have chemotherapy against his will after a Minnesota judge ruled that his parents are not providing him with “necessary medical care” by limiting his treatment to alternative medicine.

Judge Rodenberg

“Minnesota does not permit exclusive reliance on 'complementary and alternative health care' for minor children,” Brown County District Judge John R. Rodenberg said in granting a petition to declare Daniel Hauser in need of child welfare protection or services.

Daniel's parents, Colleen and Anthony Hauser of Sleepy Eye, Minn., described themselves in a court brief as “two loving parents who will go to any length to save their child from assault and torture.” They have been treating his Hodgkin's lymphoma with nutritional supplements and other alternative methods supported by the Nemenhah Band, a Missouri-based religious group.

Daniel himself testified that an initial round of chemotherapy in February made him feel “very sick” and he wouldn't have chemo again “[b]ecause it's poison.”

But Rodenberg's ruling could lead to Daniel's parents losing custody of him if they continue to resist treating him with chemotherapy. The judge gave them until May 19 to get an updated chest X-ray for Daniel and select an oncologist.

“Brown County has demonstrated by clear and convincing evidence that Daniel Hauser is a child in need of protection or services ... in that he has been medically neglected,” he concluded.

Child welfare workers petitioned to intervene in Daniel's care after his parents refused to let him have a second round of chemo because of the side effects. In Minnesota, a parent who “willfully deprives” a child of health care is guilty of neglect.

The Hausers have portrayed their son as “a torch bearer of an important message: the people of this state have the right to choose their own reasonable medical modality. We have the ability to ... go beyond the 'standard of care' advocated and compelled upon all doctors in this state.”

“We are rejecting a modality of treatment that is assaultive and torturous,” they continued. “We are relying upon our bodies to to what the good Lord intended: to heal.”

One of the Hausers' witnesses, a neurologist, testified that it would be “criminal behavior” to require Daniel to have treatment he opposes. But Rodenberg said he was bound by a Minnesota law which says, “A parent who obtains complementary and alternative health care for the parent's minor child is not relieved of the duty to seek necessary medical care.”

Neurologist Dr. Clyde Shealy “seems rather obviously not to understand the Minnesota statutory scheme with regard to the parental duties imposed by statute to provide children with 'necessary medical care,” he said.

Rodenberg didn't rule out the possibility that an “older or particularly mature minor” might have “a constitutional right to direct his or her own treatment contrary to what is 'medically necessary.'” But the case before him “involves a 13-year-old child who has only a rudimentary understanding at best of the risks and benefits of chemotherapy.”

Daniel is unable to read and he also testified that he did not know why the Nemenhah group had designated him a medicine man. But he was adamant that he would “fight” if he is forced to undergo more chemo.

Asked what he meant by that, he told Rodenberg, “I'd fight it. I'd punch them and kick them.”

The Nemenhah Band says on its website that it is affiliated with Native American churches and its mission is "to provide a safety net for Natural Healers by effectively bringing the Sacred back into Natural Healing." Its leader, Phillip (Cloudpiler) Landis, has been convicted of fraud in two states.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune has reported that a member of the Nemenhah Band automatically becomes a medicine man at age 13.

Daniel's court-appointed attorney, Philip J. Elbert, said the judge's decision was “a blow to families. It marginalizes the decisions that parents face every day in regard to their children’s medical care. It really affirms the role that big government is better at making our decisions for us.”

By Matthew Heller
5/15/09