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Running from the law...

...for a good reason

LINKY

Quote:

Parents fight state
over chemo for son
Mother, boy in hiding, authorities want to force treatment

Twelve-year-old Parker Jensen apparently won't be starting the new school year anytime soon. He and his mother have been forced into hiding because his parents have refused to subject him to chemotherapy – a treatment authorities in Utah have legally mandated for the boy.

Parker has been diagnosed with Ewing's sarcoma, a deadly form of bone cancer, ABC News reported. His parents, Daren and Barbara, wanted to get a second opinion from a doctor after receiving the first recommendation of chemotherapy.

Authorities in Utah, however, had different plans. They obtained an order from a Salt Lake City court compelling the parents to have Parker undergo the treatment. The only options, the parents believed, was to flee the state with their boy.

According to family members, the Jensens are not convinced the initial diagnosis made three months ago was even correct.

"Ewing's sarcoma normally appears in the bone, but Parker's was a tumor in the mouth," Parker's uncle, Tracy Jensen, told ABC. "The hospital wanted chemotherapy right away. But we wanted a second opinion. They wouldn't let us get one, and before you knew it, my brother and his family were on the run."

According to the report, doctors at Primary Children's Medical Center in Salt Lake City said Parker has only a 5 percent chance of survival without the chemo.

On Aug. 16, a day after prosecutors filed kidnapping charges against the parents, Daren Jensen was arrested in Idaho and, reports ABC, is fighting extradition back to Utah.

The parents allowed the tumor in Parker's mouth to be successfully removed, but were unconvinced painful chemotherapy was needed as a follow-up.

"There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that you need chemotherapy for this particular kind of basically mild cancer," Rick Jaffe, the family lawyer, told the network. "All the evidence really relates to this full-blown bone involvement where you have very sick kids."

Jaffe explained the family has a pediatric oncologist lined up to give them a second opinion and treat Parker, but the charges against the parents prevent them from seeing him.

"The problem is, we can't bring him to him, because as soon as we show up, the mother will be arrested and the child hauled off by force to Utah," the lawyer said.

According to the report, Jaffe says if the mother shows up at any hospital, she will be subject to arrest since the parents are "fugitives from the law."

The state Attorney General's office defends the government's action against the Jensens.

"We are very concerned with the health of this young boy and the surrounding issues of state power vs. parental responsibility," the office said in a statement. "Parents have a natural and fundamental right to direct the medical care of their child – but if in making that decision they place the child's very life in substantial danger, the Supreme Court has determined that the State has an obligation to step in. In other words, a child has a fundamental right, independent of a parent's wishes, to live."

Parker's uncle explained the boy's parents believe Parker will get worse and may die if suspected to chemotherapy.

"Chemotherapy is a horrible and painful thing to deal with, especially for a child," he told ABC. "It may also leave him sterile and stunt his growth. We want other options. And we fear it will take him to the brink of death, and we don't want that, especially when there is no evidence that his cancer is what the doctors say it is."

According to the report, Jaffe believes the best solution for everyone would be for the police to drop the charges and allow the family to return to Utah so Parker could undergo other tests at another hospital.

This is crazy!
Why the fuck would it be sooo damn hard to get a second opinion.
Why the fuck does our court system act so quickly/ridiculously over this, yet drug dealers and rapists get a little slap on the wrist. If that was my kid I would be getting a second opinion too. Fuck the courts!

From the info in this article, i'd say: screw the government!

Is a second opinion that strange? I would get one if it was my kid!
Any judge upholding that ruling is seriously ill!
(and should immediately be put on chemical treatment!)

I totally agree with sixate on this one...

People get second opinions for things like pains in the neck to dental work. It's common practice. Why can't the government of Utah let these people get a second opinion on something very serious. Almost any parent who loves their child would get a second opinion on something like that (unless of course the leading doctor in the field diagnosed it, but maybe even then).

I hope this ends up with the mother and son getting their way and the state of Utah changing some laws.

I can't believe that they weren't allowed to get a second opinion on this. The thing that is really disturbing to me is this statement:

Quote:

"There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that you need chemotherapy for this particular kind of basically mild cancer," Rick Jaffe, the family lawyer, told the network. "All the evidence really relates to this full-blown bone involvement where you have very sick kids."

This isn't a "mild cancer." To my knowledge, survival is very low even when it isn't located in bones. It's aggressive and very deadly. That said, the parents should have been allowed to get a second opinion, as long as they didn't take too long because that form of cancer would kill the kid in a short period of time. And a side note: it doesn't have to be in the bone to be Ewing's Sarcoma and it could be just as deadly.

Don't you love state enforced health..... even when you can afford it

Get the kid to the doctor the parents choose, get the examination and get it the hell over with...

Then act on that.

Maybe the law should start 'serving' and not just 'protecting' ?

thats stupid...

its unbelievable that they would deny the kid a second opinion... its not like the parents wanted to deny the kid treatment altogether... they just wanted to see if he really needed the chemo... which sounds like it woulda been really hard on the kid...

I agree that based on what's in the article, this is stupid.

The question is "What isn't in this article??" There seem to be gaping holes here. No where is there a real statement about the hospital not allowing a second opinion from anyone except the parent's supporters or their lawyer. There's a lot of details about the diagnosis that the hospital and the state cannot reveal by law, so we probably won't know the basis for the state's position. Also, since when do we accept a lawyer's statement about the severity of a disease? Where is some independent, unbiased medical statement about the course of this cancer??

This just smells of a whole bunch of info missing. For now, I'll withhold my final judgement.

Quote:

Originally posted by Silvy
From the info in this article, i'd say: screw the government!

When this happened in a similar fashion in New Zealand a few years back, they all crawled out of the woodwork, the "fuck the government" crowd. The parents wanted New Age "treatments".

The "fuck the government" crowd didn't have much to say when the kid died of cancer, though.

Erg. Yes, indeed, fuck the government. However, as Whiz stated there are things left unsaid.

My view is… if the gov really said, for some weird reason, that he is denied a second opinion in a timely fashion, then yes, I’d take my kid out on the lam.

If the second opinion was really denied and the article is true, the parents did what they had to.

However, the idea of going to jail should be second to last thing for mom to worry about. Her kid could die. She may go to jail; but it is a tiny price to pay if the alternative is possible death.

Even in our current fucked up day and time I believe if the kid doesn’t need chemo the law will drop charges immediately if for anything to keep from getting sued.

I have tremendous respect for this family. But I am concerned. Take the kid in for testing. That is the only thing that matters. If he is fine, great, but if not I’d hate to read an update that he did indeed have cancer and is now dead.

I've seen the week-by-week effects of chemotherapy, my father, who was big (not fat) and had enough stamina to go to work full time every day for months despite having cancer, went from his normal self to unable to stand up for more than five minutes without having to lie down to rest. If it can do that to a grown man, it can do worse to a kid, and it's just wrong to force that on someone without letting them have a second opinion.

If the kid does end up having chemo treatments, I hope they work for him. It's terrible to see anyone go through having cancer, but it's worse to see a kid go through it at an age where he probably doesn't even understand what's happening to him.

Quote:

Originally posted by rodgerd
When this happened in a similar fashion in New Zealand a few years back, they all crawled out of the woodwork, the "fuck the government" crowd. The parents wanted New Age "treatments".

The "fuck the government" crowd didn't have much to say when the kid died of cancer, though.

But as per the article: there is no denying of treatment, just wanting to ask a second-opinion. nobody should be arrested for visiting a doctor with an ill child to get an opinion.

I do not take a stand on 'new age' versus 'current scientific' treatments though. The article says nothing about that and the current situation can thus not be judged on that.

Remember the article is all we have to go by right now.