By  Deborah Honeycutt, MD

The current news of the FBI and police searching for a Minnesota mom, Colleen Hauser, and her thirteen year old son, Daniel, who are refusing chemotherapy gives a lot of fodder for consideration. Correct me if I am wrong, but this is still the USA. We still have the right to choose which medical therapies we desire and which we choose to refuse. Other people, some of whom have had a chemotherapy cure of their case of Hodgkins lymphoma have urged the mother to bring her son back home for chemotherapy. I am happy for the people who made their decision for chemotherapy and got a resultant cure. But, this situation brings to mind the statement of President Obama that he would work with both parties of Congress in all of his endeavors. As it plays out, our President meant that he would work with his own party and with only those who would readily agree with him from the other party. Now the courts and the media portray this mother and son as criminals because they do not agree with them about how Daniel should approach care of cancer. 

As a family medicine physician, I have a healthy respect for oncologists, physicians who care for those with cancers. They have not only great ability to personalize the care of each one of their patients to get the very best result for them, but they also have great compassion for their often very ill patients. But even they have heard of cancer cures that were effected with therapies outside the realm of our modern western medicine.

 We have all heard that people from other countries have called us Americans arrogant for thinking that the way we do something is the only way it can be done. The whole “alternative medicine” field became popular in our nation over the last decades simply because some of it works, thus giving patients a choice of treatments. Interestingly, when the established medical community found that “alternative medicine” proponents and adherents were not going away, that the numbers using alternative approaches to care of various illness were quickly growing, and that they did not want to miss the opportunity to regulate in some way this medicine that could become a threat, they decided to change the name to “complementary medicine”. Of course that means complementary to the “superior” modern western medicine.

 But those of us who love the field of medicine know that some of what we do in the name of medicine in our country is based on tradition and not on science-hence the emergence of “evidence-based medicine.” Studies of all kinds are constantly being done to prove or disprove that a medicine or therapy actually works for what it says it does. But fewer studies are done to gather evidence to prove the efficacy of non-traditional alternative methods. What if their religion were an ancient eastern religion? Does our government permit proponents of religions to exercise only the part of their beliefs that do not stray from what current western medical practice is? Is this the same government that wants to take over the administration of and payment for medical care for all Americans? Before we let our courts and government practice Big Brother Medicine, we must ask ourselves some questions.

The Hausers will have to live with the consequences of their decision, no matter what the consequences are. I say let them.

Deborah Travis “D.Ann” Honeycutt is an American politician and medical doctor. She is the Medical Director of Clayton State University Health Clinic. She was the Republican candidate for Georgia’s 13th congressional district in 2006 and 2008. In 2004, Honeycutt was President of the Georgia Academy of Family Physicians and in 2005 she served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Georgian Academy. She blogs at http://honeycuttspeaks.com/