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Terri's Special Children Blog

By Terri Mauro, About.com Guide to Special Children since 2004

Teens in cancer disputes suffer recurrences

Monday January 8, 2007
Were the doctors right all along? The families of two teens who fought high-profile battles against doctors to forego conventional cancer treatment and pursue alternative therapies have both revealed that their young patients have had additional cancer outbreaks. The parents of both Katie Wernecke and Abraham Cherrix claim that, while their alternative treatments have shown success with the original cancers, new tumors or cancer hotspots have been found. Wernecke's father is quoted as saying the new cancer was seeded when a feeding tube was removed, and the family intends to continue alternative treatment; Cherrix's mother is quoted as saying the new cancer is much less serious than the original, and will be treated with radiation. Do you think this proves the families were wrong to pursue alternative treatment, or are such recurrences to be expected with cancer regardless of the treatment? Pick a response from the poll at right, and expand on your views in the comments.

Comments

May 15, 2009 at 7:22 pm
(1) Rhonda Stump says:

I am a firm believer in nutrician and supplements. I don’t agree with alternative treatments for cancer. I believe that keeping healthy will speed the healing process but the parents who for instance, take their child to Mexico for some treatment that claims high percentages of cure without proof or real documentation of those claims is giving the child a death sentence. The parents don’t seem to have a clear understanding of human physiology otherwise they would not fall for such pie-in-the-sky claims. I say that it’s a persons obligation to educate himself/herself about their body and how it works. Don’t fall for every claim or scheme without real information The Hoxsey Treatment is not founded on any real evidence of success nor does it follow any real understanding of human physiology. It’s akin to placing a Band-aid on a 4 inch gaping war wound. I don’t understand the reaction to this with such a high percentage of people assuming that this reoccurance of cancer in these two children has nothing to do with the first diagnosis. I ask these people to please get educated about the human body.

May 20, 2009 at 4:14 pm
(2) valerie says:

if these alternative treatments for cancer worked the drug componies would try to patten them

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