Daniel Hauser just *might* live ... hopefully

The 13-year-old sufferer of Hodgkin's lymphoma, who staunchly refuses chemotherapy that would more than likely save his life due to his and his parents' stupid pseudo-Indian religious beliefs, has now been ordered by a Minnesota judge to undergo actual treatments rather than "herbs and vitamins" and similar CAM (Complementary and Alternative Medicine)-related treatments that they discovered "on the Internet".

In a 60-page ruling Friday, Brown County District Judge John Rodenberg found that Daniel Hauser of Sleepy Eye has been "medically neglected" and is in need of child protection services. Rodenberg said Daniel will stay in the custody of his parents, but Colleen and Anthony Hauser have until May 19 to get an updated chest X-ray for their son and select an oncologist.

Rodenberg wrote that Daniel has only a "rudimentary understanding at best of the risks and benefits of chemotherapy. ... he does not believe he is ill currently. The fact is that he is very ill currently." Because of that and other evidence in the case, Rodenberg ruled there is a "compelling state interest sufficient to override the minor's genuine opposition."

Doctors have said Daniel's cancer had up to a 90 percent chance of being cured with chemotherapy and radiation. Without those treatments, doctors said his chances of survival are 5 percent.

Daniel stopped chemotherapy in February after a single treatment. He and his parents opted instead for "alternative medicines" based on their religious beliefs. Child protection workers accused Daniel's parents of medical neglect; but in court, his mother insisted the boy wouldn't submit to chemotherapy for religious reasons and she said she wouldn't comply if the court orders it.

Such fucking idiots. This really isn't the poor kid's fault, even if he himself is genuinely against actual treatments. It's the fault of the criminally ignorant and incompetent fools he has for parents, who would rather watch him rot away little by little from one of the most curable forms of cancers in the world, rather than see him be miserable for a while under chemotherapy yet actually surive the damned ordeal in the first place.

Again, people: religion kills. Science saves you. This is just yet another illustration of that imminently demonstrable and incontrovertible fact.

Of course, his parents said they would defy the court's ruling (can't accept the possibility that all those egghead experts just might be right, right?), so I suppose we'll have to wait until May 19 to see what will happen next. Personally, I'm hoping for the courts to remove him from his fundamentally incompetent parents' custody, slap them around the face a few times, and force him into chemotherapy until his cancer recedes and his life is saved by the very thing he's running away from as if it were the plague.