RE: court forces brain radiation on child

RE: court forces brain radiation on child (Full Version)

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TheHeretic -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 5:02:13 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam No you can't but if you were married and your soon to be estranged wife got pregnant, could you prevent one? that's where Im coming from. Just playing Devil's Advocate here. Devil's advocate is fine, Hillwilliam. No problem at. I don't think I've ever heard of such a case. I'm pretty clear on where I stand in the abortion discussion. Ultimately, it is her body, so that isn't how I would make the call. I imagine though, that I'd make the same sort of determined approach to persuade that I would, if the first example wouldn't take my $300, and go get rid of it.

Aswad -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 5:02:52 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen So if your parents are lazy, stupid, gullible or, in the US, cheap the chid should die a slow agonizing death? Is that really what you're saying? For thy purposes, thou mayst as well pretend that's what I'm saying. IWYW, — Aswad.

Politesub53 -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 5:04:19 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: TheHeretic Then we difer on the importance of quality of life, as well as where we stopped on the other thread. It's, "you will die" vs "you will suffer horribly, you will be permanently damaged and robbed of your faculties, and most likely, you will still die just as soon as if you hadn't gone through any of that." Hmmm. I wonder if this is an atheist thing. Sometimes a little faith that there is something more can be comforting, when the right thing to do, is also very, very, hard to do. Just some very personal input on the "quality of life" argument. 30 years ago my younger cousin was diagnosed with a brain tumour. He quickly went into a situation where he had no quality of life that we could determine. He was confined to bed, couldnt walk, couldnt feed himself and rarely recognised family members. The tumour itself was caught quite late and was fairly large. The couldnt operate as it was deep in the brain and healthy tissue would have had to be destroyed to get to it. Chemo alone wasnt thought sufficient to either kill the tumour or help his conditions. So he died in bed, surrounded by family he hardly recognised. His parents would have jumped at chancing chemo it it had been feasable, neither they nor his brother ever got over my cousins death at 20. Oddly enough, although I played soccer and run 10 miles every other day, my cousin was a tad fitter than anyone of my generation.

freedomdwarf1 -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 5:04:27 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: TheHeretic quote: ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1 Inflict??? I would rather a son of mine be alive than face certain death. I really don't consider "inflicting" a certain death an option. Sorry. Then we difer on the importance of quality of life, as well as where we stopped on the other thread. It's, "you will die" vs "you will suffer horribly, you will be permanently damaged and robbed of your faculties, and most likely, you will still die just as soon as if you hadn't gone through any of that." Hmmm. I wonder if this is an atheist thing. Sometimes a little faith that there is something more can be comforting, when the right thing to do, is also very, very, hard to do. Sorry, your assertion of "you will suffer horribly, you will be permanently damaged and robbed of your faculties, and most likely, you will still die just as soon as if you hadn't gone through any of that." just isn't true. There is no current medical evidence to show that this will be the case. According to the medical experts involved in the case, including the one brought by the mother, there is a reasonable chance that he will suffer very little, if any, of those conditions you are spouting as definite. And, religion doesn't come into this at all. Don't try to muddy the waters with religious overtones.

JstAnotherSub -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 5:12:25 PM)
More in depth article

Aswad -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 5:27:09 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen The surgeons reported that the tumor was completely excised and the radiotherapy is just to kill any stray cells they missed. Let me translate that for you: they got the mass, buying the kid some time, but the cancer isn't gone. By using radiotherapy, they hope to prolong the time until his cancer returns, as it will, at the expense of the well known and common side effect of cognitive impairment, to which his age group is very sensitive. The doses used for this type of cancer are high, and if they are actually going to buy him any significant amount of time, they will have to use whole brain irradiation, which significantly increases the severity of this already dose porportional side effect. In short, they know the kid will die young anyway, and they know they'll cause some mild retardation, which will grow with age and also become increasingly obvious with age. They're hoping they can buy the kid a bit more time before the fatal relapse, and that they won't cause enough retardation for it to have time to really mess up his life before he dies. A very difficult tradeoff, and one I don't envy them having to run the numbers on, which I'm assuming they have, since this went to court. quote: This child doesn't have a great prognosis but he isn't terminal even after his mother's attempts to kill him. His prognosis is he will die of brain cancer, most likely within five years (with therapy). That's why they're even considering radiotherapy: the kid won't live long enough for the damage to fully develop, anyway. IWYW, — Aswad.

DomKen -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 5:34:06 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Aswad quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen The surgeons reported that the tumor was completely excised and the radiotherapy is just to kill any stray cells they missed. Let me translate that for you: they got the mass, buying the kid some time, but the cancer isn't gone. By using radiotherapy, they hope to prolong the time until his cancer returns, as it will, at the expense of the well known and common side effect of cognitive impairment, to which his age group is very sensitive. The doses used for this type of cancer are high, and if they are actually going to buy him any significant amount of time, they will have to use whole brain irradiation, which significantly increases the severity of this already dose porportional side effect. In short, they know the kid will die young anyway, and they know they'll cause some mild retardation, which will grow with age and also become increasingly obvious with age. They're hoping they can buy the kid a bit more time before the fatal relapse, and that they won't cause enough retardation for it to have time to really mess up his life before he dies. A very difficult tradeoff, and one I don't envy them having to run the numbers on, which I'm assuming they have, since this went to court. quote: This child doesn't have a great prognosis but he isn't terminal even after his mother's attempts to kill him. His prognosis is he will die of brain cancer, most likely within five years (with therapy). That's why they're even considering radiotherapy: the kid won't live long enough for the damage to fully develop, anyway. IWYW, — Aswad. Actually according to the doctors involved after radiotherapy he has an 80% at living at least 5 years.

Aswad -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 5:44:21 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen Targeted radiotherapy on the tumor site should have very minimal effects on the cerebrum. Medulloblastoma isn't localized that way. The mass itself isn't the only thing. It carries through the CSF from the fourth ventricle up to the lateral ventricles and there starts to spread through the whole brain invasively. The radiotherapy isn't targetted, as far as I know, because you need to "mow the lawn" throughout the brain to take down the cells that have already spread. Also, please consider the location of the fourth ventricle. I don't know about a child, but in an adult, it's basically somewhat enclosed by the rest of the brain, unless you want to lop the kid's head off. Even a gradiated dose synchrotron source with a well designed shield is going to have a hard time avoiding a lot of ancillary damage to critical areas, especially when you consider that you have to limit how much radiation actually hits the medulla itself (which is, in short, responsible for respiration, heartbeat and other such nifty things to keep intact). IWYW, — Aswad.

Aswad -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 6:18:42 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: JstAnotherSub More in depth article Thank you. The mother seems like she's freaking and trying to maintain some feeling of control, rather than acting rationally. From what the doctors are saying, they are using the obsolete WHO classification of these tumors, and the second MRI indicates either subtotal resection or immediate recurrence. This is a set of very poor prognastic markers, indicating low survival rates and the need for chemotherapy after the radiotherapy, if the child can survive that. Unless it can be conclusively determined that the resection was actually subtotal, whole brain irradiation is indicated, which is what the doctors seem to be saying, as well. Cognitive impairment from radiotherapy in children of this age is dose porportional, volume porportional, inversely age porportional, will always occur to some extent at the relevant doses, and may be severe, but the acute phase damage is lower than the long term damage by far, and so this as a risk factor depends substantially on how long the child survives (i.e. the older he gets, the more the damage will mature, and the more the impairment will become noticeable as the demands of the environment grow more complex). Hard to comment usefully on survival without a better idea of the subtype, assuming they've determined it, but that 80% figure sounds a lot like something I would want them to back up with some serious figures, had I been on a jury in such a case, as the figures I found on my quick check of the usual sources said 20% with resection and 30% with resection plus radiotherapy, at five years. IWYW, — Aswad.

Aswad -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 6:30:01 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam There are still a lot of cases of blatant discrimination in custody cases because one parent has a penis. Fathers in Norway wish there were a lot of cases of blatant discrimination in custody cases, as that would be a major improvement. I know personally the only case I've even read about where the father got custody in a case where the mother wasn't a ward of the state due to untreatable psychosis or extensive drug abuse with several failed rehab attempts. The professionals involved in that case have never heard of another such case, either. Here, if the mother isn't almost certain to kill the child, she gets custody, unless a politician is involved. quote: ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1 IMHO, a possibly slightly lower-IQ living child is better than a dead one any day of the week. Not possibly. The question isn't "will there be damage?", but rather "how much damage will there be?". quote: Given an 80% survival rate compared to ZERO, that's a good call in my books. Compared to 20%, not 0%, if they did the resection properly, though they're suggesting they may have bungled it. Note that we're discussing survival at five years, not indefinite; the relevant type of cancer invariably recurs. IWYW, — Aswad.

thishereboi -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 7:26:16 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: DomKen Actually the court saved the boys life, by allowing the tumor removal surgery he absolutely needed. The mother wants to explore known quackery while her son's tumor consumes his brain. See there are things we can totally agree on. [:)] would'a thunk it

thishereboi -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 7:31:59 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: defiantbadgirl IMO the child should NOT be forced by the court to become mentally retarded for the rest of his short life. That's basically what they're doing, forcing the child to receive a treatment that will make him mentally retarded. He won't be able to spend time with other children his own age before he dies because they'll bully and make fun of him because of his mental retardation. Wouldn't it be better for the child to be able to enjoy the rest of his life with his intelligence intact? The rest of his life? Without treatment, that would have been a matter of months. And I have a hard time he would have been enjoying much as his brain was consumed. As to him being mentally retarded, do you have any links to this?

thishereboi -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 7:34:10 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: tazzygirl quote: She feared radiotherapy would stunt the boy's growth, reduce his IQ, damage his thyroid and potentially leave him infertile. Personally, the only one on that list that would make me pause would be the IQ. There are a lot of people out there with low iq's. My guess is if they were given the choice, they would rather be stupid than dead.

tazzygirl -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 7:36:43 PM)
I completely agree. Im not agreeing with her. Why worry about his fertility when he may die from brain cancer????

thishereboi -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 7:45:14 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: TheHeretic FR Just a thought, but has anyone looked into the possibility that the father is just some sort of sick fuck, who wants to inflict further pain on his ex-wife by deliberately prolonging the agony of his former family? Or he wants his son to live and believes the doctors when they say if he doesn't get treatment he will die. Very soon and either drugged to the max or in agony.

thishereboi -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 7:55:33 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: freedomdwarf1 quote: ORIGINAL: Hillwilliam By this logic, when it comes to terminating a preganancy, only the mother would have a say and not the father. That is exactly the legal position here in the UK. Unlike the US where both parents are considered fairly equally, in custody or decisions affecting the child(ren), it isn't like that over here. In the UK, fathers don't actually count for much in anything to do with their offspring. The whole legal system is extremely biased in favour of the mother/female. When it comes to terminating a pregnancy, the man has no say in the decision. However we aren't talking about fetuses, we are talking about a child.

thishereboi -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 7:59:15 PM)
quote: ORIGINAL: meatcleaver If you believe in God, then one has to assume God inflicted this on the child. Bullshit [8\|]

Louve00 -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 9:20:33 PM)
Dr Stanislaw Burzynski. The first 3.5 minutes of this link is the story of one man's daughter (one of a twin) who died, not of cancer, but of a result of her cancer treatment. The entire video is the full version movie and a laymen's explanation of the type of treatment Dr Burzynski discovered and implements. Today, in Dec. 2012 one of Dr Burzynski's many charges against the treatment of his discovery was dismissed. If only the FDA was more interested in the health of the human lives instead of money they'd do their job honorably. JMHO Edited to add this link is to no one in particular. Just sharing what I have heard about and read about.

tazzygirl -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 10:33:28 PM)
According to this, he got off on a technicality. http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2012/11/26/significance-of-the-tmb-dismissal-case-against-burzynski/

FilmWithMistrix -> RE: court forces brain radiation on child (12/22/2012 10:56:54 PM)
A friend of mine in Netherlands has a son who has so far survived a brain tumor, twice. He was very highly intelligent prior to the tumor, but he can only live at home weekends now because of the rigid structure etc that is needed for him to handle life at as high functioning a degree as he is now with significant therapy/assistance... and he has physical issues, is drastically impaired compared to what he was, and they could only get 98% this time.. it is certain that it will eventually come back. Until you've listened to a mother agonize over her love for her child, her knowledge he will eventually become ill again, and the fight over what is right for them.. don't make assumptions about the choices you'd make. They are far harder in practice than in theory.

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