The Edmonton Sun
April 14, 2002 Sunday, Final Edition
SECTION: Editorial/Opinion; Pg. C20
LENGTH: 633 words
HEADLINE: CALGARY GIRL BRAINWASHED AGAINST TRANSFUSIONS
BYLINE: MINDELLE JACOBS, EDMONTON SUN
BODY:
Brainwash young people with enough rubbish disguised as religious tenets and some of them are bound to become emotional
cripples.
In the Middle East, vast numbers of Palestinians have a death wish, nurtured by mad mullahs who exhort people to become
suicide bombers.
In the West, Jehovah's Witnesses feed followers the lie that leukemia can be treated without blood transfusions, which are
against their religious beliefs. Oh, yes. The 16-year-old Jehovah's Witness girl being treated against her will in a Calgary hospital
has been brainwashed all right.
There is no evidence whatsoever that alternative treatment would help beat her leukemia. Yet, she seems to think otherwise.
She has pinned her hopes on blood-free treatment at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles.
"Not only is it better for me mentally with my religious beliefs, but I would be respected and treated with dignity as a person and I
would be given better medical treatment," she told The Calgary Sun last month.
Better treatment without blood transfusions for acute myeloid leukemia? Shame on the Jehovah's Witnesses movement for
propagating such garbage.
And shame on the girl's lawyers for trying to persuade a judge that there's any validity to such claims.
"It's been done, it has worked," lawyer David Gnam said last month. "It has a 50% success rate compared to a 40% rate with
conventional treatment."
That's a surprise to the experts. "Right now, there is no effective alternative to blood transfusions (for treating leukemia). That's
the bottom line," says Dr. David Rosenthal, a professor of medicine at Harvard University.
Within five years, there may be an alternative therapy for leukemia patients that doesn't require blood products but currently that's
not the case, he says.
Rosenthal, by the way, is no fierce opponent of non-traditional treatment. As chairman of the American Cancer Society's advisory
committee on complementary and alternative therapy, he fully supports research into various kinds of medical care.
In the meantime, however, he says Jehovah's Witnesses' lawyers who pretend people with acute myeloid leukemia can be
effectively treated without blood transfusions are doing a profound disservice to the public.
A cancer expert at Houston's M.D. Anderson Cancer Center is also disturbed with the claims of Jehovah's Witnesses that
chemotherapy without blood products is a viable option.
"It may be true for some diseases but not for leukemia," says Dr. Leonard Zwelling, the centre's vice-president of research
administration.
"If that could be done, everybody would be doing it," he says. "I've never heard of a patient with acute myeloid leukemia not
getting platelets."
If the 16-year-old girl's lawyers have proof that it can be done, they should put their cards on the table, Zwelling says.
"Show me," he challenges. "I'd like to see their data."
He says he's not even sure medical ethical review boards would sanction studies comparing leukemia treatment with and without
blood transfusions because of the risks of infection and loss of blood.
His message to the public? "Don't tie your doctor's hands. It may save your life."
Shane Brady, one of the girl's lawyers, says alternative therapy would involve less intensive chemotherapy, thereby minimizing the
need for blood transfusions.
Rosenthal, the Harvard prof, is appalled at that idea. "Let her die a slow death rather than go into remission?" he wonders in
astonishment.
The principled approach when dealing with a minor is to err on the side of life, says Dr. Philip Hebert, director of clinical ethics at
Toronto's Sunnybrook Hospital.
"Parents can make martyrs of themselves. They can't make martyrs of their children," he says.
Thankfully, the Alberta Court of Queen's Bench agrees.