Judge orders chemo

Texas Judge Orders Treatment for a 13-Year-Old With Cancer


By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: September 10, 2005
CORPUS CHRISTI, Tex., Sept. 9 (AP) - A juvenile-court judge on Friday ordered treatment for a 13-year-old cancer patient to continue despite pleas from her parents, who fear that high-dose chemotherapy will do more harm than good.

The judge, Carl Lewis, issued the order after lawyers for the parents, Ed and Michele Wernecke, were unable to produce specialists' opinions in time for the hearing.

"I'm not going to wait for anything else for you all to do, not one thing more," Judge Lewis said. "There's never been an opinion counter to the one that prevails, and there still isn't one today."

The judge ordered the girl, Katie, into state custody on June 4, after doctors and social workers said her parents were endangering her by refusing treatment for Hodgkin's disease.

But the girl has also declined treatment, exasperating doctors and social workers last week by pulling out catheters, refusing to allow her pulse to be taken and drinking a banned soda, thus halting the high-dose chemotherapy that was to be the next step in her treatment.

Judge Lewis said he planned to go to Houston next week to meet with Katie and try to get her to cooperate.

At a hearing on Tuesday, the Werneckes had said the family would stop fighting the treatment if doctors specializing in Hodgkin's disease agreed that it was the only alternative.

Thomas Stuckey, a lawyer representing Child Protective Services, said the state's responsibility was to help save Katie's life.

"You may be in a situation where she's been choosing her own death," Mr. Stuckey said.

Katie's cancer was diagnosed in January. By May, her parents believed that chemotherapy had killed the tumor in her chest and feared that radiation treatment would only harm her.

At a hearing on June 10, doctors presented medical scans showing that the cancer had returned.

After a doctor informed Child Protective Services that her parents were interfering with treatment, Mrs. Wernecke fled with Katie, prompting an Amber Alert and the forced removal of Katie and her brothers from their home in June. The boys have since been returned to the family.


http://www.nytimes.com/2005/09/10/national/10texas.html

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