http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/newshome/5910714/why-my-daughter-doesnt-need-chemotherapy/1/oldest/

A father who is denying his 10-year-old daughter chemotherapy in favour of natural medicine believes the girl has a better chance of surviving cancer because alternative treatments cured her asthma eight years ago.

Supreme Court transcripts obtained by The West Australian reveal Trevor Stitt's faith in alternative therapy is based on his belief that it cured his daughter Tamar's asthma when she was two years old.

Mr Stitt told the court his daughter had not had an asthma attack since natural remedies were used in favour of the "chemical" treatments offered by Princess Margaret Hospital.

The eczema his nine-year-old son Jacob suffered as a baby had also never returned after alternative medicine was used instead of a steroid treatment prescribed by the hospital.

The revelations about the Stitt family's views came after hospital chiefs dropped a court application on Wednesday to force Tamar to have potentially lifesaving chemotherapy.

Tamar, who has had liver and stomach cancer for several months, flew to El Salvador with her mother Arely on Tuesday to continue the natural therapy her parents claimed was working.

Princess Margaret Hospital officials yesterday defended their decision to take the matter to the Supreme Court, arguing doctors believed chemotherapy offered the best chance of a cure for the girl and it needed to be started as soon as possible.

The Australian Medical Association in WA was critical of the family's decision to take Tamar overseas without waiting for a legal ruling, saying it had denied the girl the right to have the courts look at the evidence and decide what was in her best interests.

But the Cancer Support Association of WA said that for some cancers the success rate from chemotherapy was poor.

Mr Stitt, an anaesthetic technician at St John of God Hospital in Murdoch, told the court that WA had the finest medical institutions in the world and he would "humbly" let his daughter be treated by PMH staff if natural therapy failed to cure her.

The court documents reveal Tamar's parents ensured she left Australia to avoid any potential court order that she be treated at PMH.

Chief Justice Wayne Martin told the court he would have almost certainly ordered that Tamar be treated against her parent's wishes had she not left the country and it was in the child's best interests that she returned to Australia. "Had the child been here, notwithstanding Mr Stitt's views, I would have been inclined to make the orders," Justice Martin told the court.

"I could enunciate that now but then going on to make the orders just seems to be futile and possibly counterproductive because it might discourage her return to Australia."

In arguing his case, Mr Stitt told the court that he and his wife were Christians who were open and honest with their children. He said he had been brought up on conventional medicine and had worked in the medical profession for 20 years after training at London's famed Guy's Hospital.

He said he had seen an improvement in his daughter's health since she started natural therapy, which was being administered by his wife and mother-in-law.

The court heard Tamar was diagnosed with cancer a few weeks ago when doctors discovered a growth on the right side of her liver. The family was later told it may have also spread to her lungs.

"She initially was losing weight. She has no longer lost weight, she has gained weight," Mr Stitt said. "She is eating again. She has got colour to her cheeks and she's no longer in pain.

"She's pinked up, she's enthusiastic to go overseas. She is not a fool by any means. She is 10 years old. She is aware what's going on."

Mr Stitt said Tamar's doctor Angela Alessandri had told him there was a 30 per cent chance that chemotherapy would be successful. Tamar would have also lost her hair and suffered other side effects. It is understood Dr Alessandri later told Mr and Mrs Stitt the chance of survival with chemotherapy was closer to 50-60 per cent but she was likely to die without it.

Mr Stitt told Channel 9's A Current Affair last night that he realised when Tamar left for El Salvador that it could be the last time he saw her alive.

He said: "I took her aside before we left to go to the airport and I said, 'My darling, this may be the last time we see you'. She said, 'I know that, Dad'."

So, eczema and asthma are now just as severe as cancer? Is that honestly what this man thinks?
There is a REASON chemotherapy exists, it's not for grins and giggles.

What a waste of space that man is, I feel bad for that little girl :(

I've been doing some reading on natural therapies... this looks quite interesting:

http://www.worldwithoutcancer.org.uk/metabolictherapy.html

Suggesting that cancer is a disease caused by disturbed metabolic activity..... Hhhmmm... It is a gamble though, taking her off chemo. Chemo, radiation and surgery have some success rate, but I'm not sure of natural therapy success rates... I mean, it's probably true, but perhaps something bred into me by my generation tells me not to trust natural therapy.

Having said that, I am tempted to be more aware of natural therapies... maybe not for cancer though....

Well I've always been the type of person that doesn't go to the doctor unless absolutely necessary, or to take pills (ibuprofen, etc.) unless the pain I'm in is effecting my everyday things. (like severe headaches, cramps that make you want to cry, that sort of thing.) I pretty much try to grin and bear it through everything. I don't like medicines. I'm always afraid that if I take medicine for every little ailment, that one day I'm really going to need them, and they're not going to work.

But nothing that I've ever had, has been life-threatening!
I know that if I was told by a doctor that I had cancer, and needed chemo, you best believe I'd be at a wig store later that day in preparation!

Not to mention some kids do actually grow out of eczema and asthma. I did.

Exactly. My brother had asthma and eczema as a kid.

He's 18 now and hasn't had anything to do with it in like ten years.

Oh MY God.

Chemo is horrible to have to go through of course, but surely it's better than dying of cancer?!

I watched a programme a couple weeks ago about these people with leukemia being given gene therapy (which appeared to be just a lot of injections) to help cure it. It was amazing. It will be such a breakthrough when that becomes the norm.

*shrug* i don't see a problem... if his child is doing better, then really thats all that should matter, eh?
I mean, the point of chemo is to put the cancer into remission... and its not like that is a constant. sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn't.
its no more a gamble than a natural remedy.

but in any case, at least he *is* doing something and not just sitting there praying waiting for a god to help him.

Although Chemotherapy may not be a pleasant or appeasing treatment, my mother (who has colon cancer) at age 53, and my 3 month old nephew suffering from Embryonal Rhabdomyosarcoma (a very strong form of cancer), both are undergoing chemotherapy and are really doing well with it considering the side effects. So, I could never say that chemotherapy is a terrible thing because it is allowing them to be here with us now and hopefully in the future

I saw this tonight on the news. :[ It's so sad. I feel so sorry for that little girl. Her parents need a wake-up call.

I saw this on...whats that show called..Sunday Night...I don't know, it's like A current affair, but on a Sunday (Australians will know what I'm going on about)

I find it scary that they haven't given their daughter ALL of the facts, they have just told her that Chemo will make her very sick and will make her hair fall out. She was more worried about her hair falling out than anything else. I just think they have neglected to give her all of the facts. Yes Chemo does make people very sick and yes it makes your hair fall out, but there are actual benefits from it aswell. Like, I don't know, A higher chance she might survive the cancer?

She also looked like she was in a lot of pain, even if she wasn't saying anything, she could hardly life a finger let alone speak. Her dad also "helped" her answer alot of the questions the reporter was asking.

I'm not dogging Natural remedies completely, I actually support them to a certain degree. But these parents seem to be in denial, they didn't want to hear ANYTHING that doctors had to say, they were pretty much shut off all other medically based opinions.

My thoughts are, if ever (g-dforbid) I was diagnosed with something as serious as cancer, I would go through the chemo and so forth, I'd also look into natural ways of....helping my body. Restoring my health whilst I undergo treatment.

What a nutter!

tim minchin's brain must be exploding over this.

chemo cures cancer. it's not a pleasant cure, but it's a bloody cure all the same.

natural remedies do jack shit with regards to cancer.

there is no *cure* for cancer.

uh, chemo and radiation therapy ARE cures. they're just very invasive. cancer is just tricky and it can come back, but it depends on the type and how aggressive it is. just in case you aren't aware what cure means:

cure
–noun
1. a means of healing or restoring to health; remedy.
2. a method or course of remedial treatment, as for disease.
3. successful remedial treatment; restoration to health.
4. a means of correcting or relieving anything that is troublesome or detrimental.

–verb (used with object)
8. to restore to health.
9. to relieve or rid of something detrimental, as an illness or a bad habit.

being that chemo and radiation therapy does those things, then it's a cure.

i dunno.. cure to me, means that you are restored to health.
chemotherapy kills cells and puts them into remission. remission only means that it can come back, but its gone for now. it can be gone for a life time, a year, fifty years.. or whatever.
but that to me, does not say "cure"

not to mention, that a actual cure doesn't make the person worse off than they were WITH the cancer... for example my girlfriend's grandmother died after just one treatment of radiation because it destroyed her immune system.

that to me, doesn't sound like what an actual cure would do.

*shrugs* i dunno.. i appreciate you putting the definition of what cure means... but apparently we have very different views of what a cure actually does.

it is a cure, but it is an invasive cure. as i said.

there aren't any preventative measures for most cancers [other than not to smoke or spend too much time in the sun unprotected, but even those aren't a guarantee], but chemo and radiation therapy do generally get rid of most cancers. i think most people would rather be in remission than have the cancer, but as i said cancer can come back, but if you can spend years without it i think it's worth it.

considering how much your immune system is hit when you take the therapies, it doesn't really surprise me that an older person could die, and i'm quite sure the doctors would've made her aware that that was a possibility. i've known plenty of people that didn't die, but they were younger and their bodies were better equipt to handle it. older people's immune systems aren't the best anyway, most of their body would be gradually degrading and shutting down.

it rids the body of cancerous cells in most cases, which to me is a cure. i'm quite sure my boyfriend's sister who works in a cancer treatment hospital wouldn't appreciate having what she does every day not be called a cure. she's helped a lot of people survive.

because the cancer can ALWAYS come back.. its a chronic illness.
if something has a high likelihood of coming back.. then its not cured. its only put away in a box for a rainy day.

yes, your kind of sister in law helps people survive.. not calling what she does a cure doesn't diminish that in any way. If a Doctor takes off your leg to save you.. does that mean that the doctor hasn't saved your life because he couldn't save your leg? No.

anyway.. it looks like we're not going to see eye to eye on this because im having conversations with other people (one who has a chronic illness) who agree with me. *shrug* different views and all.

thanks for your time :)

Blessings..

if you didn't agree with me, why comment me in the first place?

cancer doesn't always have a high likelihood of coming back, as i said before, it depends on how aggressive, what type, and where in the body it is.

i... what?
i simply pointed out something.. and then we had a discussion about it... and now im confused as to why i shouldn't of said something in the first place?

if you knew we wouldn't see eye to eye, i don't see the need to respond in the first place, if all you intended on doing was saying "this is my point, bye now!". why waste your time?

if all i intended to do was say "this is my point, bye now" then i wouldn't of commented back and forth with you a few times.
that would've been one post.. and thats it. but instead i came with with a secondary post further explaining my reasons.. and you did yours.
That to me, counts as a discussion.

It's not my intention to try and change your views, or for you to change mine. It was an exchange of information.. which is what I use this sight for.
I fail to see how an exchange of information is ever a waste of time.

So are you saying that if people know in advance that they won't see eye to eye, then its pointless to bother partaking in a discussion with them?

oh gawd.. site. oy.

So are you saying that if people know in advance that they won't see eye to eye, then its pointless to bother partaking in a discussion with them?

Gosh, if that's the case then I ought not be having conversations with most people I converse with. ;-)

haha.. for real, eh? I might as well run away from the many Christians that are my good friends too ;-D