Yeah, you have to be outrageously stupid to get selected against in our warm and fuzzily comfortable society. You’re safer now than you were in your mother’s womb.

And on the topic of Native American reservations: I’m pretty sure the federal gov’t has nothing to do with tribal lands. Obviously they don’t pay any taxes, but I don’t think the feds will step in to protect the citizens of the reservation. Likewise, the tribe can shield their citizens from extradition to U.S. court. I heard a story on NPR once where the poor tribes (a.k.a. “one of those thousands of tribes that don’t own a casino”) had a real problem with law enforcement because they didn’t have enough resources to protect the citizens of the reservation and all these hillbillies from Minnesota or somewhere like that were coming onto their lands and raping their women. And the Minnesota police where uncooperative and the feds wouldn’t help. Pretty much everybody seemed to think it was somebody else’s problem.

But that’s not really relevant in this case since these people aren’t Native American at all.

You assume that these people have the option of better treatment. If there are no better alternatives readily available, then how could they be forced to take them?

In this case, there are doctors advising and offering the best treatment and they are wilfully neglecting this advice to the detriment of their child.

If you take it to abstraction, then for any crime, someone would have to make a complaint for the law to become involved. If they did, they would be tried.

I think there’s a fairly clear distinction between the two cases.

- Daniel is considered an elder, but does not know what the word “elder” means.
- The ONLY Nemenhah principle Daniel seemed to understand was “do no harm”, although he is considered “a medicine man”.
- Daniel is 13 yo, in the 5th grade, but cannot read. It is highly unlikely that he researched the CAM in his deposition.

This is one of the most blatant cases of pure ignorance I’ve ever seen. I am sure these people have good intentions, but they are betting their child’s life on BS.

My understanding of what happened today is that he did have another X-ray yesterday. The tumor is larger and the cancer has spread. The doctor who administered the X-ray recommended an appointment be made immediately, but the mother said “no” and left with the child.

The Nemenhah are NOT following any known Native American religious tradition! It’s a 100% plastic New-Age woo developed by a white guy named Phillip Landis (a.k.a. “Cloudpiler”, or as he’s known in Native American Circles, “Piles Bullshit Deeply”).

He’s using a federal law that’s designed to protect Native AMerican rituals as a cloak for his supplement businerss, selling membership in his “band” to members of his MLM.

They were using the name of a known Nez Perce band until the Nez Perce did the “summoning of the land sharks” ritual and made him stop.

Minnesota boy resisting chemo misses court hearing

Orac – thanks for the clarification. So his chances of surviving are even better with treatment than I cited.

I forgot to mention that that is true, unless his tumor has progressed significantly, to the point where a bone marrow transplant might be needed to salvage his life. If that is the case, his odds can drop more than I mentioned.