Home School Heartbeat Radio Program

As a parent, you want to do the very best thing for your child. What if you believed that your child was in danger and you couldn’t get anyone to listen? Hear about one family’s stand for their son’s life, on today’s Home School Heartbeat with host Mike Farris.

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Mike Farris:
Who should make very difficult decisions for children: parents or doctors? These are the questions that are at the heart of a court case that I argued in December of 2011. Here are the facts.

In March 2011, 8-year-old Jacob Stieler was diagnosed with Ewing Sarcoma, a dangerous bone cancer. His parents took him to a highly-rated children’s oncology center and Jacob had surgery to remove the tumor, which was followed by several rounds of chemotherapy. The treatment was incredibly difficult, and Jacob’s mom, Erin, told me that when she looked her son in the eyes she knew in her heart that he simply could not survive many more rounds of these drugs.

After all of the rounds of chemotherapy were completed, a PET scan was done to check on the status of the cancer. There was no evidence of cancer detected in Jacob’s body. But the doctors wanted to give Jacob several more rounds of chemotherapy and radiation, despite the clean PET scan. When asked why they wanted to keep giving Jacob these incredibly dangerous drugs, the doctors replied that this was “the standard of care” for his illness.

Jacob’s parents begged the doctors to make an individual diagnosis. But the doctors insisted: All children with this cancer need several more rounds of these drugs—regardless of the results of the PET scan.

What happened is the crux of the court case—and I’ll tell you about it on our next program. I’m Mike Farris.