Boy Can Have Alternative Medicine Instead Of Chemotherapy, Quebec

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Main Category: Complementary Medicine / Alternative Medicine
Also Included In: Cancer / Oncology;  Pediatrics / Children's Health;  Nutrition / Diet
Article Date: 28 Jul 2007 - 0:00 PDT

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The Child Protection Agency, Quebec, Canada, is not going to compel Anael L'Esperance-Nascimento, a 3-year-old boy, who has cancerous cells in the brain and spinal cord, to receive chemotherapy after his parents said they would prefer he had alternative medicine.

Anael was diagnosed in October, 2007. He had an operation, which his mother says probably saved his life. After initial chemo treatment at the Children's Hospital of Eastern Ontario his parents have opted for an alternative treatment that includes raw vegetables. It is a diet based on one designed by the Hippocrates Health Institute, Florida, USA. The Institute says the diet promotes oxygenation of blood which is triggered by enzymes present in raw vegetables.

Arthur Schafer, University of Manitoba, told CTV's Canada AM that the province did not intervene because the child's condition is not currently life threatening. If medical experts had told the courts it was a medical emergency their response would have been different.

According to the boy's mother, his condition has improved since he started the alternative treatment. She stressed that she would seek chemotherapy again if her child's condition got worse.

Anael's parents were concerned that chemotherapy would cause years of negative side effects. In an interview with CBC News, Anael's mother, Marie-Élise L'Espérance, said that chemotherapy stays in the body for several years. She compared chemo to a nuclear bomb in the body, saying it damages many things, not just cancer. She added that medical experts could not guarantee that the chemo would succeed.

For the moment the parents are happy to allow doctors to monitor the boy's tumors.

Health professionals at the hospital say that chemotherapy is the best treatment to prevent the cancer from spreading. A spokesman for the hospital said they will not press health authorities to force the boy to receive chemotherapy treatment.

The Hippocrates Health Institute

According to the Institute's web site, Ann Wigmore founded a concept based on Hippocrates' "Let Food Be Our Medicine." Ann Wigmore and Viktoras Kulvinskas, M.S. created an institute in Boston, Massachusetts. The institute taught individuals how to retrieve the power in their inner resources to transform their quality of life. The ideas laid down at this institute in Boston are the foundations of what the Hippocrates Health Institute, West Palm Beach, Florida, is all about.

Wigmore was born in Lithuania and came to the USA as a child. Her mother was the village doctor. Wigmore observed how she treated World War I soldiers with herbs. During the 1950s she developed colon cancer and used her grandmother's techniques to cure herself. With the help of scientists, she developed effective therapies.

The Institute is run by Brian and Anna Maria Clement, Ph.D. L.N.C.

www.hippocratesinst.com

Written by: Christian Nordqvist
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