13-year old Daniel Hauser ordered to resume medical treatment

13-year-old Daniel Hauser from Minnesota must resume medical treatment to save his life, despite spiritual and additional objections by his family, a Brown County judge ruled Friday.

Hauser’s family wants to treat the boy’s Hodgkin’s Lymphoma, with natural medicine rather than chemotherapy, because of their religious beliefs.

District Judge John Rodenberg stated that Daniel Hauser was “medically neglected” by his mother and father, Anthony and Colleen Hauser, and should be put into the care of child protection services, although he did not revoke the Hausers` parental guardian status.

The judge did allow Daniel remain with his parents, taking note they love him and acted in good faith. However he gave them until Tuesday to get an updated chest X-ray and find an oncologist.

“This matter … involves a 13-year-old child who has only a rudimentary understanding at best of the risks and benefits of chemotherapy,” the judge stated. “He genuinely opposes the imposition of chemotherapy. However, he does not believe he is ill currently. The fact is that he is very ill currently.

“I’d probably die if I took — keep taking chemo,” Daniel Hauser said, according to the transcript.

And would refuse chemotherapy even if his mother, Colleen Hauser, told him to.

“I’d punch them and kick them,” he said, if anyone tried to administer the drugs.

Daniel was diagnosed in January with Hodgkin’s lymphoma. He and his parents, Colleen and Anthony Hauser, who live on a farm in Sleepy Eye, Minn., Do not wish him to continue with chemotherapy for his cancer. The boy believes himself a Native American medicine man, and the family thinks conventional treatments breach the family’s religious beliefs.