"Separating Sense From Nonsense"

"These alternative people tell you about conventional doctors just poisoning you and slashing you, and then they offer a kinder, gentler therapy. But the problem is the kinder, gentler therapy doesn't have any evidence behind it."
Dr. Joe Schwarcz, director, McGill University Office for Science and Society

"Its [Hippocrates Health Institute] programs [are] a veritable cornucopia of nearly every quackery on the planet."
Dr. David Gorski, surgical oncologist, Wayne State University: Science-Based Medicine website

"The real clash here is between superstition and modern medicine, pure and simple ... This is not about culture, it is about physiology."
Deyoyonatheh, Six Nations medical specialist; doctorate of medicine from McMaster University

Hippocrates, father of medicine

Hippocrates, he of blessed memory, though no one's memory stretches that far back into ancient Greek antiquity, would be appalled that his name has been attached to the worst instance of modern medical quackery-for-profit. Born in Asia Minor around 460 B.C., his father a physician-priest of the day, he himself studied the relation between natural processes and disease:

"... signs and symptoms of a disease were caused by the natural reactions of the body to the disease process; and that the chief role of the physician was to aid the natural resistance of the body to overcome the metabolic imbalance and restore health and harmony to the organism..." 

In his own wisdom, or lack of same, Justice Gethin Edward, himself a member of the Grand River Six Nations in Brantford, upheld aboriginal rights under the Constitution to reflect the right of parents to refuse modern conventional treatment that would, in this particular instance of an 11-year-old aboriginal girl, treat her leukemia with a protocol that is 90% effective for patients, in favour of using traditional aboriginal medicine.

Which led the parents of the child to take her to Florida to an 'alternative health clinic' that is licensed by the State only as a massage parlour, but which advertises itself as a clinic treating cancer through wheatgrass consumption, raw-food diets and "infrared saunas". This is by no means the first time that the Brant Child Welfare authorities were asked to intervene and chose to wash their hands of responsibility in the life-saving treatment of an aboriginal child suffering from leukemia.

The Judge's reasoning that aboriginal rights are protected to the extent that they have the right to refuse Western medical treatment in favour of traditional aboriginal treatment doesn't hold up legally. The Canadian Civil Liberties Association, usually in favour of aboriginal rights, has drawn the line where the life of a child is so clearly endangered.

Aboriginal rights can be restricted in areas where "significant risk of harm or death when a parent refuses or is unable to consent to medical treatment" is concerned.