McMaster Children's Hospital was the scene of a small but emotional protest Monday morning over the plight of an 11-year-old boy forced by the Children's Aid Society to undergo cancer treatment.
The boy's parents were joined by about a dozen supporters who say the CAS is wrong to order the child to endure chemotherapy when he says he doesn't want it.
"I want them to leave me alone. I'm doing the right thing and taking natural medicine," the boy, whose name cannot be released because of his age, told CHCH-TV in a telephone interview.
The boy has an aggressive form of leukemia and has undergone chemotherapy before. His parents say he suffered through it, and they decided as a family to stop the treatments.
On Thursday, when they brought the boy to the same Hamilton hospital for routine tests, the CAS seized him. When his father protested, he was handcuffed and evicted from the premises.
The parents were allowed to go into the hospital to visit him Monday morning and his mom brought him to a window to wave to supporters.
The next step in the dispute is expected to take place in court Tuesday. The parents say they anticipate the CAS will ask a judge to allow the organization to assume custody of their son. The parents have hired a prominent Toronto lawyer, Marlys Edwardh, to fight their case.
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There is a Bill C-51 currently in the works in Canada that would give the government broader-reaching powers in controlling and restricting the use of natural supplements, vitamins and even basic foodstuffs. It is, among other things, basically an attempt to slightly redefine the category of "drug", supposedly to protect people from snake oil salesmen. However, there are no protections inherent in the act to safeguard access to various types of natural remedies which can save lives when modern western medicine fails. Even Vitamin C or blueberries could fall into the category of regulated substances simply because they may have therapeutic value.
This particular story is just a single case example of the attack on intelligent people's right to learn about and take care of their own health, and make use of the abundant and time tested resources of the natural world.