Victory for Stupidy in Virginia

"Alternative medicine" is about to take another life in Virginia.

A 16-year-old cancer patient's legal fight ended in victory Wednesday when his family's attorneys and social services officials reached an agreement that would allow him to forgo chemotherapy.
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Last summer, the teen was diagnosed with Hodgkin's disease, a cancer of the lymphatic system considered very treatable in its early stages. He was so debilitated by three months of chemotherapy that he declined a second, more intensive round that doctors recommended early this year.

He since has been using an alternative herbal treatment called the Hoxsey method, the sale of which was banned in the United States in 1960.

First off, being the believer in freedom that I am, I fully support the right of this kid and his parents to do something so suicidal as stopping chemotherapy. It's the kids life and his choice. The real villian in this story is the Mexican clinic where he has been "treated" with some sort of herbal remedy or another. Now, as we all know, "alternative medacine" is just a euphamism for "quackery that doesn't work." And, as usual, they are telling this kid that he can be cured through whatever useless procedures they feel like performing.

Some people may want to blame the kid and his family for being stupid. This is obviously true to an extent, but when people are faced with the possibility of death they tend to believe anyone who offers them hope. That is what this clinic is doing. They're preying on the desperate and hopeless. They do not have a cure for cancer, they are frauds and scam artists like the rest of the "alternative medacine" crowd. I hold these people beneath contempt and hope this kid and his family come to their senses before it's too late.