Mike Adams brings home the crazy over the Daniel Hauser case

You knew it was just a matter of time. At least I did. Let me back up a minute and tell you what I mean.

Over the last week, I’ve done three posts about a chemotherapy refusenik (as some oncologists I’ve worked with tend to refer to them as) named Daniel Hauser. Hauser is a 13-year-old boy with Hodgkin’s lymphoma who, after having undergone one course of chemotherapy for his disease, decided that he didn’t want anymore. He and his mother justified his refusal using the teachings of a faux Native American cultish religious group but in reality are probably only using religion as a convenient excuse to do justify what they wanted to do anyway because of fear of chemotherapy and the memory of an aunt who died while undergoing chemotherapy. On Friday, Judge John Rodenberg came to a decision and issued what to me is a wise and restrained ruling, in which he ruled that medical neglect is indeed taking place and placed the onus squarely on Daniel’s parents’ shoulders to rectify the situation by making sure that Daniel underwent appropriate science-based therapy for his cancer. I realize that the story is unlikely to be over and that I am likely to be drawn back to commenting on it again, as the first part of the judge’s instructions was only that the Hausers take Daniel back for staging studies in order to reassess the extent of Daniel’s cancer.

But before I move on from the tragic case of Daniel Hauser for a while, I can’t help but notice that and “old friend” of the blog, someone who’s ability to bring home the crazy in his characteristically histrionic, paranoid, and misinformation-filled rants is utterly unparalleled almost anywhere outside of Whale.to. Of course, I’m referring to Mike Adams of NaturalNews.com. Mike is not happy about Judge Rodenberg’s ruling. Oh, no. Not at all. He sees it as–well, why don’t I quote his article Court Orders Parents to Poison Their 13-Year-Old Child with Chemotherapy and link to his disturbing YouTube video (Part 1 and Part 2):

The crazy, it is strong in this one, particularly in part II of his video, where he likens the use of chemotherapy to Nazi Germany’s throwing Jews into gas chambers. (Calling the Hitler Zombie!) For example, let’s look at how Adams starts his article:


Of course, chemotherapy for Hodgkin’s disease can be harsh, as I discussed before. It’s not because doctors want to “poison children,” contrary to Mike Adams’ paranoid ramblings. It’s simply because we haven’t found anything better yet. Moreover, Hodgkin’s disease in childhood of the type and stage that Daniel has is around 90% curable with chemotherapy and radiation but close to 0% curable with anything else. Not in Adams’ world. In fact, to get the full flavor of his rant, you really do need to read the whole text, but here’s just a taste. First, the introduction to his video:

I’d like you to put out a prayer tonight for Daniel Hauser. He is a 13-year-old boy who has been sentenced by the State of Minnesota to a chemical injection. You might ask, well, what’s the crime of this 13-year-old? His crime is that he underwent a round of chemotherapy because he has cancer. After experiencing the toxic effects of this chemotherapy, he decided he did not want any more. He expressed this desire to his parents, and his parents agreed with him…

Never leave it to Mike to be the least but subtle, either on video or in print. I will say that Mike comes across to me as being rather creepy. I had expected him to be wide-eyed and wild; his thousand-mile stare and rather flat delivery, to me, are far creepier than I expected. So maybe I’ll go back to his written rant:



There is not a single cancer patient that has ever been cured by chemotherapy. Zero. They don’t exist. Not a single documented case in the history of western medicine.

What is this guy smoking?

I’m guessing that Adams, were he to be a commenter here, would be one of those who liberally spice their comments with all caps. He also seems to think that arguing by assertion is all he needs to do. Is this guy serious? No one has ever been cured by chemotherapy? The literature is replete with carefully documented survival statistics for patients with cancer who have been cured by chemotherapy. Thousands, if not millions, of trees have probably been killed to provide the paper publishing case reports, clinical trial results, and other statistics for the efficacy of chemotherapy against a wide variety of cancers over the last several decades. Indeed, we know which cancers chemotherapy works well for (for instance, Hodgkin’s disease) and which ones it doesn’t work well for (for instance melanoma and pancreatic cancer, both of which are primarily treated surgically).

Let’s see what other claims Adams can throw in:

And why is that? Because conventional medicine operates from the false belief that there is no cure for cancer! Thus, anyone offering a cure (or assisting in the body’s own natural reversal of the disease) is immediately dismissed as a quack. Meanwhile, the real quackery is found in the pushing of toxic chemotherapy chemicals that are injected into the bodies of patients and called “treatment” when they should really be called “torture.” (Nancy Pelosi, by the way, was never briefed on the fact that chemotherapy is torture…)

Nice touch with the Nancy Pelosi remark, Mike. Nice touch of crazy to spice up the article. You know, just when I think that Adams can’t surpass himself in sheer, paranoid lunacy, he does! Talk about your massive straw man! Conventional medicine most definitely does not operate from the belief that there is no cure for cancer. In fact, it most definitely does the opposite, although with more nuance than what Adams’ fevered little brain is capable of in that, unlike Adams and his woo brigade, scientific medicine recognizes that cancer is not a single disease. Indeed, it’s a mistake to refer to “cancer” as a single disease.

The other point that has to be made is not that someone claiming to have a cure for cancer is dismissed as a quack. Rather, it is people like those whom Mike Adams promotes, who claim to be able to cure cancer but provide no scientific evidence that they can do so or whose methods are so scientifically implausible as to be dismissed without exceedingly compelling evidence sufficient to overturn the numerous scientific paradigms with which they directly conflict.

But why? Why would Judge Rodenberg rule this way? It couldn’t possibly be because he was doing what he thought to be in the best interests of Daniel Hauser, could it? Of course not! To Adams, it’s all part of the plot:


Uh, no, Mike. What’s illegal is medical neglect. What’s illegal is sentencing a child to death by not providing him with effective science-based therapy that has been shown to result in a roughly 90% chance of curing the cancer, opting instead for religious quackery that is virtually certain to be result in his dying a very ugly death due to lymphoma. Adults still have freedom of choice. They can choose whatever quackery they wish for whatever reason they wish. However, they do not have the “right” to impose such a choice on a child if that choice is likely to lead directly to the death of that child.

But why–why— would physicians dismiss Adams and his woo brigade? Naturally, Adams has an idea why. After making a number of highly exaggerated (at best) claims for “natural” cures that can “help the body reverse various cancers,” he launches into the real reason he hates scientific medicine:


This is the point at which medicine crosses over the line of anything scientific and becomes a dangerous form of dogma known as “scientism.”

Modern medicine is not a scientific debate, folks. It’s a system of control. Doctors, judges and courtrooms are simply tools of oppression to manipulate, poison and exploit a diseased population, all while isolating them from the natural cures that really work.

That’s right. You knew it was coming. It always does, whether it’s from evolution-denying creationists or other pseudoscientists frustrated that science doesn’t find what they want it to find: the charge that science is nothing more than a “dogma” or, if you’re a creationist or into other forms of religious woo (like Daniel Hauser’s mother, for example) nothing more than “another religion.” It’s not. The very difference between science and the woo Kool Aid (or should I say the Woo-Aid?) that Mike Adams has drunk deeply of is that science does change. Science does adapt. If the evidence demands it, scientific medicine will even radically alter its understanding of a disease process like cancer. In marked contrast, Adams spews the same nonsense, day in, day out.

Nonsense like this:

And the people causing this to happen are, in every conceivable way, guilty of mass murder. To deny the population access to accurate information about natural cancer remedies that really work — and to threaten to imprison those who attempt to protect their children from the harm caused by poisonous chemicals — is essentially an act of murder. It’s not quite the same as putting a gun to someone’s head and pulling the trigger, but it’s close: Dead is dead, whether they were killed by a bullet or an injection.

And Daniel Hauser would be just as dead if he dies because quacks like those Mike Adams actively supports persuade his parents that they can offer a “100%” chance of a cure and persuade them to reject medicine that works.

If you think Adams has ramped the crazy up as far as he can, you’re wrong:



If you really want to see just what lurks just underneath much of the advocacy of “alternative cancer cures,” read NaturalNews.com. I find it very useful. Most purveyors of these “cures” or of “natural medicine” who reject science tend to be a lot more circumspect. They want you to think they are reasonable, that their woo has a basis in science. They are suspicious of science and big pharma, but they know enough not to let their freak flags fly.

Which is why, in a perverse way, I’m grateful for Mike Adams. He’s not afraid to let his freak flag fly. My only question is: Does anyone take him seriously? I like to hope not, but that hope is contradicted by the fact that NaturalNews.com is one of the highest-trafficked alt-med sites out there. In the meantime, he provides me with endless blogging material with his ghoulishness and shameless inability to resist making a fool of himself whenever a case like that of Daniel Hauser comes up and his hilariously over-the-top cartoons like this.

Orac’s commentary

  1. Another child sacrificing himself on the altar of irrational belief
  6. Chemotherapy versus death from cancer
  8. An astoundingly inaccurate headline about the Daniel Hauser case
  9. Good news for Daniel Hauser!
  10. Daniel Hauser, fundraising, and “health freedom”