Doctors recommended a "state-of-the-art" chemotherapy treatment. It was the best they had to offer -- but it could also damage Alexander's heart, lungs, liver and kidneys, and lead to loss of hearing, small stature, infertility, another cancer, intellectual decline and death. Despite the chemotherapy -- quite possibly because of it -- Alexander died less than four months after beginning treatment. It wasn't until after Alexander died that the Horwins discovered that in addition to those horrors, various medical journals reported that it was also ineffective for young children.

"After Alexander passed away, my wife and I wanted to find out why our 2-1/2-year-old son died while receiving 'state-of-the-art' chemotherapy at a prestigious children's hospital," Michael Horwin said. "We researched the medical literature and what we discovered astonished and sickened us."
http://alternativecancer.us/horwin.htm

Tomorrow, a Bronx Family Court judge will decide whether Amkia will be able to once again speak to her mother. Phifer by all accounts has never laid a hand on her daughter, and has never let her go one day without being well-clothed, fed and loved. Several witnesses have testified that the 39-year-old divorcee is a caring mother who doted on her only child. And yet she not only has lost custody, she's lost all visitation rights and has been denied all contact with her daughter.

Why? Because she's been charged with medical neglect by the city Administration for Children's Services. Over one year ago, Phifer clashed with doctors at Montefiore Hospital over the correct course of treatment for her daughter's gastrointestinal condition, which was first diagnosed as anemia, then as irritable bowel disease, then finally as ulcerative colitis.

The hospital contends that Amkia's condition was life- threatening and that her mother refused to accept the severity of her illness. Phifer insists her daughter's health deteriorated only after doctors began treating her with drugs her body could not tolerate. Custody was first awarded to Amkia's maternal grandparents, and then to a series of foster parents.

According to court documents, all family contact was cut off Sept. 3 after Phifer violated a court order that required all communication between mother and daughter to be audible to the social worker monitoring their weekly one-hour visits. Court papers state that the two spoke in whispers and that Phifer brought a radio to one visit and took her child to the bathroom so their conversation could not be overheard.
http://alternativecancer.us/newyork_phifer.html

A great milestone in Shelly's life was the birth of her little sister, when she was 3 years old. Shelly was delighted to be a big sister, and took that role very seriously.

In Ann Arbor Shelly went to the Jewish Community Center preschool and at age 5 started Hebrew Day School. In the middle of first grade Shelly was blossoming. She was doing great at school, and was happy to start ballet, music and private art lessons. During the month of January 1998 she complained a few times of seeing double. We took her to the pediatrician on Friday, February 6th, 1998. He sent her to an ophthalmologist and the ophthalmologist to University of Michigan Emergency Room. The CT done that night was read as negative, however, we were instructed to come back for an MRI as soon as possible. On Wednesday, 2-11-98 the MRI was done and Shelly was diagnosed with a brainstem glioma.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~rvolk/shelly/synopsis.html

Miriam loves to tell the story of how Ryan made a commitment to Christ at the age of three. "We were in the car and Ryan began to ask me questions about heaven and whether everybody who dies goes to heaven. I had to tell him no, that not everybody does. Only Christians, people who know Jesus, get to go to heaven."
http://www.ryanturner.org/testimoniesframes.htm

We found a retina specialist close to home who was very honest and said that there was little chance for Justin's survival, but he was very willing to help me in the battle to save his life.

He underwent his first surgery at three months of age in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, five hundred miles away from our home. He had his left eye removed and several small tumors that had invaded his right eye were treated with radioactive implants.

Although he lost his left eye, due to tumor growth, he was a very active, normal child. He was fitted with a prosthesis five months after his surgery and when he learned to talk he would say, "I bet you a quarter that I can take my eye out". Many people thought that he was joking with them and would give him the money just for being cute.
http://www.geocities.com/pzzldme/JustinsStory.html

Our insurance (a self-funded union health trust) agreed to an approximately one half million dollar transplant, but caused a delay in deciding whether or not they would pay for the therapy, which could only be provided at Hughes Clinic in MN. By the time they had decided they wouldn't pay, Chris was no longer medically eligible for the therapy, so he had to undergo several rounds of intense chemotherapy. The delay also caused his ALL to get a stronger foothold, and the chemotherapy caused him to develop a rectal fissure, and for that fissure to remain open through repeated rounds of chemo, causing bleeding, severe pain requiring morphine, and 3 severe infections. After a particularly nasty round of chemotherapy in July, we came to Minneapolis for a transplant evaluation, but the very evening we got to MN, the fevers began again and Chris went into the hospital for 28 days for sepsis (blood poisoning) due to his fissure and low white blood counts. He was on continuous morphine intravenously this whole time. To think so much of this could have been avoided if the insurance would have authorized us to come to the Hughes Clinic.
http://www.chrisroe.org/bio.html