A First Nation girl in Canada who had a highly treatable form of leukemia refused chemotherapy after initially being treated with it, and she died this Monday.
The girl had acute lymphoblastic leukemia, which, according to specialists, has a cure rate of about 80 to 90 percent. She suffered a stroke, which her family is attributing to one of the chemo drugs she had been given, but which specialists say is unlikely to have been the cause of the stroke, since it has been almost a year since the three months of chemotherapy she received.
Instead, specialists say the likely cause of the stroke was thickening of her blood due to the progression of the disease.
There are lots of news stories out there about this development. Here are two that may serve as a good starting point:
"Ontario girl Makayla Sault, who refused chemo in favour of traditional medicine, dies," Global News, January 19, 2015.
Makayla Sault, the 11-year-old Ontario girl who refused chemotherapy treatments in favour of indigenous medicine, died Monday.
Makayla, a member of the New Credit First Nation near Caledonia, Ont., made national headlines last year when she refused chemo for her leukemia. The province’s Children Aid Society chose not to intervene after her family decided to pursue alternative medicine.
A statement from the family published in the Two Row Times said Makayla died on Monday at 1:50 p.m. after suffering a stroke Sunday morning ...
She had been receiving chemotherapy for acute lymphoblastic leukemia at McMaster Children’s Hospital in Hamilton when she decided to stop the treatment in the spring of 2014 after suffering severe side effects.
"Makayla Sault likely died from rebounding cancer, not chemotherapy effects: specialist," National Post, January 20, 2015
... Makayla, a resident of Ontario’s New Credit First Nation, pulled out of treatment after her first round of chemo last spring, opting instead for native and other alternative remedies, including a stint at a non-aboriginal “holistic”-health clinic in Florida.
Doctors say 80-90% of children with acute lymphoblastic leukemia [ALL], which she had, can be cured today with proven medical therapy.
But in a statement Monday, Makayla’s parents blamed her death squarely on the treatment she received at a Hamilton, Ont., hospital.
She was “bravely fighting toward holistic well-being after the harsh side effects that 12 weeks of chemotherapy inflicted on her body,” they said, but “chemotherapy did irreversible damage to her heart and major organs.”
“This was the cause of the stroke,” the family said, without elaboration.
A Western Canadian pediatric oncologist, who asked not to be named because of the case’s “political sensitivity,” challenged that assertion, however.
There is one drug – asparaginase – the girl might have received that could have caused a stroke within a week or two of first receiving chemotherapy, the specialist said, but not months after the fact.
“It had absolutely nothing to do with the chemo,” asserted the university-based oncologist, while cautioning that he was not familiar with the details of her specific case. “It probably has everything to do with the leukemia coming back and causing her death, which is what it does when you don’t treat it.”
The cancer cells that accumulate in an untreated child’s blood make it more viscous, and more likely to cause clots that could lead to stroke, the physician said.
