DoCS – Stealing Our Children for Medicine?

One Australian Family’s Nightmare Loss of Health Freedom

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This Article was written by Eve Hillary but has been revised for this site.
For further information, visit Eve Hillary's website.

Important: This information is not to be construed as medical advice. It is one family’s experience and it is sourced and referenced with additional information. The facts in this article are true and stand as logically probative facts derived from affidavits, legal documents, medical records, interviews and independent research. Some names have been changed, or abbreviated, to avoid incrimination or person/s.

To Begin
Sarah was a red cheeked, athletic eleven-year-old when she complained of feeling unwell in late November 2002. She had been robustly healthy all her life, and had never experienced any serious illness. She was born and raised in an Australian rural community where the family has a farm. Sarah enjoyed helping her parents with gathering eggs, planting organic vegetables and tending to the cows. Her father, Mark, worked nearby to supplement the family income and her mother Dianne attended to Sarah and her siblings at home. Sarah’s grandparents lived on an adjacent parcel of the family landholding near a scenic river frontage, where Sarah, her siblings and their cousins were frequent visitors. The older children spent enjoyable days swimming in the river, and helping their grandmother with chores including homemade butter making. The extended family formed a close and cooperative unit that gathered regularly. At those times Sarah’s favourite activity was babysitting for the younger cousins while her parents, uncles and aunts spent the day pitching in with some of the heavier farm chores.

Every Parent’s Nightmare
Sarah was normally a lively girl with a keen sense of fun, but in November 2002 her parents became concerned that she had seemed unwell over the previous few days. Late that evening they noticed a lump in her upper abdomen and Mark decided to take her to the local hospital some distance away while Dianne planned to stay home with the other children. By the time preparations were made, Sarah was asleep. The next morning the lump was still there and Mark took her to the local hospital where the family doctor examined Sarah. He thought it was her bladder but catheterisation did not alleviate the problem. Mark was advised to take Sarah to another hospital some distance away where blood tests were taken. The duty doctor returned to tell Mark that the tests indicated 11 year-old Sarah was 14 weeks pregnant. Mark, as the father of a number of children, thought this was not the case for a variety of reasons, and told the doctor that he had never seen a pregnancy originate from “so high up in the abdomen”. He gave permission for further tests including a Doppler test to check for a foetal heartbeat and an abdominal ultrasound, scheduled for the following day. The doctor however was so convinced Sarah was pregnant that he had already contacted the local office of DoCS, the Department of Community Services (child protection). He was determined to question Sarah about sexual matters. In the interim, the Doppler test revealed no hint of a foetal heartbeat.

Meanwhile, Dianne had arrived at the hospital, and with both parents present, Sarah underwent an abdominal ultra sound the following morning, when a tumour was found. Mark had refused to allow the staff to question Sarah about sexual matters until more conclusive tests could be done, but they had questioned the child anyway. It is not known what effects this added stress had on the child. She had by that time undergone a number of uncomfortable procedures and was faced with a serious, possibly life threatening diagnosis. To Sarah it would have appeared that her life had taken a turn toward uncertainty from the relatively carefree life she’d had on the farm.

Shaken to the core, but struggling to remain calm for Sarah’s sake, Mark and Dianne drove their daughter to John Hunter Children’s hospital in Newcastle. The next morning, following a CT scan, oncologist Dr. A. and surgeon, Dr. Cassey, told Sarah and her parents that urgent surgery was necessary to remove the tumour. Mark and Dianne agreed and signed the consent form after Sarah told them she “wanted it out”.

Dr. John Cassey finished operating on Sarah at 3pm on Wednesday, November 27th. The tumour had been the size of a small football and extended the height of the abdomen from the pelvis to the diaphragm. Dr. Cassey removed the mass, along with the left ovary and four lymph nodes. He explained that Sarah had felt off colour because the mass had cut off its own blood supply and was breaking down. He reassured Mark and Dianne that all went well even though they were alarmed at the length of time Sarah had been in recovery
after surgery. Both parents were momentarily relieved and felt Sarah was in good hands with Dr. Cassey.

Three days later the John Hunter Children’s oncologist, Dr. A. told the family that the histopathology report had returned. The result indicated a rare ovarian mixed germ cell tumour consisting of various types of malignant cells, resulting from cancerous changes of various ovarian cell lines. These cells secreted hormonal substances and tumour markers into her bloodstream. He expressed concern about any residual tumour cells and told Mark and Dianne that their daughter would die with certainty if she did not receive chemotherapy. With chemo, Dr. A. claimed, Sarah had an “85% chance of being cured”. They asked the doctor how chemo worked. Mark reports, the doctor “could not describe it as anything other than deadly poison and that it was indiscriminate in the way that it killed both cancer and healthy cells.” Dr. A. recommended three chemotherapeutic agents to be given over three days, bleomycin, carboplatin and etoposide. This was to be repeated four or five times at 21-28 day intervals.

Impossible Choices – “For my eyes only”
Sarah and her parents returned to the farm to reunite with the other children and their grandparents. Meanwhile Sarah, clearly delighted to be back home, made a remarkably quick recovery surrounded by her family. Before the next visit to the hospital four days later Mark and Dianne studied as much information as possible about chemotherapy. They discovered that Chemotherapy originated from mustard gas from which the first family of cytotoxic (cell killing) drugs were synthesized. Nitrogen mustard is still listed on schedule one of the Chemical Weapons Convention. Since then, many other equally toxic chemical agents have been developed and used as chemotherapeutic agents. Because of its high toxicity, staff using protective clothing, goggles, boots and specialised rubber gloves, administer chemotherapy. The floor below the preparation area and intra venous stand is protected from accidental spills, as just a few drops of concentrate are so corrosive that it can damage surfaces and cause chemical burns to human skin. An accidental spill kit is located on the wall of chemotherapy rooms. Staff mopping up spills carefully handle the hazardous material and dispose of it as toxic waste. The chemotherapy is infused into the patient and it immediately kills fast-dividing cells including cancer cells, but also cells forming bone marrow, immune system, digestive system, hair follicles and reproductive cells of the testes and ovary. It also kills healthy cells throughout the body, including liver, kidney and brain cells. Parents of children having chemo are cautioned to wear gloves when bathing their children or coming into contact with their urine. The chemicals saturate the body tissues, killing red blood cells, which carry oxygen to body cells. This causes fatigue, anaemia, and shortness of breath. Low white blood cell count occurs due to the death of white blood cells, the cells responsible for fighting infection. The patient develops a severely compromised immune system incapable of fighting off infection. The immune system’s natural killer cells are destroyed by the chemicals, and unable to continue seeking out and destroying cancer cells. Platelets are destroyed and with them the body’s blood clotting ability. This causes nosebleeds and the potentially fatal risk of haemorrhage into lungs, intestines, brain or other organs, depending on how low the platelet count falls. Most patients retch, vomit and experience diarrhoea shortly after chemo starts. In some cases chemotherapy has to be stopped or the patient will die. Three percent of patients die from the therapy. 

Many others die later from longer-term complications, when the deaths are attributed to cancer and not to the treatment. Some 67% of people who do not survive the course of treatment die because of their weakened immune system’s failure to overcome infection, directly attributable to the chemotherapy. Those that survive the treatment often experience longer-term sequelae. Chemotherapy drugs are often in themselves carcinogenic chemicals that break and damage DNA. This creates a seed for a new cancer that may emerge years later as a direct effect of the treatment. The most common cancers that are caused by chemotherapy are leukaemia and lymphoma. Apart from the relatively temporary effects of hair loss, this type of therapy most often causes permanent damage to ovaries and testes causing sexual dysfunction and permanent inability to have children. Considering the significant risks of chemotherapy, this treatment would be expected to deliver considerable efficacy. However, according to U.S. physician and author Dr. Cynthia Foster MD: “

Now, how can cancer patients possibly fight even a few cancer cells when their immune systems have been disabled and this is yet another stress on the body, and they\'re bleeding because they have hardly any platelets left from the toxic effects of the chemotherapy? This is usually why, when chemotherapy is stopped, the cancer grows again and gets out of control. We have now created a vicious cycle, where doctors are trying to kill the cancer cells, and the patient is not able to fight the rest, so the doctors have to give the chemotherapy again, and then the patient can\'t fight the rest of the cancer cell, and then the doctors give the chemotherapy again, and so on.”

Mark and Dianne went on to research the three cancer drugs the oncologist intended to use and discovered a number of facts they had not been told. Bleomycin is a toxic agent that is known to cause permanent lung damage and precludes the medical use of oxygen. This side effect would make any future resuscitation attempts or anaesthetic increasingly likely to cause severe, permanent and possibly fatal lung damage. The other chemotherapy drugs were Carboplatin and Etoposide. The former has a high incidence of causing deafness in children. In recent studies it was found that hearing loss was found in 79% of patients treated with Carboplatin. Etoposide is known to be associated with further cancers including leukaemia following its use. 

Both chemicals are also toxic to bone marrow, kidneys, skin and liver. Platinum containing chemotherapeutic agents are known to leave residual platinum in the body for years. The long-term toxicity of this substance is unknown. And according to the manufacturer’s instructions, none of the three chemicals have sufficient information available to recommend their use in children. The family then researched other cancer therapies and found a number of wholistic treatment approaches conducted by researchers both in Australia and in the UK. They came across Professor C. who conducted interesting work using bioenergetic medicine, oxygen therapy and other immuno-supportive treatments. The Professor was a scientist but not a medical doctor, however he worked with a medical team in Melbourne. The other interesting work Mark and Dianne found was that of Dr. Kenyon of Dove Clinic in UK, who used intravenous natural anti cancer therapies and nutritional support on cancer patients with encouraging results. In principle Mark and Dianne preferred treatment modalities that aimed to support the immune system in order to strengthen the body’s ability to scavenge the cancer cells. They were keen to preserve Sarah’s quality of life instead of risking her death from the effects of the treatment alone. However, they still needed to know more about both chemo and other treatments before they could make a firm decision.

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