A child with Melanoma, a mother tossed in jail, radio talk show hosts, ranting bloggers. It’s a good story.From the Natural Solutions Foundation Web Site:

There is a developing story from California that involves a mother with a 17 year old child who HAD melanoma. The mother, chose to go against her allopathic (conventional) doctor’s orders (to have surgery and chemotherapy) – and instead try advanced natural medicine first – since she understood that supporting the body’s ability to heal is more effective than destroying it as chemotherapy does.Not surprisingly this approach worked! This young man is now CANCER FREE!! However, the allopathic doctor is insisting that the child must have chemotheray as well as surgery, which the mother refuses to have her child undergo. Interestingly, doctor, the allopathic doctor’s unnecessary treatments will be compensated by the insurer or state, while the holistic strategies that actually worked are not eligible for coverage.[Quoted here]

Naturally, the mother and child were hunted down and harassed by authorities:

An unholy alliance of California Child Protective Services (CPS) with a hostile doctor and judge is attempting to railroad Laurie Jessop, framed as a threat to her son and the establishment for finding a way to cure him of malignant melanoma. She is now on trial, under a gag order, since she had gone to the press. When she was arrested, she was put in maximum security, solitary confinement, in the Orange County, CA jail. They claim that everything about. her says anti-Establishment, so she was told, as she was considered a threat in starting a riot.[source]

This story will become the centerpiece of pro-homeo antio-allo pathic medical pot shotting for a long time. Unless, of course, the truth gets out.It appears on further inspection (not done by me) that the story is a hoax. From Orac of Respectful Insolence:

The story was so obviously fraudulent, so obviously full of holes, so clearly ridiculous to anyone with even a little knowledge about melanoma and how it is treated, and so clearly containing elements suggestive of an urban legend, that anyone with a even modicum of responsibility and critical thinking skills would have investigated it before spreading it far and wide across the Internet and blogsophere. Clearly the Angry Scientist is no such person. He’s drunk the Kool Aid and is still trying to defend this story…[source]

Go here for the most current post by Orac on this story.