A relative says an Ohio Amish girl diagnosed with leukemia continues natural treatments while hiding with her parents amid a legal case over whether she’ll be forced to resume chemotherapy.
Doctors fought the family’s decision to end chemotherapy, saying Sarah Hershberger would die without it.
Her grandfather tells the Akron Beacon Journal that Sarah recently celebrated her 11th birthday and seems vibrant and healthy. Isaac Keim says blood and imaging tests showed the cancer is gone.
This article was posted: Sunday, December 1, 2013 at 4:17 pm
Tags: health, natural health
Sarah Hershberger is the 10-year-old Ohio Amish girl with leukemia that made national news recently. She
fled the U.S. in Sept. 2013 with her parents Andy and Anna Hershberger to avoid Akron Children’s Hospital
(ACH) demands and court-ordered guardianship to force Sarah to continue exactly 27 months of an experimentalchemotherapy research project against her will and the will of her parents. They say she is cancer free
now after natural treatments. After many weeks away, the Hershbergers want to come home and just be left
alone without any fear of being arrested and Sarah taken away.
More chemotherapy was not just against Sarah’s will since it was making her unable
to walk and dreadfully sick, it was also against the will of the parents, and advice from
health professionals outside the hospital. So the parents took her, along with their new
baby, out of the country to a special clinic that uses natural biomedical treatments. The
Hershbergers called me and told me the Spanish doctors say Sarah is now cancer free,
as does Sarah’s grandfather, Isaac Keim, who is an Amish church bishop.
Gone for couple months now, the Hershbergers are homesick and heartsick. They
cannot return to Ohio or their farm and their other five children without fear of being
arrested and Sarah taken away. They run an organic vegetable farm and roadside stand
(which all but failed this year), a 10-minute buggy ride from the center of Homersville in
Medina County. Andy suffered a severe stress disorder leaving him unable to function
well for four weeks. Family and friends are pitching in to care and feed the children and
animals and picked vegetables before they rotted in the fields.
Medina County Children’s Services and Sheriff Department stop at the farm every
three days to see if they can find Sarah. But, off the record, they let family members know
they do not want to get involved but they are only doing their job as instructed.
The legal hassle began when the Hershbergers told the hospital they are stopping
the chemo to try something safer and perhaps more effective. A panel of ACH experts
consisting of an attorney, doctors and trainees, managers and a public relations person
met with the family in a conference room The Hershbergers wanted to work together
with ACH. The hosptial refused. ACH wanted it all their way or no way, Andy told
me.That is when ACH management said they would be reported to Medina Children’s
Services and threatened to take them to court. Shawn Lyden, the Exec VP of ACH
later asked attorney Maria Schimer to take legal action. Eventually, after four trials, she
was appointed by the courts to make medical decisions for Sarah until she is 18.
Who is Maria Schimer? Ms. Schimer is an hospital-affiliated, attorney-nurse,
who was later made the medical guardian to make sure Sarah will get her treatments.
Schimer is General Counsel (chief legal advisor) for Northeast Ohio Medical University
(NEOMED), a close affiliate and business partner of the hospital. According to Andy,
Ms. Schimer has never met Sarah or him and his wife and they were never told their
child was being used in a research study—among other things.
Investigations: This investigative report, which began with Isaac’s call to me from the
special clinic, is the Hershberger’s side of the story—one that was not covered by local
and national broadcasters. Andy had told me that television had twisted his statements
so badly he didn’t want to talk to them anymore. The hospital’s medical director
parroted its PR team saying ACH had a “moral and ethical responsibility” while TV
medical experts spinned it into “now she can get her life-saving treatment” that Andy
and Anna believed was killing her. But Sarah’s recovery and unfair media coverage
are not the parent’s only claims.
On top of continuous harassment, the Hershbergers accuse Akron Children’s Hospital
with serious mistreatment:
* Hospital staff or doctors never told them that the chemotherapy was part of a research project using experimental
chemicals. They learned of this the first time during lengthy court hearings.
* Andy and Anna’s signature was not obtained by the hospital for the second phase of chemo that uses different
chemicals. Only Sarah was asked “to put her name on the line”.
* The serious side effects of the experimental chemo were never disclosed. A nurse that came to the house to give
Sarah booster injections had said these chemicals can cause cancer, much to their surprise. When Andy brought this
up in the meeting with the ACH panel, one member of the team said the nurse should have never said that.
* Sarah’s confidential medical information was given to the news media, a violation of federal medical privacy laws.
* Hospital doctors said they would not monitor and test Sarah periodically if they stopped the chemo making it very
difficult for them to get these medical services elsewhere.
Amish Girl Being Forced Into Chemotherapy Fled the U.S.
for Natural Treatments is Said to Be Cancer Free Now
by David Michael, Investigative Reporter
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Published 11/17/13 revised 11/21
Sarah escaped the US in
Sept. 2013 to avoid forced
chemotherapy demanded
by the hospital and courts.
She is now cancer-free
using natural treatments.
* The hospital may have exaggerated the final report of cat scans based on comments of doctors at the special clinic.
How did this happen? Three times the courts ruled against the hospital—saying they had no right or legal standing to have
Ms. Schimer take guardianship because there is not “one scintialla of evidence the parents are unfit”. When the hospital again
pursued by appealing the second time, the 5th District court in Akron refused to hear it, so the 9th District in Canton accepted
the case. Ms. Schimer’s attorney was the judge over this court before retiring earlier this year to work at an Akron law firm---
ACH being a major client. The new judge that replaced him ruled in favor of the hospital demanding the Medina County
Probate court hand Sarah over. But the local court now had a new judge, Kevin Dunn replacing Judge Lohn, who had just
retired in August, for health reasons, during the Hershberger trials.
The Business of Cancer. ACH will lose hundreds of thousands by not treating Sarah the full 27 months in this study
according to what a doctor close to the case and said “the fine print in the enrollment contract states patients who decide to pull
out of a study is reposnible for the entire bill”.They have billed $130,000 for the first five weeks. This is not counting the billings
for treatments for any long-term side effects such as other cancers, kidney dysfunction, heart problems and nerve damage—all
common for those that survive chemotherapy.
Isaac Keim, by his authority as bishop of an Amish church, has declared the Amish church is against the court ruling and
the actions by the hospital. He said he knows of many Amish bishops in the other churches who believe the same.Isaac told me
some of the Amish community in Ohio is turning away from the hospital and its 80 area locations.
Andy said the three weeks of treatments at the out-of-country clinic were only $11,000 and Sarah obtained cancer-free
status verified by three doctors, including a pediatric oncologist.
For this investigative report, the Journal had to delve a little deeper into ACH and NEOMED concerning the business of
cancer treatment and research. National Cancer Institute lists 39 ongoing and past cancer trials at ACH each with a number
children. The ACH doctor over these practices part-time at ACH and four other Ohio hospitals. He is also the Professor of
Pediatrics at NEOMED. ACH has revenues of $700,000,000 per year, 60% of which are Medicaid billings, according to their
annual report. Currently underway is a $250,000,000 expansion for additional rooms and treatment facilities.
What’s at Stake? This case is about the rights of all good parents having the freedom to choose other treatment options.
This case is about the power of wealthy corporations over individual and parental rights to dictate medical treatments children
and adults must undergo from which they make large profits. Andy says he is afraid these actions will cause great fear among
parents that take their children to the hospital and may not fully agree with their doctor’s treatment recommendations.
So Andy paraphrased what Sarah has said: “I just want to come home because I really miss my brothers and sisters
and going back to my school. I wish all these people would just leave me alone. . . I do not believe this is God’s will for
me to have chemo any longer”
Andy keeps saying to me each time we talk: “What are they going to do when they hear and see Sarah is cancer free from
the natural treatment. They said it would not work and she would die soon without the chemo . . . the chemo we believed would
kill her.” “What are they going to say and do now?”
Hospital Backing Out? Akron Children’s Hospital (ACH) may now want to back out of their involvement with the Sarah
Hershberger forced-chemo case. This is according to two reports received by the Journal from family friends at the courthouse
after a November conference with Maria Schimer’s and Hershberger’s attorney with the probate judge who was quoted as
saying ACH wants to back out. The judge had said the Hershberger’s, whereabouts unknown, but thought to still be out of the
country, were out of his jurisdiction.
It is not surprising the hospital may be wanting out.There has been such an uproar and backlash created by alternative
media outlets in Northeast Ohio and throughout the world, and talk amongst the Amish communities–not to mention all the
phone calls, letters and emails to ACH and NEOMED.
What Now? We just learned that a request of appeal was filed on November 12 to the Ohio Supreme Court to reverse the
lower court decision. An amicus brief has also been filed by a powerful Ohio constitutional legal association.
Exclusive Interview with the Hershbergers.For the first time since this ordeal began in
April, Andy and Anna (and Sarah, too), spoke out in a phone interview I had with them from
an undisclosed location.
Anna paraphrased Sarah’s comment that she would physically fight if the hospital tried to
force the chemotherapy. Anna explained it more fully: “The nurses and doctors would have
scratches on their faces and bruises on their bodies. They will be the ones that might need to
be admitted to the hospital.”
Andy explained in general terms some of the treatment and nutritional supplements,
including high doses of vitamin C and B17, oxygen therapy, detoxification methods, as well as
the IV chelation to deliver some of these to Sarah’s bloodstream. He also explained how the
doctors arrived at a cancer-free status. She is now on a special diet including lots of vegetables
and raw foods and taking special natural supplements, as prescribed by the foreign
doctors. Anna said they really needed to leave the area to escape the harassment, fear and
pressure they had and have Sarah take biomedical therapy. Sarah only spoke a few words
that included she is doing fine and feeling good and wants to come home. She is being
schooled during the day while the mother also cares for the baby they needed to bring along.
Sarah was very shy--this was likely to her first telephone call.
People should respect and honor the Hershberger’s wishes. Sarah, Andy and Anna have
made it quite clear: they just want to come home and be left alone.
Mr. Augie
David Michael
Investigative Reporter
330-875-1208
Local Contacts: Maria R. Schimer maria@neomed.edu (330) 325-6356 / Amy Furey-Ligan, JD afureyligan@neomed.edu (330)
325-6358 /Shawn Lyden, ACH Executive Vice President slyden@chmca.org (330)543-8730 /Kevin Dunn, Medina County Judge
330-725-9703 / Louise Brown.Children’s Services 330-722-9300 /Sheriff Tom Miller (330) 764-3635 tpmiller@medinaco.org
augie@livingfood.us
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