By Erin K. Costello I am venturing into new territory with this blog post. I feel I should be upfront and honest though, I am going to be throwing shade at a mother of a sick child. More specifically, the mother of a child with cancer. I am not happy to call this woman on her nonsense, but I can’t forget there is the life of a little boy at risk by her actions, or her in actions rather. This mother is trying to deny her child life saving chemotherapy treatments in favor of dandelions and CBD oil. She has been trying to make a name for herself in the anti-vaccine/anti-medicine community, so I can’t help but suspect this defiant attitude of hers is fueled more by her agenda and less by her child. I’m going to explain very briefly what has transpired up until this point. Noah McAdams, a 3 year old boy and son to parents Taylor Bland and Joshua McAdams, was diagnosed with a form of cancer called Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL), on April 4, 2019. The common treatment for this cancer, as well as the treatment plan recommended by Noah’s care team, is chemotherapy. This specific chemotherapy treatment comes in three phases; remission induction, consolidation/intensification, and maintenance therapy. Respectful Insolence does a great job at explaining these treatment steps as well as the need for all three in a recent blog post. Basically, all three phases involve chemotherapy. The first phase is to kill the cancer cells and cause the body to go into a type of remission. However, it is not uncommon for childhood leukemias or lymphomas to appear to be gone only to come back quickly and possibly stronger than before. This is why treatment is continued in the following two phases, and why the entire treatment plan can take up to three years to complete. The good news though is that when this treatment plan is applied, it has about a 90% chance of curing the cancer. Noah’s parents agreed to this treatment plan. Noah received two rounds of chemotherapy and, like expected, appeared to be in remission after blood tests. It was at this point that Noah’s parents didn’t see the point in continuing this treatment plan since they didn't want to continue with this treatment plan, despite the fact it had so far proved effective. Taylor and Josh checked their son out of John Hopkins All Children’s hospital in Florida, and headed to Kentucky in pursuit of alternative health treatments. When Noah did not appear for his third scheduled round of chemotherapy the hospital contacted Hillsborough County Child Protective Services, who then obtained a court order to take Noah into protective custody. Once the court order was obtained, the Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office alerted the public that Noah was missing and was in need of life saving medical treatment. The family was soon located, and Noah was taken into custody by the state of Florida. Though, Noah’s parents, mostly his mom Taylor, has been seen actively fighting the courts and the powers that be to have her son returned to them, she has been mostly seen fighting for the right to risk his life and his health by being able to choose whatever treatment method she feels is best for Noah, regardless of what the medical experts have to say on the matter. After several court appearances, the judge has placed Noah in the custody of his maternal grandparents and ruled that Noah is to complete the rest of his treatment plan recommended by his oncologists. Now that everyone is caught up, I want to call attention to a few things I find troubling. On April 6, 2019, Taylor makes a post to her Facebook page to update friends and family on Noah’s condition. In this post she says that the treatment plan they are on has a 98% success rate, and that Noah’s team is working hand in hand with she and Joshua. She even goes on to say how she is going to have to sacrifice the next two years of her life, her work, and their travels to ensure Noah has successful path to a healthy recovery. This implies she is committed to Noah’s treatment plan, and that she trusts the plan to potentially be about 98% effective. In an April 16, 2019 post by Taylor she says that she and Taylor “busted out of that hospital with no cancer cells left to spare.” She then goes on to say that doctors are “amazed” at Noah’s quick healing, and that Taylor and Joshua only agreed to this initial chemotherapy treatment to avoid a court order mandating said treatment. My question is this, why was this court order so immensely feared in the beginning that Taylor agreed to, in her mind, poison her child with chemotherapy, but now just a couple of weeks later, this court order is no longer feared but the alleged poison of chemotherapy is now flat out refused? I mean, you either fear the court order, or you don’t. You either fear the alleged poison of chemotherapy, or you don’t. This flip-flopping does not reflect genuine concern for a child, but instead reflects the personal feelings of the parent. These posts and many others can also be found on the Facebook page Medical Freedom For Noah. After having left the hospital and deciding to discontinue the chemotherapy, Taylor then alleged to everyone on Facebook that it wasn’t really chemotherapy that “cured” her son, but it was her alternative treatment regimen. She gleefully discusses these treatments in detail to social media, and happily answers everyone’s questions. She posts images of smoothies, apricot seeds, name drops several companies that sell such items, advertises that her family sells the same type of grapefruits that are allegedly essential to curing cancer, reveals that prayer played a hand in healing Noah, and even jokes about the apricot seeds containing cyanide. She also says she would never have chosen chemotherapy to begin with if she felt she had a choice. She then reassures her readers of her plans to continue to fight this medical assault ordered by the court. After Noah was removed from his parent’s custody and chemotherapy was mandated, Taylor was then loving the media attention. She would often give media interviews or produce Facebook videos in which she would make some of the most ridiculous claims. In one such interview published on May 2, 2019 by YouTube channel Planet Of The Fakes, when asked by a reporter why it was so important to Taylor and Joshua that the hospital, John Hopkins, follow the parents’ desired diet placed upon Noah, Taylor hilariously replied, “There are a lot of foods actually that can cause cancer and feed it so ultimately if he can stay away from dairy, from breads, things like that, things that are more acidic and keep his body more alkaline, then cancer can’t survive in an alkaline environment." In this same video when asked by a reporter why they didn't just get Noah the treatment the doctors think he needs, Taylor went on to say, “We want him to receive a treatment that has has less side effects because chemotherapy is so brutal on a body. Even an adult body so think of what it’s doing to a little person that’s only 30 pounds. That’s how we feel about it. We want to get him something that’s healthier, that is more biologically sound to him, specific to him and not just a standard protocol that they use for everybody cause we’re all individuals and he needs to be treated like an individual.” Toward the end of this video, when asked by a reporter if they originally agreed to chemotherapy Taylor explained, “We did agree to it [first round of chemo]. We did not want to it but we agreed to do it because we knew that they would initiate all of this. So we said “Let’s go ahead and do it.” And then when we found out that he was free of the leukemia cells from his blood work, he had one more after that and then they were going to release us, and they did. From that point forward, seeing that he had no cancer cells in his body, we said “we got to find a different treatment, a better one for him.”” In another media interview video published by WTSP News Channel 10, when asked what are some of the alternative therapies Taylor aims to administer to Noah, Taylor once again gave a hilarious answer. She said, “So we are going to be using oxygen therapy, also known as oxidization which gives rich oxygen to the cells to help them regenerate and help them to restore after the damage from the chemotherapy. And we’re also going to be using alkaline diet, alkaline water, which helps prevent the spread of the chemo, or the spread of the cancer, I’m sorry, because cancer can’t survive in an alkaline environment. Of course we’re going to be using the cannabis therapy. We’re going to be using different herbs that create apoptosis which is cancer [suicide?], and other than that just giving him the most happiness and less stress as possible.” Later in the video a reporter asked Taylor if she regretted anything about turning this into a high profile public incident. Taylor cheerfully responded, “No not at all. I think it’s really important that people know that there are other options other than chemotherapy and I think this really opened up a good discussion about parental rights about patient rights and about how John Hopkins reacts to patients in general or second opinions.” More recently, Taylor has been found in comment sections on Facebook posts fighting with people. She reveals herself to be not the concerned mother who is simply searching to find the best and safest cancer treatment option, but is in fact your typical anti-modern medicine conspiracy theorist. She believes chemotherapy is what kills cancer patients, not the cancer itself. She is even fighting to stop Noah from receiving a routine steroid regimen that is often administered with the chemotherapy. She even claims to have holistically improved her impaired vision in one comment, thus suggesting glasses are optional, and she suggests that chemotherapy is routinely given just so the hospital can charge insurance companies for such treatments. I’m assuming this last one was to suggest that hospitals only care about making a profit of such treatments because I doubt she expects chemotherapy to be administered free of charge. The more recent comment by Taylor I find to be the most egregious, and is also the inspiration for this blog post, is a comment she made on a thread for a post made by a scared and upset young mother who just had her four day old newborn kidnapped by the child’s father. This mother said in the post that the father took the newborn to prevent the baby from being vaccinated. Taylor, a mom who has been crying “medical kidnap” for about a month now, who has been repeatedly posting on social media about this injustice done to HER, went on to comment on this mother’s post the following, “Good job dad. I think babies need to be with their mamas but they don’t need bullshit toxins just days old.” She showed this mother zero empathy for having her FOUR DAY OLD newborn stolen from her, and even implied the mother deserved to have her child taken because she planned to vaccinate her baby. What happened to a parent’s right to choose medical treatment for their child? What happened to children belong with their mothers? What happened to supporting other parents? Apparently these things only apply to Taylor, only apply to Taylor’s agendas, only apply to Taylor’s beliefs, and anyone else who believes differently deserves the pain of having a child taken from them. There’s one more thing I find highly suspicious throughout all of this; the fundraisers. There have been three that I managed to find thus far. Taylor’s Go Fund Me campaign is the more popular one. Taylor herself started the campaign on May 14, 2019. Part of the campaign story explains that the fundraiser aims to request help from their online community to raise funds for lawyer fees since they plan to take this all the way to SCOTUS. They also claim to need money to cover medical expenses, alternative therapies, a new home, and time to heal Noah. This also apparently includes debts accrued from the hospital for modern therapy. This campaign has so far raised $5,121 of a $50,000 goal Now, I’m not sure why they feel people should fund their new home, or debts accrued from the hospital regarding modern therapy when they have insurance that covers their medical bills. Also mentioned in the story part of this GFM campaign is a list of alternative treatments that Taylor claims she will be providing for Noah. This list is as follows, -Thermal & infrared therapy -Hyperbaric chambers - Bemer - Medical Cannabis _ Human growth hormones - Dense whole food, alkaline based nutrition plan - Rosemary extract - Allicin - Polysaccharide therapies derived from turkey tail, Reishi and Chaga fungus - An array of traditional Chinese medicinal herbs and other herbs both in tincture and tea base - Grape seed extract - Moringa - Black seed oil - Colloidal silver - Frankincense oil - Low dose amygdalin - Highest quality alkaline water - High quality probiotics - Large list of premium vitamins/supplements - Music therapy - Mirror therapy - Color therapy - Dry brushing - Parasite cleanse - Loads of sunshine. I’m guessing insurance, and especially Medicaid, does not cover any of these therapies. Taylor previously stated that they had medicaid for Noah. So, she wants donations to pay for her make-believe doctoring, and possible child abuse. That being said, I DO FULLY SUPPORT donating to them to help make it possible for both parents to be there for Noah as he battles cancer. Every parent should have that opportunity to be by their child’s side during this time without having to worry about work, bills, or expenses. EVERY. PARENT. DESERVES. THIS. If the only way parents can achieve this is through online fundraisers then so be it. I support Taylor asking for financial help for such a reason. And, providing she doesn’t try and stop Noah’s life saving cancer treatment again, I even hope people consider donating. That being said, it is the rest of the intended expenses for these donations that I find questionable. I admit, though, this is kind of like me playing semantics on my part. The next fundraiser I found is called Meal Train. I find nothing wrong with this fundraiser to be honest, especially since it only raised $460 of a $2,000 goal. I just felt I should include every campaign I discovered. This last fundraiser I came across though, I find highly suspicious. It was titled Noah’s Freedom Fund and was created on Facebook. The creator of this fundraiser was Erin Marie RN, and the fundraiser advertised itself a a “fund for Caitlyn RN.” Erin Marie RN created this on April 29, 2019 for the goal to “Support Noah and his family and their fight for medical freedom. Funds will go towards raising awareness for Noah’s story, medical kidnapping and supporting changes in legislation and bringing about Noah’s Law.“ The campaign is no longer active but before it ended it raised $19,743 out of their $20,000 goal. It raised almost $20,000! It seems that “medical kidnapping” could be becoming the new “vaccines kill babies” in the world of anti-vaccine fundraisers. The page goes on to say that funds go directly into the creator’s checking account, that donations are not tax deductible, and that the campaign offers zero transparency on how funds are spent. I tried to learn about Noah’s Law but I couldn’t even find a definition. There is not find a single bit of information online about “Noah’s Law.” I find it mentioned on this fundraiser, and on a website linked to this fundraiser, but no where else and no explanation of what Noah’s Law actually is. The organization linked to this $20,000 fundraiser is Florida Freedom Alliance (FFA). So I then looked into FFA. FFA lists their “founders” as follows; Erin – President (This would be Erin Marie RN) Afton – Chief Operations Officer Susan – Chief Financial Officer Caitlyn – VP of Public Relations (Caitlyn RN) Andrea – Legal Affairs MacKenzie – VP Legislative Affairs Tonya – VP Marketing and Advertising Mary Beth – VP Strategic Planning Their professional qualifications? Three nurses and one former lawyer. Sure, the all give themselves titles like “wellness coach,” ”certified vaccine education specialist,” and some kind of advocate or another, but besides previous employment in a hospital as a nurse and a former prosecutor, they are about as qualified in these assumed roles as I am as a writer, but at least I’m not asking for your money in exchange for my shitty writing skills. I am unable to learn anything else about FFA at this time though. The website gives very little information but encourages people to email the organization with their questions. I am currently waiting on a response to my email, though, if they realize is me, Erin Costello, asking, I may not hear back from them or have my questions answered. I signed the email without my last name so, who knows? I guess we will have to wait and see. I want to end this by saying Taylor is a young mother. I do not remotely believe she wants to see her child harmed or ill in any way. I have no doubt that she wishes for her son to beat cancer. I also realize everyone grieves in their own way, but, usually everyone still grieves in some way. I have yet to see a video, image, or post from Taylor where she puts her son above her beliefs, puts regaining custody above her agenda, or puts the pain and loss Noah must be feeling from being separated from his parents above her insistence to make mainstream health care pay for the sins committed against Taylor. I do not doubt that she loves Noah very much. I just get the impression that she loves to hate Big Pharma a little bit more.
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