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Aboriginal girl with leukemia dies after refusing chemoMakayla Sault’s family blame treatment for stroke but say she’s ‘in the arms of Jesus.’19050-1270Makayla Sault, as seen last year in a moment from a YouTube video.By:?Jacques Gallant?Published on Mon Jan 19 2015Makayla Sault, the Ojibwa girl who refused chemotherapy last year in favour of indigenous medicine, died on Monday, with her parents reportedly blaming modern treatment for their daughter’s death.She was 11 years old.The?Two Row Times?reported that the New Credit girl suffered a stroke Sunday morning. In a statement to the paper, her family said: “Chemotherapy did irreversible damage to her heart and major organs. This was the cause of the stroke.”Makayla was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia last January. She refused chemotherapy at McMaster Children’s Hospital after 12 weeks, opting for indigenous medicine and other alternative therapies, despite the high likelihood she would have been cured through modern treatment.“Surrounded by the love and support of her family, her community and her nation — on Monday, January 19 at 1:50 PM, in her 12th year, Makayla completed her course. She is now safely in the arms of Jesus,” reads her family’s statement. “Makayla was on her way to wellness, bravely fighting toward holistic well-being after the harsh side effects that 12 weeks of chemotherapy inflicted on her body.”She was the first of two Ontario First Nations girl to?reject chemotherapy?to treat her leukemia. “She was a trailblazer,” Mississaugas of the New Credit First Nation Chief Bryan LaForme told the?Hamilton Spectator. “She sent out a strong message that you as an individual can make your own choices.”The parents of the second girl, who cannot be named due to a publication ban, won a precedent-setting court case in November when Ontario Court Justice Gethin Edward ruled that aboriginal parents have a constitutionally protected right to choose traditional forms of treatment for children.McMaster Children’s Hospital had been trying to get Brant Family and Children’s Services to force the girl into chemotherapy. McMaster did not appeal the ruling. Last week, that girl’s family said she is now “cancer-free.”In a statement to the?Two Row Times, the girl’s family said of Makayla: “Condolences to her mother, father, brothers and the families on each side. We mourn your loss. I offer you strength to endure through your dark time. That one day you can adjust to the loss in your family circle.”Brant Family and Children’s Services investigated Makayla’s case, but did not intervene, with executive director Andrew Koster telling the?Spectator: “We feel Makayla is in a loving, caring home and that they are carrying on with medicine that would be very appropriate for her family.”Makayla said that chemotherapy was “killing my body” in a letter she read out on a video uploaded to YouTube last year. She had been suffering from the side effects including constant vomiting and weakness.“I have asked my mom and dad to take me off the treatment because I don’t want to go this way anymore,” she said. “I was sick to my stomach all the time and I lost about ten pounds because I couldn’t keep nothing down. I know that what I have can kill me, but I don’t want to die in a hospital in chemo, weak and sick.“But when Jesus came into my room and he told me not to be afraid, so if I live or if I die I am not afraid. Oh, the biggest part is that Jesus told me that I am healed so it doesn’t matter what anybody says. God, the Creator has the final say over my life.”She said that since leaving hospital and starting alternative treatments, she was feeling “awesome” and had gained some weight back. “I wish that the doctors would listen to me because I live in this body, and they don’t.”In statement, McMaster Children’s Hospital President Peter Fitzgerald expressed sympathy to Makayla’s family and added, “Everyone who knew Makayla was touched by this remarkable girl. Her loss is heart-breaking.”Makayla went to the Hippocrates Health Institute in West Palm Beach, Fla., which believes in curing cancer with a positive attitude as well as eating a raw plant-based organic diet and clearing your life of contaminants.The second girl, also 11 and who lives on the Six Nations reserve near Brantford, also went to Hippocrates for a three-week “Lifestyle Transformation Program.” She was taken off chemotherapy last August by her mother after two weeks of treatment.Her family said last week she had tested negative for signs of cancer. Her mother credited "indigenous medicines, ceremonial healing and nutritional therapies — including consuming a 100% raw and sugar free vegan diet" for the result, according to a statement published last week by The Two Row Times.A family friend and Brant Family and Children’s Services said the family had received a negative result, but the Star was not able to view the test results. They are being sent to a U.S. lab for verification.Dr. David Dix, a clinical professor at the University of British Columbia, told the Star at the time that it is “exceptionally unlikely” that traditional medicine had rid the girl of her cancer.“It is quite possible that she went into remission after the first two weeks of chemotherapy,” he said, adding that the likelihood of the cancer returning is “100 per cent” and will be more difficult to treat.With files from The Hamilton Spectator and Tim Alamenciak ................
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