Last week, an amber alert was issued for a 9-month old baby stolen from a Seattle area hospital, who had a serious kidney problem and needed dialysis. Unbeknownst to the general public, all roads tied the abduction to the baby’s mother, who stole him because she believes his serious illness can be treated with alternative methods and herbs (basically voodoo medicine) and the state (and people who have a PhD in this field) believe otherwise.

God, I hate Seattle.

I was born and raised there, so I have first-hand experience in the ways of this alternative and natural methods cure-all. I also know it’s nothing more than snake oil and utter defiance of science. I’ll always remember living in Seattle as a small child when my sister suddenly became seriously ill. A hippy from the neighborhood insisted he would work his magic on my sister and that he would miraculously cure her. Part of his natural cure included chiropractic medicine that he wasn’t licensed in. In fact, the only thing to my knowledge that he was licensed in was incense and pot. My sister moaned at the thought and pleaded for my mother to say no who was always such a pushover. This hippy dippy dope kept pressing my mother and trying to convince her to throw out my sisters medicine (you know, the evil medical empire that doles out medicine to make people sicker so they can become richer). My mom stood firm, but this man eventually snuck into our house and grabbed my sister and on our livingroom floor, proceeded to stretch her arms and legs into positions that were probably so painful, it caused her to pass out. My mother screamed, he couldn’t understand this as he was saying, “Man, I am just trying to save the child from the pharmaceutical industry who is trying to kill her.”

My mom took her to the hospital and as it turned out that she had mono. The amateur chiropractic session probably made the virus spread more quickly and further compromise her immune system. She was out of school for 3 months.

God, I hate Seattle. Did I already mention that?

Anyway, back to the snake-oil:

A seriously ill 9-month-old boy taken from Seattle’s Harborview Medical Center was resting comfortably at Children’s Hospital across town on Saturday, authorities said.

A statewide Amber Alert was canceled after police recovered little Riley Rogers when they pulled over a vehicle around 12:20 a.m. Saturday in Yelm, southeast of Olympia.

Police said his mother, Tina Carlsen, hid the boy in a diaper bag and took him from Harborview on Thursday morning. She was ordered held on $500,000 bail.

Children’s Hospital confirmed Saturday morning that Rogers was in satisfactory condition after being admitted around 3 a.m.

The boy had been scheduled for surgery at Harborview to treat what relatives described as a kidney ailment. It was not immediately known if the surgery had been rescheduled.

In a statement released late Saturday morning, Children’s Hospital referred all other inquiries to the Child Protective Services division of the state Department of Social and Health Services. A call to a DSHS spokeswoman was not immediately returned.

The child became a ward of the state June 9, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported, after months of back-and-forth between medical professionals, who had insisted that he get dialysis, and his parents, who favor herbs, vitamins and other alternative treatments.

DSHS spokeswoman Kathy Spears confirmed Friday that the child was in the agency’s protective custody.

Todd Rogers, the boy’s father, told the P-I that his wife believed she was doing the right thing. “She honestly believes that if Riley has that surgery, he’ll die. I don’t share that belief — we’ve argued about it — but she is his mother and that’s her gut instinct,” he said.

For a picture of the baby and the mother, click here.

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