Jeremy Fraser's Unnecessary Death

Published July 07, 2009 @ 12:34AM PT

Jeremy Fraser from http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_GGAmzDRA_BY/SGskFbaH9ZI/AAAAAAAACZU/9E4i5lmyTH4/s400/jeremy_fraser.jpeg
I'm still trying to get my mind around the reports about Kristen LaBrie, the Massachusetts mother who is accused of withholding cancer treatment from her autistic son, Jeremy Fraser. Jeremy died in March of this year at the age of nine.

Yesterday LaBrie pleaded "not guilty" to a charge of attempted murder; she had earlier been charged with child endangerment. The July 6th Associated Press vis WBUR reports that Jeremy was diagnosed with a "severe form of autism" while young. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in October of 2006 and given an 85 percent to 90 percent chance of recovery. He received "large doses of chemotherapy" and his cancer went into remission. LeBrie was given prescriptions for medications for Jeremy to take at home and this is when the story turns more than puzzling. According to Assistant District Attorney Kate MacDougall,

LaBrie repeatedly failed to pick up prescriptions, but led doctors to believe they were being filled, at one point asking for a liquid version of the medication because her son was having trouble swallowing pills.

“Miss LaBrie never expressed any misgivings about the treatment,” MacDougall said.

In February 2008, after one of Jeremy’s doctors called LaBrie’s pharmacy and learned she had not been filling prescriptions, LaBrie said the pharmacy must have made a mistake, MacDougall said.

It was at that point that doctors discovered that the boy’s cancer had returned as leukemia and was untreatable with chemotherapy, she said.

The details only occlude the situation: LaBrie was divorced from Jeremy's father, Eric Fraser, and they shared custody until a year ago, when full custody and parental rights were signed over to Fraser. In court documents filed in April of 2007, LaBrie claimed that "Fraser chronically missed visits with his son and did not have contact with his school or doctors during the boy’s chemotherapy"; the withholding of medications for treatment occurred while Jeremy was in LaBrie's care. As reported in the July 4, 2008, Boston Herald, since 2000 both LaBrie and Fraser had been "the subject of nine complaints of abuse and neglect, called 51As, although seven of those were unsubstantiated or screened out, according to DSS records. A 51A complaint triggers a DSS probe."

In reading about this very sad case, I've mostly been thinking about what must life have been like for Jeremy, to have his cancer go untreated? What must he have suffered?

There's a lot of difficult and sad news that one reads about autism but this one is particularly disturbing. There's plenty of disagreement among parents and within the autism community about what to do for autistic children, but there's certainly the acknowledgement that things need to be done, and a deep sense of responsibility to do what's right.

It's not going to be easy to read further reports about Jeremy Fraser.

Share this Post

Comments (8)

I don't understand it. It sounds like she systematically and deliberately chose not to treat, decieving doctors in order to prevent child services from being notified.

Posted by Erin Monk on 07/07/2009 @ 03:09AM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Reply
- Like
Reply to thread
For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment. In the process we will also create a Change.org account for you so you can track this and future conversations. Don't worry - we won't spam you. We just want to promote constructive dialogue and find that people are more respectful when they are not anonymous.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

reply to thread started by by Erin
Check Spelling
- Email me when there are new posts to this thread
- Comment Policy
Cancel Reply
I don't understand where the doctors were. When you go for such treatment you have routine doctor visits. Why did they not realize she was constantly canceling. That the child was not getting the requisite blood tests. It sounds like there is alot of doctor neglect/malpractice here as well as murder.

Posted by Elise Butowsky on 07/07/2009 @ 03:54AM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Reply
- 1 person likes this comment. Like
For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment. In the process we will also create a Change.org account for you so you can track this and future conversations. Don't worry - we won't spam you. We just want to promote constructive dialogue and find that people are more respectful when they are not anonymous.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

reply to thread started by by Elise
Check Spelling
- Email me when there are new posts to this thread
- Comment Policy
Cancel Reply
That's appalling. We met too many children with leukemia when my daughter had cancer, and the thought of not treating a child with it is just beyond me. How she could sit there and watch him get progressively sicker while his meds sat in the pharmacy is just incomprehensible. I don't think that I'm going to want to read much more about this- that poor baby.

Posted by Jen Niebler on 07/07/2009 @ 04:01AM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Reply
- Like
For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment. In the process we will also create a Change.org account for you so you can track this and future conversations. Don't worry - we won't spam you. We just want to promote constructive dialogue and find that people are more respectful when they are not anonymous.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

reply to thread started by by Jen
Check Spelling
- Email me when there are new posts to this thread
- Comment Policy
Cancel Reply
This is murder. And despite the previous complaints of abuse and neglect the welfare system was nowhere around this time. Surely the doctors (hospital welfare) had a duty to check up on this child? That they failed to do so, is gross misconduct. The mother should be tried for murder. How terribly, terribly sad.

Posted by Eureka Morrison on 07/07/2009 @ 06:06AM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Reply
- 1 person likes this comment. Like
I agree. It's depressing that that happened right in my state too... Man, it doesn't get more depressing.

Posted by Shondolyn (Synesthesia) Gibson on 07/08/2009 @ 04:11PM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Like
Reply to thread
For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment. In the process we will also create a Change.org account for you so you can track this and future conversations. Don't worry - we won't spam you. We just want to promote constructive dialogue and find that people are more respectful when they are not anonymous.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

reply to thread started by by Eureka
Check Spelling
- Email me when there are new posts to this thread
- Comment Policy
Cancel Reply
Another horrible woman who can't be called a "mother". Sorry but it pains me that people like that are procreating while so many loving and wonderful women out there are unable to have kids.

Posted by Leila * on 07/07/2009 @ 08:01AM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Reply
- Like
For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment. In the process we will also create a Change.org account for you so you can track this and future conversations. Don't worry - we won't spam you. We just want to promote constructive dialogue and find that people are more respectful when they are not anonymous.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

reply to thread started by by Leila
Check Spelling
- Email me when there are new posts to this thread
- Comment Policy
Cancel Reply
This is indeed a tragic story. I have no idea -- and even if I knew more about it I probably wouldn't know -- whether this mother deliberately let her child die, or didn't believe in the medication, or put her faith in prayer, or simply has a screw loose and couldn't remember... She may be evil, crazy, deluded, careless, confused, or thought that he was already cured -- I don't know.

I do want to mention that, in light of all the recent discussions about division, I like this sentence, Kristina: "There's plenty of disagreement among parents and within the autism community about what to do for autistic children, but there's certainly the acknowledgement that things need to be done, and a deep sense of responsibility to do what's right."

Posted by Twyla Ramos on 07/07/2009 @ 07:31PM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Reply
- Like
Yes, I felt beyond sad in reading about Jeremy and thinking of what he went through......and I think we do all agree, we want to do our very best for our children.

Posted by Kristina Chew on 07/07/2009 @ 07:41PM PT
- Report close
  You must be signed in to report content.
- Like
Reply to thread
For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment. In the process we will also create a Change.org account for you so you can track this and future conversations. Don't worry - we won't spam you. We just want to promote constructive dialogue and find that people are more respectful when they are not anonymous.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

reply to thread started by by Twyla
Check Spelling
- Email me when there are new posts to this thread
- Comment Policy
Cancel Reply

Add a Comment

For your comment to be published, you will need to confirm your email address after submitting your comment.

If you already have an account, click here to log in.

First Name:

Last Name:

Email:

Create Password:

Comment

Check Spelling

Email me when there are new posts to this thread
Comment Policy

Comments on Change.org are meant for further exploration and evaluation of the ideas covered in the posts. To that end, we welcome constructive comments. However, we reserve the right to delete comments that are offensive, abusive, or off-topic; that contain ad hominem attacks; or that are designed to subvert or hijack comment threads rather than contribute to them. Repeat offenders may be permanently removed from the site at our discretion.

Author

Kristina is a Classics professor in Jersey City, New Jersey, a blogger (formerly at AutismVox), a translator (of Virgil), and an advocate every day for her son, Charlie.