Despite cancer's remission, Connecticut teen stuck in state custody

By Richard Weizel MILFORD, Conn. (Reuters) - A Connecticut teenager with cancer who took her fight to stop her chemotherapy treatments to the state's Supreme Court must remain in custody of the state even though her disease has gone into remission, a judge ruled on Wednesday. Superior Court Judge Carl Taylor in Middletown, Connecticut, denied requests made last month by attorneys for both Cassandra C. and her mother, Jackie Fortin, that the 17-year-old be released from the temporary custody of the state Department of Children and Families, or that her mother be permitted to visit her in the hospital. The judge ruled on Wednesday she must remain in DCF custody until completing court-ordered chemotherapy for Hodgkin's lymphoma, a type of blood cancer, at Connecticut Children's Medical Center in Hartford. The state agency last fall won temporary custody of Cassandra after she and her mother argued she did not want chemo treatments despite the risk of dying without them. The state Supreme Court then ruled against Cassandra's claim that she was mature enough to make her own medical decisions. Treatments were ordered for at least six months after doctors said the teen had an 85 percent chance of survival with chemotherapy, but faced a near certainty of death within two years without it. But after she was declared by doctors to be in remission in March, her lawyer Joshua Michtom and attorneys for her mother appealed at a closed-door court hearing seeking permission to allow her to go home to complete treatments, or at least to permit her mother to visit her in the hospital. "She hasn't been able to see her mother for months, and now that she's in remission we don't think that's in her best interests," said Attorney James Sexton, representing Fortin. DCF Commissioner Joette Katz said in a statement Wednesday her agency is "looking forward to the day later this month when Cassandra can happily return home after her treatment is completed and the doctors are confident that she has beaten the cancer." The case drew national attention when the teen rejected chemotherapy treatments after being diagnosed in September. Both the teen and her mother said she didn't want to poison her body, and she ran away after two chemo treatments. When she returned, the state gained temporary custody over her and resumed the treatments. The teen will turn 18 in September. (Editing by Scott Malone and Eric Walsh)