New Tumors Found in Girl Forced Into Therapy

Doctors have found new tumors on the lungs and the back of a 14-year-old cancer patient whose preacher-father fought court-ordered chemotherapy on religious grounds, a hospital spokeswoman says.

The tumors were discovered when Pamela Hamilton underwent tests last week at East Tennessee Children’s Hospital here to check her progress, hospital spokeswoman Pat Kelly said Friday.

Pamela was discharged from the hospital last September when doctors said her Ewing’s Sarcoma, a rare bone cancer found in her leg, was in remission.

“Test results indicate new sites of tumors in the back and lungs have appeared since completion of chemotherapy treatments in September,” Kelly said.

Dr. Frank Haraf, Pamela’s physician, has not indicated how advanced the tumors are or how serious her condition is, Kelly said. The new tumors appear to be the same type of cancer, she said.

“The physicians and staff are very disappointed about the recurrence of the cancer in Pamela,” she said.

X-rays taken in December showed no further development of the cancer, the spokeswoman said.

The test results have been sent to St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis for evaluation, Kelly said. “No further treatment has been planned at this time” pending the evaluation.

Pamela was released from the hospital Thursday after being told the news and has returned home to Chattanooga, Kelly said.

A judge ordered chemotherapy for the teen-ager in September, 1983, after her father, Larry Hamilton, tried to block the treatment of a football-size tumor on her left leg. She was placed in the custody of the state Department of Human Services.

Before moving to Chattanooga late last year, Hamilton was pastor of the Church of God of the Union Assembly, a fundamentalist sect that believes in faith healing and forbids taking medicine. The church is in LaFollette, about 30 miles northwest of Knoxville.

Pamela is still in the custody of the Human Services Department, although she has been allowed to live at home.

After Haraf reported last April that the tumor had stopped growing and there were no signs of other cancer growths, Hamilton insisted that faith had healed his daughter.

“God does it and the doctors take credit for it,” he said in an interview last year.