New warrant issued for Minn. mom in chemo dispute

(AP) -- A new felony arrest warrant was issued Thursday as the search continued for the Minnesota mother who fled with her 13-year-old cancer-stricken son to avoid chemotherapy treatments.

Colleen Hauser's son, Daniel, has Hodgkin's lymphoma. The two were last seen in southern California on Tuesday morning and authorities have said they could already be in Mexico.

The Brown County Sheriff's Department said that the new warrant for the mother is for deprivation of parental rights. An earlier warrant for her arrest was based on a contempt of court charge.

Authorities believe the mother and son fled Monday after a court-ordered X-ray showed the tumor in Daniel's chest was growing. Doctors have said the tumor will likely kill Daniel without conventional treatment, but Colleen Hauser favors healing methods of an American Indian religious group known as the Nemenhah Band.

"I just wish we could get to Colleen and tell her to come in," Brown County Sheriff Rich Hoffmann said. "This is not going to go away. It's a court order." He said Hauser's husband, Anthony Hauser, was cooperating with investigators.

Officials said Thursday that the new warrant will give outside law enforcement agencies the authority to arrest and detain the Hausers if they are found.

Hodgkin's lymphoma is a highly curable form of cancer when treated with chemo and radiation. But the teen and his parents rejected chemo after a single treatment, with the boy's mother saying that putting toxic substances in the body violates the family's religious convictions.

Hauser said she had been treating the boy's cancer instead with herbal supplements, vitamins, ionized water and other natural alternatives - a regimen based mostly on information she found on the Internet.

Anthony Hauser said Wednesday that his wife and son left without telling him their plans, and that he hadn't heard from them.

He said he hopes his wife is either getting their son treatment for his illness or will bring him home. "If he's being cared for, and it's going to help him, I think it's going to be a good thing," he said.

James Olson, the attorney representing social service authorities in Minnesota, originally asked the judge to cite the father for contempt of court, but later backed off and said he believed Hauser didn't know where his wife and son had gone.

An alert issued to police departments around the country said mother and son might be traveling with a California lawyer named Susan Daya. Daya didn't return telephone messages Wednesday.

The alert said they might also be with a Massachusetts man named Billy Best, who as a teenager in 1994 ran away from home to escape chemotherapy for cancer similar to Daniel's.

Best, who says he was cured by natural remedies, is supporting the family's effort to avoid chemo for Daniel but said this week he hasn't talked to the mother and son since they fled.

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Associated Press writers Amy Forliti in Sleepy Eye, Minn., and Patrick Condon in Minneapolis contributed to this report.

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