Homeothopy strikes again, mother under arrest

I do remember that case, now you mention it, though I don't recall the names. Was that homoeopathy, or was it just denialism?

Rolfe.
 
bigred said:
The tragedy has already generated press, but realistically it won't help avoid such things in the future, because she felt like she was doing the right thing, and all others who do so are similar (with rare exception at most).
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The road to Hell is famously paved with people who felt like they were doing the right thing. Knowing that there could be serious consequences if you don't check that your feelings are correct is one way we as a society try to educate people not to rely solely on such feelings. Nothing will ever be 100% effective in preventing cases like this, but simply throwing up our hands and ignoring the problem as a lost cause is guaranteed to be completely ineffective.
 
yodaluver28 said:
Not necessarily. You'd be surprised how many people chalk up the death of a child as inevitable or "god's will" regardless of the negligence that actually caused it. There are parents who even double-down on the crazy because they think their child's death was caused by them not believing in or committing strongly enough to the woo. Hopefully that's a minority but it is still extremely important for it to be common knowledge that woo over medicine is dangerous especially when the lives of children, whose bodies are so much more fragile, are at stake. It's also important to make it common knowledge that if you let your child die because of superstition or willful ignorance, you will be held accountable for the consequences.
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Yeah, I thought about that as well. There is a huge psychological cost to accepting responsibility for your own child's death. Some people are more willing to hide from that guilt by running down the rabbit hole. I don't know that this woman learning a lesson from this will do any good. It's not clear that she has any other children, and it's not likely that she will have any more either.

I have a hard time condemning her. Horrible medical advice is far easier to get than sound medical advice, and people unequipped with the tools required to tell the difference are just as likely to believe in the BS. Sadly, this has consequences.

I think this story and every other story like it should be plastered, like a Surgeon General's warning, on every bottle of homeopathic pills, on every bottle of "supplements" and displayed in the most visible way in every health food store carrying all these "remedies" and pushing all this woo.
 
joesixpack said:
Horrible medical advice is far easier to get than sound medical advice, and people unequipped with the tools required to tell the difference are just as likely to believe in the BS. Sadly, this has consequences.
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So true. Bad advice is everywhere. Sadly, critical thinking skills aren't.
 
I'm sort of conflicted on this, because of course parents must make some discretionary decisions, and it is indeed horrific and life altering to lose a child. On the other hand, it just looks to me as if the mother (despite assertions by others that she was an amazing mom and all that rubbish) was so stupid and so set in her ways that a free pass on the death will just reinforce her stupid beliefs. The kid was sick for a long time and getting worse, after all. According to the article he had NEVER seen a doctor, and the mother rejected advice to seek medical help. We're dealing here not only with an oversight or a poor judgment, it seems, but with a likely array of crackpot beliefs. How does this case differ in any substantial way from other cases in which a child dies because a parent's beliefs lead to demonstrably irresponsible behavior?

There's a tendency these days, which we see in public life, to claim one is taking responsibility for an act by admitting it, and then to argue that nothing else should be done because the act of admission was so hurtful that it constitutes enough punishment. It's very convenient, and it may even be true some of the time, but it's a cheap responsibility if nothing changes. Will that mom really live out her life feeling burdened by the unnecessary death of her child, or will she write it off as God's will and wax sentimental about the little lamb going to heaven? Sure she'll hurt, but will she blame herself and actually re-evaluate her stupid beliefs?

I suppose perhaps I'm a bit biased here, because about 60 years ago I got a strep infection in the form of scarlet fever, and I was mighty mighty sick with a disease that not so long before might have been fatal. The difference is that my mom called the doctor, who came and gave me a big shot of penicillin, and I got better.

That was a long time ago, and some things just aren't rocket science. If your kid gets sicker and sicker over ten days, whatever you're doing is not working. You can be in favor of less medication and holistic practices and all green and crunchy without being stupid about it.
 
What I find particularly bizarre about homeopathy is the antagonism of its proponents to vaccination. IIRC homeopathy believes in giving small amounts of something harmful to the patient in a sort of "hair of the dog that might bite you" strategy. That's exactly what vaccination does, but these people vehemently oppose it.

As to this case, I wonder if there is any precedent based on parents who used prayer instead of antibiotics and also lost their children.
 
TimCallahan said:
As to this case, I wonder if there is any precedent based on parents who used prayer instead of antibiotics and also lost their children.
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Maybe not here in Canada, but wasn't there a recent case in Philadelphia where the parents were convicted for failing to seek treatment for their children? The standards may differ somewhat between the two countries.
 
Orphia Nay said:
The article does say the mother was using homeopathy.
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Why shouldn't the mother think such "medicine" is valid when it's perfectly legal for sale and sold in the same stores that sell real medicine? Isn't society sending the message that these are legitimate treatments?
 
TimCallahan said:
What I find particularly bizarre about homeopathy is the antagonism of its proponents to vaccination. IIRC homeopathy believes in giving small amounts of something harmful to the patient in a sort of "hair of the dog that might bite you" strategy. That's exactly what vaccination does, but these people vehemently oppose it.

As to this case, I wonder if there is any precedent based on parents who used prayer instead of antibiotics and also lost their children.
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They believe the vaccination idiocy because some slimy blond bimbo, famous for being nude at times, tells them it is. Would love to se her arrested and tried for complicity in murder every time an unvaccinated child gets a disease and dies or is permanently harmed due to the lack of vaccination. Along with the parent(s).
 
TimCallahan said:
What I find particularly bizarre about homeopathy is the antagonism of its proponents to vaccination. IIRC homeopathy believes in giving small amounts of something harmful to the patient in a sort of "hair of the dog that might bite you" strategy. That's exactly what vaccination does, but these people vehemently oppose it.
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Actually, you quite often see homoeopaths trying to claim credibility by saying that homoepathy is like vaccination, but it really isn't.

Vaccines work by carrying antigens specific to the disease-causing organism, so that the immune system is already "primed" to produce antibodies to it if the pathogen is encountered. Vaccines are not intended to produce symptoms, and any symptoms produced are an unwanted side-effect.

Homoeopathy is claimed to work by administering something that would cause, in a healthy subject, the same symptoms that the patient is exhibiting. This will almost never be anything to do with the actual cause of the illness (if it is, it's by accident). Homoeopathy will therefore not produce the specific immune reaction that vaccines produce. It's all about the symptoms.

These are clearly not the same principle.
 
TimCallahan said:
What I find particularly bizarre about homeopathy is the antagonism of its proponents to vaccination. IIRC homeopathy believes in giving small amounts of something harmful to the patient in a sort of "hair of the dog that might bite you" strategy. That's exactly what vaccination does, but these people vehemently oppose it.

As to this case, I wonder if there is any precedent based on parents who used prayer instead of antibiotics and also lost their children.
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There seems to be a fringe on both right and left that rejects medical science. I'm familiar with the left-wing version. It is defined by what it rejects rather than any coherent attempt to construct a body of knowledge, so the contradictions are rampant.

The root cause, as far as I can tell, is that people resent the idea of ceding control of their bodies to something they totally do not understand, which is also monumentally expensive.

So they embrace a caricature of the health care industry in which big-money interests are not just exploiting people, but actively undermining health for the sake of profit. They convince themselves that all kinds of better treatments exist, but have been rejected by the medical establishment because there is no profit to be had in them.

Of course there is widespread anecdotal support for this, because the US health care system is a mess and profiteering is rampant.

Also, here and there in the alternative medicine world, are remedies and treatments that may not be completely worthless.

I have seen the results of this ideology in people's lives, and it's not pretty. Most of these people will ultimately accept life-saving care for themselves or their kids, but only when crisis looms. Sometimes it's too late by then.
 
TimCallahan said:
What I find particularly bizarre about homeopathy is the antagonism of its proponents to vaccination. IIRC homeopathy believes in giving small amounts of something harmful to the patient in a sort of "hair of the dog that might bite you" strategy. That's exactly what vaccination does, but these people vehemently oppose it.
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They seem to only believe things when they are false. Vaccinations work? Must be a conspiracy. Homeopathy doesn't work? That's because of a conspiracy too, I guess. It seems their beliefs are invalidated when they are supported by science.
 
WildCat said:
Why shouldn't the mother think such "medicine" is valid when it's perfectly legal for sale and sold in the same stores that sell real medicine? Isn't society sending the message that these are legitimate treatments?
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This is the underlying problem. This crap is sold in a drugstore alongside aspirin, Guaifenesin, and acetominophin. It has all the appearance of actual medicine, and the druggist is not inclined to tell them it's worthless.
 
Based on her medical "reasoning" a lawyer's business card ought to suffice for her legal defense.
 
She neglected the child. The child died. The child died as a direct result of her neglect.

She needs to practice her woo medicine in a concrete box with bars on the windows.
 
Mister Earl said:
She neglected the child. The child died. The child died as a direct result of her neglect.

She needs to practice her woo medicine in a concrete box with bars on the windows.
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I have to agree, despite my reservations as a parent who undoubtedly made many mistakes. This was not a mistake like the kid getting run over in a moment of inattention, or a sudden fever in the night or a crib death. Sometimes kids do die, and only hindsight can see it coming. But this, if the account is to be believed, was ten days of worsening symptoms, obvious failure of the measures taken, and obstinate resistance to the advice of others.
 
Mister Earl said:
She neglected the child. The child died. The child died as a direct result of her neglect.

She needs to practice her woo medicine in a concrete box with bars on the windows.
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What she did was not "neglect", she was attentive to the child. Her attention was useless.

I have a hard time condemning a woman for this when homeopathic medication and herbal supplements are sold in drugstores alongside real medicines with absolutely nothing to indicate that they are useless.
 
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