Homeothopy strikes again, mother under arrest

[bigred]

.
I disagree. Public service campaigns targeting child abuse have proven themselves to be highly effective.

You're painting too broad a brushstroke there. It's not like she was beating the child with a baseball bat. She was trying to care for her child, tragically misguided as it was. I don't excuse her at all, but intent is extremely important in judging her.

I once had a client who had a two year old that was a "biter". The mom tried to break that behavior by biting the kid back. She honestly didn't know that this was considered abuse. That was the way her parents raised their kids and she just followed the example. She was absolutely stunned when the kid's doctor reported the abuse and the child was removed from the home.

I'm stunned too. (or should be - in this day and age I'm not really). Whoever was responsible for that child being ripped from its mother vs simply educating her should be shot.

I have met many people out there who don't have the benefit of education and IQ that you find among people on this board. I think you're overestimating the general populace. Some people just don't get it. A little "do this and go to jail" publicity can go a long way.

On that we agree 100%. Believe me, overestimating the public's IQ is one thing I never od.

Sadly, most people would rather extract a pound of flesh vs educating. Seems many "educated" people need a great deal of educating as well.

 

[bigred]

You're right. The article, though, is too light on details to determine for us which one she actually used - if it was actually an "official" woo treatment, and not her own concoction. The mention of herbal remedies and homeopathy is not necessarily a contradiction: people often confuse the two and label the use of non-homeopathic herbal stuff with "homeopathy", simply because they don't know what homeopathy is.

In a year, this case is completely forgotten and the same happens again. It also sounds from the articles linked that this woman was too far down the rabbit hole of alternative medicine to be convinced in the first place. The best that could have happened is mentioned in the article:

You may end up with a soured relationship with a friend or family member, but you may also save a child's life. But it's still a tough call to make.

Agreed on all counts!

 

[bigred]

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.

Absolutely. I don't suggest ignoring the problem.

She neglected the child.

And again: wrong. She tended to her child. But not in the right way. If she'd known he was sick and did nothing, THAT would be neglect.

She needs to practice her woo medicine in a concrete box with bars on the windows.

Yes, pound of flesh please.

sigh

 

[bruto]

Absolutely. I don't suggest ignoring the problem.


And again: wrong. She tended to her child. But not in the right way. If she'd known he was sick and did nothing, THAT would be neglect.


Yes, pound of flesh please.

sigh

I'm afraid I have to disagree on a couple of counts here.

One can be neglectful while doing something. Punishing a child by starving or beating him is quite proactive and intentional but it's neglect insofar as it ignores his real needs. Similarly, I think in this case, it's neglect even if less clear cut. The child was sick and sure, she tried something, but it did nothing for ten days, the child got worse, and she was apparently informed of that by others. That's doing nothing even if it looks like something to her.

There's something of a paradox here, since the most, and perhaps only, effective argument against neglect is unfitness.

As for the pound of flesh, well, of course you can always argue against punishment for a crime that harms the perpetrator, especially if the victim dies. After all, it's sure over then, isn't it? In one sense, it's quite possible that the death of the child is "punishment enough" for any parent, and without knowing just what the mother's attitude is now, perhaps one should not be hasty. I think there's a paradox here too, because although mercy is a nice thing to dispense, it's hard to plead honestly for it without shucking off one's responsibility. If the mother herself were to suggest that she's suffered enough, I think it's likely not to be true. In any case, if there's to be any responsibility taken for the event, the time for mercy is not at the arrest but at the trial.

 

[ddt]

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.

And even worse, over here I've also seen them in pharmacies.

Under EU law, homeopathic "medicine" and the like are exempted from approval from our counterpart(s) of the FDA when the amount of active ingredient is below a certain threshold. In return, the packaging should clearly state that the "medicine" has not been proven to be useful for anything. I don't know if they have done so by now - when I checked last year at the local drug stores and supermarket, it wasn't, but that was just after the law was introduced, so it may have been just old inventory. I bet if they've complied, they've done in small print.

Yes, I agree that in educating the public, the government should exert tight control over what's sold with claims of health benefits, and those that are exempted from the normal drug testing should at the very least be very, very clearly labeled as useless crap.

 

[TimCallahan]

Often, as part of the anti-science, anti-madicine woo I've heard on KPFK, our local Pacifica station, I've heard critics of modern medicine complain that all it does is surgery and medication with specifically prescription medication. They often claim that modern medicine holds preventative measures and the use of vitamins in contempt. That's rather odd, since the same cardiologist / cardiac surgeon who prescribed Atenolol (a beta blocker) and Lipitor (a statin) for me after I had a heart attack also prescribed a large dosage of folic acid and told me to take large quantities of vitamin E.

I also got involved in a cardiac rehab group at a local hospital, where they emphasized diet, exercise and stress reduction through meditation. I continued this regimen after I had quintuple coronary bypass surgery.

So, the same evil establishment prescribing all those awful drugs - Atenolol, Lipitor, Benazepril and Aggrenox - also prescribed a heart healthy diet, vitamins, regular aerobic exercise and stress reduction. It must be some kind of underhanded plot.

 

[Madalch]

I've heard fans of alternative medicine claim that "allopaths" (i.e., doctors) don't believe in nutrition, exercise, or stress reduction. These are all supposedly the private domain of naturopaths. I usually ask them which naturopaths discovered each vitamin.

 

[bigred]

I'm afraid I have to disagree on a couple of counts here.

One can be neglectful while doing something. Punishing a child by starving or beating him is quite proactive and intentional but it's neglect insofar as it ignores his real needs. Similarly, I think in this case, it's neglect even if less clear cut. The child was sick and sure, she tried something, but it did nothing for ten days, the child got worse, and she was apparently informed of that by others. That's doing nothing even if it looks like something to her.

Certainly one can be neglectful while doing something. But you're ignoring intent, which is all the diff here. Again she didn't go "oh he's sick, well too bad, whatever" (etc). She did what she thought would help him. Now her child is dead. To then go "she needs to suffer more!" is IMO vindictive to the point of ridiculous.

 

[bruto]

Certainly one can be neglectful while doing something. But you're ignoring intent, which is all the diff here. Again she didn't go "oh he's sick, well too bad, whatever" (etc). She did what she thought would help him. Now her child is dead. To then go "she needs to suffer more!" is IMO vindictive to the point of ridiculous.

Of course much depends on context and how we say things. It sounds ridiculously vindictive to say that after her child is dead she "needs to suffer more." On the other hand, if she killed her child from neglect and despite this believes that she did the right thing, then the gross amount of suffering is not the only thing that needs to be addressed in the situation.

The examples I gave of starving and punishing a child might well not be with the intent of killing him either, but of making him a stronger adult. Intent is an important factor, but it cannot be the only factor when stupid things cause an unnecessary death.

There are things we don't, and probably can't, know about the whole situation. We don't know whether or not the mother realizes her fault in the matter, or whether she believes she did well and God sent her little angel to heaven, or what. Until we do, we can only speculate, but I would repeat that if it's found that she has suffered enough, and so forth, the time for figuring that out is at the decision for a verdict. After the facts are established, if she's found guilty, that's the time for a judge to say she's suffered enough.

 

[Mojo]

Under EU law, homeopathic "medicine" and the like are exempted from approval from our counterpart(s) of the FDA when the amount of active ingredient is below a certain threshold. In return, the packaging should clearly state that the "medicine" has not been proven to be useful for anything.

In the UK it's worse than that. There's not only a scheme under which, as long as no actual therapeutic claims are made and they're so dilute that they're totally useless "sufficiently dilute to guarantee their safety" they just have to say "Homeopathic medicinal product without approved therapeutic indications", but also another scheme in which they can be marketed with indications of what they're claimed to treat as long as data is provided that is "sufficient to demonstrate that UK homeopathic practitioners would accept the efficacy of the product for the indications sought" (i.e. homoeopaths think they work), with the wording "A homeopathic medicinal product used within the homeopathic tradition for the relief of or treatment of...." See this page and the documents linked from it.

 

[ponderingturtle]

Of course much depends on context and how we say things. It sounds ridiculously vindictive to say that after her child is dead she "needs to suffer more." On the other hand, if she killed her child from neglect and despite this believes that she did the right thing, then the gross amount of suffering is not the only thing that needs to be addressed in the situation.

The examples I gave of starving and punishing a child might well not be with the intent of killing him either, but of making him a stronger adult. Intent is an important factor, but it cannot be the only factor when stupid things cause an unnecessary death.

There are things we don't, and probably can't, know about the whole situation. We don't know whether or not the mother realizes her fault in the matter, or whether she believes she did well and God sent her little angel to heaven, or what. Until we do, we can only speculate, but I would repeat that if it's found that she has suffered enough, and so forth, the time for figuring that out is at the decision for a verdict. After the facts are established, if she's found guilty, that's the time for a judge to say she's suffered enough.

That is why it is best to do nothing until they kill their second kid the same way.

 

[ddt]

In the UK it's worse than that. There's not only a scheme under which, as long as no actual therapeutic claims are made and they're so dilute that they're totally useless "sufficiently dilute to guarantee their safety" they just have to say "Homeopathic medicinal product without approved therapeutic indications", but also another scheme in which they can be marketed with indications of what they're claimed to treat as long as data is provided that is "sufficient to demonstrate that UK homeopathic practitioners would accept the efficacy of the product for the indications sought" (i.e. homoeopaths think they work), with the wording "A homeopathic medicinal product used within the homeopathic tradition for the relief of or treatment of...." See this page and the documents linked from it.

Then I stand corrected on the content of the EU directive. What I described was the Dutch law implementing an EU directive that came into force July 2012. The EU directive it is based on then must provide more leeway, otherwise the UK law you describe would be illegal.

 

[Rasmus]

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?

Yes, society is sending that message.

But if whatever you got at the local pharmacy doesn't work for well over a week, you take the child to a doctor.

So, unless someone posing as a medical professional has encouraged her to continue the current treatment of the child, she has no excuse.

 

[kerikiwi]

But if whatever you got at the local pharmacy doesn't work for well over a week, you take the child to a doctor.

If whatever you got at a doctor doesn't work for well over a week you go back to the doctor

 

[Battman]

If whatever you got at a doctor doesn't work for well over a week you go back to the doctor

Maybe go to a different doctor, a real doctor, not a naturopath or similar crank.

 

[kerikiwi]

Deleted

 

[kerikiwi]

Maybe go to a different doctor, a real doctor, not a naturopath or similar crank.

I would have no problem going back to the same real doctor. Not every diagnosis and treatment is right first time.

 

[PiedPiper]

Before I take a "medicine", I research the heck out of it. It's not hard with Google, and you don't have to be a trained scientist to get the gist of what the medication is designed to do. WebMD and others are helpful in this regard.

For my child? I would be 100x more careful investigating all the ins and outs. Homeopathy is absolute nonsense and inflicting it upon a suffering child is, in my view, abuse. Leading to their death? I don't know the relevant statutes - negligent homicide? Child endangerment?

I don't care if pharmacies put this homeopathic rubbish on Aisle 1, complete with a spotlight and a blinking neon sign saying "Buy Me". A parent has responsibility for the "medicine" that their child takes. If the parent feels incapable of making a decision (despite the very easy-to-understand websites that exist), well, that's what doctors are for.

Children didn't ask to be born. They didn't ask to suffer because of a parents laziness and ignorance. They certainly didn't ask to die because the parent is too stupid to fully investigate that "medicine" that they're giving the child.

Hopefully with a long enough sentence, this will be the last child suffering under the inept ministrations of that woman. Lazy, ignorant, and with a disregard for the child's safety.

 

[Mark6]

But charges being brought against her are dicey at best. She was giving what she considered appropriate treatment; it's not like she felt a going to a doctor was best and blew it off. That's just people with bloodlust wanting revenge for the child's loss...which I can understand, but that doesn't make it right. And yes it nauseates me too. But I think losing a child, to say nothing of realizing you were the cause, will be more than enough punishment.

Suppose I honestly believe that the best liquid for filling brake cylinders is water, and "brake fluid" is a scam? You think I should not be criminally liable when my brakes fail and I run over someone? And if that "someone" is my own child, you think I am punished enough by the fact of losing the child?

 

[bigred]

The examples I gave of starving and punishing a child might well not be with the intent of killing him either,

If you starve someone, by definition you're killing them. If you simply mean a going to bed without any supper kind of thing, that is hardly "starving a child."

Suppose I honestly believe that the best liquid for filling brake cylinders is water, and "brake fluid" is a scam? You think I should not be criminally liable when my brakes fail and I run over someone?

Oh cmon. If you seriously think that's the same thing - which I question - there's little point going back and forth about it.

And if that "someone" is my own child, you think I am punished enough by the fact of losing the child?

Unless it can be shown you really didn't care much about your own child, yes.