[bpsdb] Can the use of homeopathy in place of conventional method to treat your kid be a form of child abuse? Yes, as the tragic case of baby Gloria Thomas, another victim of of the delusions of homeopathists will hopefully show.
In the last months of her life, baby Gloria Thomas suffered such terrible eczema her skin would weep and peel, sticking to her clothing when she was changed.
Despite her bleeding, crying and malnutrition, her mother and homeopath father failed to get conventional medical help before she died a painful death, a Sydney jury has been told.
The parents, Thomas Sam and Manju Sam, have pleaded not guilty to manslaughter by gross criminal negligence at a court in Sydney.
Gloria died aged just nine months in 2002, having been ill for over five of those months. Her parents failed to get her proper medical attention, and as a result she spent those months - more than half of her young life - "crying, irritable, scratching." By the time of her death from septicaemia, she had lost 20% of her body weight.
Relatives pleaded with the parents to see sense, but were ignored:
He said Thomas Sam's sister had pleaded with her brother on a number of occasions to get Gloria some conventional medicine.
"He responded by saying: 'I am not able to do that,'" Mr Tedeschi said.
"Instead, Thomas Sam and Manju Sam gave to Gloria various types of homeopathic drops."
The father himself was a quack:
The father was educated in homeopathy in India and in Australia undertook a masters degree in health administration, while his wife had a science degree and a postgraduate diploma in computers.
Thomas Sam worked as a homeopath in Sydney and taught the subject at a Sydney college.
Homeopathists are deeply deluded people, playing doctors and nurses with imaginary potions that contain no real medicine. When these fantasies are limited to giving someone magic water for their indigestion, they are fairly harmless, but when they begin to believe that they can replace proper medical treatment, they become very dangerous.
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This is such a tragedy.
I suffer eczema myself and I know how painful it can be. I however, am an adult and have free access to steroids by prescription when I am suffering. My Mum was so badly effected, she was flown home from PNG by Army evacuation when she was gravely ill. In those days, medicine was not so advanced and she was prescribed salt and methylated spirit baths!
I am so grateful to have access to modern medicine to relieve my condition. Those of us with eczema know the pain of split skin.
The perpetuation of pseudoscience continues to damage lives and families. I have spent the last 4 days fighting the anti-vaxers in Australia.
Head, desk.
So Thomas Sam rules out conventional medical treatment/intervention as an option, even if it almost undoubtedly would have saved her life, because he is "unable to do that". Unconscionable! Just what is it that prevented him from saving his daughter's life? And what about his wife? It's one thing to believe that homeopathy is a valid medical option, it's quite another when a homeopath, upon seeing that his daughter isn't responding to homeopathy, chooses to let her die because he "can't" seek conventional medical treatment. Just what "prevented" him? If I were his lawyer, I might advise that he cop an insanity plea.
PS How's your bathroom light?
"Hardcore" homeopaths believe that suppressing the symptoms of an illness always makes it worse, and that "allopathic" (conventional) medicine does nothing but suppress symptoms. It's a pretty good bet that the parents firmly believe that if they had treated their daughter with conventional medicine that she would have died even sooner.
This story is not about homeopathy. It is about hubris. Homeopathy apologists would doubtless say that is an isolated case (and the forums I watch have been curiously silent on the issue so far) but it's not an isolated case when you realise that this is essentially neglect and child abuse. It is the result of adults putting their own needs ahead of those of the child.
Warhelmet,
homeopathy is hubris: after 200 years of vain proofs and all of science still staying that it could work. There are now many reviews of efforts at a clinical proof of homeopathy, and when the reviews say for example 'altogether homeopathy seems not quite a placebo, but for no individual affliction and treatment there's solid proof' the homeopaths just leave out the part starting with "but", and they don't want to hear about the possibility that "not a placebo" can also mean that the homeopathic faith leads to numerous errors in research, distorting the total picture.
In fact, homeopaths don't care about research at all, the put their own uncontrolled experience above science.
There is a difference between the rational use of homeopathy and fanatic use of. In fact I know too many people who believe that traditional medicine is nothing but a money-making machine and will only turn to it as the last resort, often when it's already too late. This kind of people worship the words "organic" "natural" "homeopathy" and as a rule think that vaccination and the use of medicine should be banned all together. These people will never feed their kids gerber baby food, they would rather grow their own vegetables in the flower pots. So much for civilization ... sad....