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homeopathetic...

Posted: 6th May, '09, 13:28
by Morrolan
once again confirmation that snake oil cures and quackery will kill.

Homeopath's baby 'could have been saved'

THE parents of a baby girl who suffered from severe eczema ignored the advice of doctors and persisted with alternative medicine for their daughter until she died from infection
On May 3, her father realised she had an ulcer on her eye, which he treated with homeopathic drops.

When taken to hospital, it was discovered her "corneas were literally melting" and her left eye was perforated, which allowed further infection to come into her body
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Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 6th May, '09, 14:05
by Tas
The minute I saw that heading I knew it was that story M. When you read through the story timeline you can't help but feel even more incredulous. The number of months spent freighting this kid around in the condition she was in, travelling against peadiatricean advice, the mother actually having her own stint in hospital with the gall stones, the sister finally having a go and saying she'd take the kid to hospital - paints a pretty damning picture.

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 6th May, '09, 15:00
by azzam
Neglect will kill, M.

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 6th May, '09, 15:34
by Tas
too true Azzam.
essence of the case in a nutshell.

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 6th May, '09, 17:27
by Morrolan
azzam wrote:Neglect will kill, M.
which is what using homeopathic 'medicine' amounts to , yes...

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 6th May, '09, 21:15
by azzam
Not at all. You can combine it with conventional medicine when it is not working fast enough. It's common sense, as always. When my son was small he was fighting an infection and the gland in his neck swelled to the size of a tennis ball. My doctor was a homeopath and a western trained doctor, so he gave me both. A homeopathic injection AND a course of anti-biotics. When I didn't see any improvement within a few hours I tossed the anti-biotics down his throat. As a parent, I didn't want him on anti-biotics if I could avoid it, but I wasn't going to sit there and watch him in pain either.
I dont bother with homeopathy now, but then again I hardly ever need a doctor either. So maybe my early hippiedom makes me more resilient now.
I do think it's wrong to say homeopathy killed her though, that's just bending the facts to suit your agenda. Lack of care is what killed her. Over-medicating could be more dangerous if you just want to talk about toxicity.

This poor kid was just abused.

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 6th May, '09, 22:52
by Spike
Homeopathic medicines are fine if they've been clinically trialled and proven to be effective and safe. But there again if they had been proved effective and safe by clinical trials they would be in mainstream medicine, which suggests that most 'alternatives' to proper drugs are nothing more than placebos.

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 7th May, '09, 08:10
by Morrolan
Azzam, homeopathy is quackery. period.

which part of this quote:
On May 3, her father realised she had an ulcer on her eye, which he treated with homeopathic drops.

When taken to hospital, it was discovered her "corneas were literally melting" and her left eye was perforated, which allowed further infection to come into her body
did you not read?

at best homeopathic 'medicine' is plain water, at worst it is dangerous. more dangerous that clinically trialled medicine will ever be.

i won't deny that these people criminally neglected their child (and were more than happy to use normal doctors and medicine when the wife fell sick), it's just also blatantly obvious that if the child had been given the full treatment of normal medicine instead of them switching to snake oil, the eczema would never have progressed to the stage where she died.

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 7th May, '09, 08:17
by Burbage
Such is the nature of belief.

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 7th May, '09, 08:33
by azzam
Morrolan wrote:Azzam, homeopathy is quackery. period.

which part of this quote:
On May 3, her father realised she had an ulcer on her eye, which he treated with homeopathic drops.

When taken to hospital, it was discovered her "corneas were literally melting" and her left eye was perforated, which allowed further infection to come into her body
did you not read?
Ah, you read that the homeopathy caused the perforation - I read that as the infection was doing the damage as it wasn't being treated correctly.

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 7th May, '09, 08:50
by cromasaig
I'm with M on this one. While I'm normally of the 'don't knock it if it works' school of thought, I'm not aware of any properly-conducted research that suggests homeopathy works, other than as a placebo. Which is not to say that there's anything wrong with placebos.

I'm a big fan of Ben Goldacre, who has a good blog on this sort of thing: http://www.badscience.net/

But - hypocrisy alert - I also have to confess that I'm also a big fan of reflexology. I can't find any research that suggests it works and I can't in a million years understand what possible evolutionary advantage there could be for having bits of the foot that correspond to the organs of the body.

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 7th May, '09, 08:59
by azzam
I don't feel strongly about it - just saying that I think it was extreme lack of care and not the products themselves that killed the little girl. Of course she should have had proper medical attention, hope the parents go away for a long time.

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 7th May, '09, 09:53
by Burbage
The thing that killed the little girl was the fact that the parents believed that crap.

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 7th May, '09, 09:58
by baloo
Burbage wrote:The thing that killed the little girl was the fact that the parents believed that crap.
That sort of aids Azz's point. It's the parents unwavering belief in things that often kill kids. Like those religous sects who refuse blood transfusions and modern medicine.

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 7th May, '09, 13:03
by azzam
Strange that they didn't believe it enough to ignore the mother's gall stones. They're child abusers. It'll be interesting to see how the courts treat it. I wonder why it wasn't considered serious enough by the doctors who did see her, to take her out of the parents' hands. I guess they only found out too late.
With blood transfusions ( JWs), the courts can take custody and over-rule the parents' wishes, which lets the parents off the hook with god, because they did their best to follow the "rules". So they won't die in a ball of flame and the child gets the blood, everybody's happy.

Re: homeopathetic...

Posted: 15th May, '09, 17:41
by azzam
Another one - this time the courts step in.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090515/ap_ ... rced_chemo