I don’t know if it’s true or not, but I’ve heard that some of these potions have the equivalent of dilution of one atom of whatever is supposed to help you to essentially all the matter in the solar system. It’s all in how you shake the potion I guess…
-XT
The problem that I see, is that if you accept the OP’s precedent (or that of any of the many posters in this thread who are positing similar punishments on the parents in the OP’s scenario, or laws to prevent that scenario) the question then becomes to me, what recourse does a family have when they believe, rightly or wrongly, that the so-called scientific medicine they are recieving is harming their child?
I’m a mental health consumer, so I tend to view any kind of corner case scenario through the lens of how it might deal with some real world examples of psychological treatments. In the past several years, there have been studies showing a link between the use of anti-depressants and increased suicides with teenagers*. For that matter, the extent to which licensed and regulated professionals are willing to prescribe things like Ritalin and other ADD medications, often in spite of reports of disturbing side-effects, leaves me firmly of the opinion that there are a number of times that parents should retain the right to reject the advised course of treatment.
The sorts of laws that some posters have advocated in this thread would have the effect, I believe, of leaving parents at the mercy of medical professionals who can often end up with severe cases of tunnel vision. (Note: I’m not trying to accuse anyone of improper motives.) FTM, there have been a number of cases where medical professionals have advocated prosecutions for SIDS deaths, sometimes to the point of ignoring evidence of other potential explainations, which already leaves many parents worried**. I know that such events are corner cases of extreme magnitudes, but that doesn’t mitigate the chilling effect for some people. I tend to believe that the average person, if they’re aware of such cases at all, has only seen the more sensationalized versions of the news, and lack the background to sufficiently understand how unlikely such things are.
Finally, I think that this modification of Randi’s central thesis is key: if the State is willing to support homeopathy as a legitimate means to treat disease, the bar for proving negligence, let alone murder, has been raised very, very high. Any argument that begins with the reasoning that homeopathy is at best a harmless crock of nonsense, so the parents should have known better than to risk their child’s health on it is going to be doomed to failure, given the apparent support it recieves from the gov’t. As other posters have suggested, I believe that murder is going to be flat out impossible to prove. Negligent homicide will be hard enough, and will turn, I suspect, on how much time the family had to recognize that what they were using wasn’t working, and to consider getting their child treatment.
*There is a link on the NPR page linked that goes to the FDA’s .pdf about the study.
**I wish to state that while I recognize the huge potential for abuse with diagnoses of Factitious Syndrome by Proxy (aka Munchausen’s Syndrome by Proxy), I am vehemently in disagreement with the thesis of groups, such as MAMA: that all such diagnoses are conspiracies by the medical establishment to cover-up their own failures and lack of understanding. Factitious Syndrome by Proxy does exist, and removing the diagnosis will do nothing to improve safety, nor medical care, for the public, nor at-risk populations.
The law punishes people for being stupid enough to kill someone all the time. Negligent homicide cases can involve anything from crashing into someone while you’re driving drunk, to pointing a gun that you thought wasn’t loaded and accidentally pulling the trigger. Denying your children urgent lifesaving medical care because you’re too fucking stupid to go to the doctor is a lot like that.
The parents should go to jail. They killed someone through negligence and recklessness, and there’s no reason the law shouldn’t punish them for it.
Be careful not to get “homeopathic” and “holistic” confused. "Homeopathic " means specifically what others have described–the idea that a drastic dilution of a substance that in some way relates to the opposite of one’s symptoms will function as a cure for said symptoms. “Holistic” is an adjective used to describe a variety of alternative medical approaches that purport to treat the whole patient instead of the symptom–everything from herbal remedies to crystal waving can be lumped here, though individuals may well consider some forms legitimate holistic approaches and others to be scams.
bolding mine.
Exactly the same recourse that parents who believe alcohol helps their child’s brain develop, or that giving a loaded pistol to a 5 year old so they can get used to holding it have.
Why is medicine any different from this? I don’t care what kind of crazy religious or philosophical problems you have with medicine. If you kill someone by denying them medical care, you have still fucking KILLED them, the same as if you denied them food. This is totally unacceptable, and completely irresponsible for us to just overlook and pass off as parental privelege.
Homeopathic cures are legal and even endorsed by the government. It would be the same as if the kid had died from taking over the counter cold medicine when they really had a fatal ear infection or something. The parents were stupid to rely on such a cure…but it was perfectly legal for them to use it, seeing as how the government at least quasi-endorses it.
I think the parents have suffered enough…having lost a child I can tell you that sending them to jail isn’t going to serve ‘justice’. Especially if they are bright enough to realize that it was through their own stupidity they lost their child. I actually hope the are to stupid to realize what they have done.
-XT
Okay.
So, your thesis is that it’s okay if the child is killed by the idiot actions of an MD. But if the idiot actions of the parents, they should be locked up.
[/sarcasm off]
Idiot actions by MDs are actionable in civil suits, aka malpractice. They are not usually criminally liable, however, because of good faith laws. If the doctor had some reason (however reasonable, or unreasonable) to believe his or her treatment would be effective, that is protection against criminal charges.
Which is all that I’m really claiming for this case: The policies of the Astrailian gov’t serve, IMNSHO, to lend support for me to believe that a reasonable (but not well-educated) person could conclude that homeopathic cures would be effective.
The solution is not criminal charges, but education. And having the gov’t stop supporting the claims of these snake-oil salespersons.
BTW: Does the UK’s NHS still have an age cap for dialysis treatment?
So, just to clarify, do you or do you not think that denying urgent medical care to a dying person should be criminally punishable?
I’m not going to answer that yes or no. I don’t buy absolutes in general, and this one has more teeth than most. Pointed all over the place.
If I say “yes,” I’ve just started an indictment for AIUI, the whole of the UK’s NHS. Which I’ve heard limits dialysis to persons below a certain age. Which is denying life-saving treatments to a dying person. FTM, I’ve also started writing indictments for anyone attempting CPR in a remote area, and who then stops because of exhaustion.
If I say “no,” I’ve just allowed a hospital to turn patient X, Y or Z away from the ER.
There is no one answer to that question, I don’t think. Give me a specific scenario, and I’ll answer it. Ask me to rule completely on all situations that could be described with that phrase, and any yes or no answer I give will be wrong.
In this specific case, I’m inclined to side with the parents. And even so, I’d already pointed out at least one avenue of argument that could convince me to convict them.
Now you’re just nitpicking. A children’s hospital doesn’t “deny” older people dialysis, any more than your insurance company does. If that same hospital had tied you to a tree to prevent you from getting dialysis, THAT would be more in line with what the parents did here.
Not doing CPR isn’t “denying” treatment to someone who requires CPR. Handcuffing the paramedic who tries to help, so that he can’t perform CPR would be more in line with what the parents did here.
The examples you gave are foolish and silly, and you know exactly what was implied by my question. The answer is “yes, of course!” you think that denying medical treatment to someone is wrong, and should be punishable under the law, evidenced by your other statements about the issue. Spiritual or philosophical belief of the parents, or even just outright stupidity should NOT be a shield for them when they killed someone.
If we sent people to prison for being idiots, the world would be a pretty empty place.
That argument would make a lot of sense if it were even in the least bit applicable to this discussion.
And then rise from their graves and shamble around moaning for BRAINNNSSS!
No, because “conventional medicine” ( which is really just another way of saying real medicine ) isn’t a scam; homeopathy is. Being imperfect it sometimes fails; but unlike homeopathy and similar frauds real medicine generally works.
And a thread from 2007 is much older than is supposed to be replied to on this board, thus the zombie comments above.
I didn’t see this thread in its original incarnation, but am curious to know why Randi makes the suggestion that homeopathy is considered a profession in Australia?
Because it’s not. Anyone can make a claim to being a homeopath, and there are no independent bodies/institutions who regulate and monitor the training and practice of homeopathy such as you would expect with a ‘profession’ like Doctor, lawyer, accountant, architect etc.
It in no way conforms to the accepted notion of professional at all.
Homeopathic medicines ARE available legally via health-food shops and practitioners, but they are not governed by the same protocols as registered pharmacy medications.
Whether it is a valid medical treatment program is another matter altogether.
So, if your kid had sepsis and the water wasn’t working would you give him the antibiotics that the regular doctors were prescribing or would you continue giving him water?
There is a rollicking HUGE difference between psychotropics and antibiotics.
I have no problem refusing to give psychotropics to an ADD kid, Not giving lithium [or whatever the drug for schizophrenia nowdays] when the kid is dangerous when not medicated is very different if they turn around and rip an eye out because the voices told him to - that is negligence and the kid needs to be removed to where he can get medical care and the parents need to go to jail. Not giving antibiotics for an infection IS negligent homicide and should be prosecuted as agressively as possible.
Look, how often do we on the dope tell people to get second medical opinions if a treatment isn’t working after a reasonable time?
If you are giving your sprog fancy water, and he keeps getting sicker, MAYBE the frelling doctor is correct and they need antibiotics…not fancy water. The kid has the right to get proper medical treatment and science has actually determined that [in general, we are not going to get into whether or not his sepsis was an antibiotic resistant strain] oddly enough, antibiotics actually work on killing the microbe that is causing the sepsis, and that the kid NEEDS the antibiotics to cure the sepsis. Refusing to cure the kid is negligent homicide.
I agree with you and Acid. A very similar paradigm already exists in that adults are free to continue to live in abusive households if they wish to do so, but children are not, once that abuse is discovered. It’s a question of the distinction between abusiveness and stupidity - which one causes the most harm? They both cause harm, yet we have no legal way to deal with stupidity causing death, yet.
I don’t even know who Randi is, but when I read the OP my first thought was that he was deliberately making the point that these pseudo medicines are available and have therefore gained some kind of dangerous legitimacy in Australia. The fact that he stressed the point that these ‘medicines’ were completely legal tipped my ‘subtle hint’ meter, and makes me think he was actually working for a change to ban this bullshit.
But maybe I’m just optimistic?
I think we can trace the revival of this thread to our Dr. Malik googling around to see what people are saying about homeopathy (she also posted in the current thread on alternative medicine spending). Malik appears to be the same person who has this profile up on her Wiki Answers page, identifying her as a “senior homeopath” in India.
To answer your tu quoque attack, Nancy, we don’t give mainstream medicine “a pass” when children die using evidence-based medicine, but we do understand that there are not going to be positive outcomes in every instance. We also comprehend the value of giving our children the best possible chance to get well using proven therapy, rather than dosing them with water containing a “memory” of some substance (which is what homeopathy is) and hoping that the placebo effect will save them.
The naked truth is that the homeopathic emperor has no clothes.
Well, to be fair, more people will die from the side effects of conventional medicine than from any direct effect, side or not, of homeopathy. Pretty hard to experience an adverse reaction to pure water or chalk. The downside is that you’re replacing efficacious medicine with a cipher… so then it’s time to factor in all the deaths and serious illnesses caused by administering a “medicine” that does nothing, instead of actually, y’know, treating the illness.