Does alternative medicine kill children?!
Question: Does alternative medicine kill children?
It would appear that deluded but well meaning parents "....can be misguided by the 50 million alternative medicine websites. The children are victims of lots of nonsense and false claims."
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-1206050…
"One child had multiple seizures after complementary and alternative medicines (CAMs) were used instead of anti-seizure drugs due to concerns about potential side effects."
"Another death involved a 10-month-old infant who presented with septic shock following treatment with homeopathic medicines and dietary restriction for chronic eczema,"
While we always here so much about how alt med is 'natural' with 'no side effects', it appears that using alt med in place of real medicine is leading to the deaths of children!
Is this report just starting to scratch the surface of the alt med death toll?
Answers:
Yes it does.
This quote from the article points out the main concern: "Many of the adverse events associated with failure to use conventional medicine resulted from the family's belief in complementary and alternative medicine and determination to use it despite medical advice."
And yes it is just scratching the surface, because this study did not look at the adverse effects and deaths from vaccine preventable diseases - the majority of alternative medicine proponents actively promote anti-vaccination, and homeopaths go as far as promoting their own 'vaccinations', which are water or sugar pills only and have no effect.
Furthermore the study only analysed data reported to the Australian Paediatric Surveillance Unit between 2001 and 2003. A small time span, a small population, and who knows what wasn't reported.
"Warning over alternative remedies"
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ukpress…
And in this forum we have quacks almost everyday doing their utmost to convince people to avoid all conventional medicine, while asserting that what they offer works when it doesn't, and it is perfectly safe when it isn't. Skeptics have much work to do.
PS: I see thenose has already posted a "Does conventional medicine kill children?" question comeback. Not brave enough to answer this question perhaps? Not brave enough to allow skeptics to answer either?
I will play devil's advocate just a little here and use the argument the alties are sure to default to:
"But conventional medicine kills a million-billion babies a year!"
And here I will pre-emptively counter it:
1. Conventional Medicine is proven to work in the vast majority of cases.
2. Conventional Medicine practitioners KNOW that there is a risk with most treatments, and as such warns patients.
3. Most Alternative medicine has never been proven to do anything against illnesses.
4. Conventional Medicine KEEPS TRACK of total deaths and side effects from any treatments.
This alone should be reason for tighter regulations with alternative treatments of all sorts.
When deluded persons attempt to do something they do not have the education or training for, disaster happens. In alternative medicine, the disaster unfortunately happens to their patients who end up dead or even more ill. It's even more unfortunate when it's innocent children, who trust their parents to know what's in their best interests, who end up as victims of alt med.
I agree with you 100%. I've read reports where parents refuse to take their dying child to see a doctor because they were convinced that "jesus" will save the child... of course the child died.... sigh... poor kid.
A sick child needs 1 thing. A medical doctor.
Not alternative medicine. Not homeopathy. Not psudo-science. Not Jesus.
... That shouldn't even be considered freedom of religion... that's child abuse. Unless someone can show me Jesus' resume with how many children he's saved... Jesus doesn't matter. Those people who give credit to Jesus would have survived anyway.
People p!ss me off with their lame *** psudo-science crap.
I'm a logical and clear thinking person.
Yes, by both neglect and direct harm.
Question.................What do you call alternative medicine that works?
Answer...................Medicine.
I believe the technical terms would be abuse, neglect, practicing medicine without a license, malpractice, misfeasance....you get the idea. Those are all actually criminal charges here...
Two of those three children were systematically starved. You know what's really sad - 1)those parents had no idea they were doing that much harm and 2) they actually believed something good would come of it. Now I might be a cynic, but that's why I think it's ridiculous to require a license to have a dog but not children.
I don't know how your freedom of religion laws work there - but when it comes to children and medical treatment here, the laws vary by state (WTH?!?) - I find that more disconcerting, because 172 children died in a twenty year span as a result of neglect (in most cases, a bottle of antibiotics would have been life saving)....
.time.com/time/nation/article/0,8599,100…
http://www.religioustolerance.org/medica…