BACK in May, we reported on the case of 41-year-old Leilani Neumann, who was convicted in Wisconsin of second-degree reckless homicide for failing to rush her 11-year-old daughter, Madeline Kara Neumann, to a doctor when she fell ill.
Instead, she decided to pray for the girl who subsequently died of untreated diabetes in March 2008. Prosecutors convinced a jury the mother recklessly killed the girl by ignoring obvious symptoms until it was too late.
Neumann is to be sentenced for the crime on October 6, and could face 25 years in prison. The child’s father, Dale Neumann, is also charged with second-degree reckless homicide. His trial begins July 23.
Now we learn that a second couple, charged with manslaughter following the death of their 15-month-old daughter, are to face trial on June 23.
Carl and Raylene Worthington
Carl and Raylene Worthington, from Oregon, claim they were within their constitutional rights when they decided to pray for their child, Ava, rather than take her to a doctor to be treated for pneumonia.
A state medical examiner said Ava could have easily been treated with antibiotics.
Meanwhile, a couple in Australia, Thomas Sam, 42, a homeopath, and his wife Manju, 37, of Earlwood, Sydney, are awaiting sentence after being found guilty of manslaughter by gross criminal negligence.
Their nine-month-old daughter Gloria died after the couple tried treating her eczema with homeopathic remedies.
A court in Sydney court heard that the couple took Gloria to various health professionals, but abandoned each conventional medication she was prescribed within a short time of starting it, and chose quack medicine instead.
The Freethinker was founded in 1881 by GW Foote, an outspoken critic of religion. After the publication of 
June 16th, 2009 at 10:13 am
Scientific testing has already proved homeopathy to be ineffective and quackery, but it remains big business fleecing the gullible; and wasn’t it the Templeton Foundation who did tests to show that talking to your hands does nothing? People who abuse their children by denying them proper medical treatment should be sterilised so they can’t breed any more victims.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
Our loopy Heir in Waiting, as well as being an expert of architecture, is also an expert on alternative medecine and he wants these dotty "cures" on the NHS and paid for by those of us who still retain a measure of sanity. These views are not the just the ravings of an off the wall nutter – although they are certainly that – but they are taken seriously by many of his "subjects" who do not know any better. Charles, himself, is quick enough to jump to the head of the queue by the best clinicians is the business when it suits himenough. Stop the rot, now. Time for a reality check for the Windsor freeloaders. One bit of transparency long overdue: stop assuming "Clarence House" can speak and put a name to the sycophant mouthing the defence.
June 16th, 2009 at 12:38 pm
I wouldn't be surprised if they were hippies!
June 16th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
This is not a clear cut case. (Not the praying thing, obviously this is totally mad) So called conventional medicine is not always a great road to go down. When does anyone ever go to the doctor and come out cured? Usually what happens is that they come out with a prescription which keeps the drug companies happy and the doctor's back handers coming in. (I knew a GP who confirmed this). The prescribed drugs always have side effects which sometimes require other drugs to alleviate them etc etc … all good news for the drug companies who just want business for life. Keeping people ill is a better business to be in than curing them.
Although anti-biotics can be life savers, can we really say that the irresponsible willy nilly prescribing of these have benefited peoples health? I think not.
I had cause to go to my own GP some time ago (something I try to avoid doing as it is usually a complete waste of time) but asked him to get to the root cause of my complaint rather than just treat the symptoms, which is all that 'conventional medicine' attemps to do since this keeps money rolling in for drug companies. He told me that this is not what they do, they only deal with symptoms not causes. This seems just as crazy to me as 'quack medicine' and should be regarded as the same.
GP's, in my view, should not be allowed to do much more than direct people to experts unless the ailment is obvious and easily treated. The experiences my mother in particular has had over the years where she has been let down desperately by doctors shows me that the conventional approach is not always as perfect as some people would have us believe.
I am not saying that Homeopathy is the answer, but I would not agree with the assumption that conventional medicine has all the answers. I have managed to cure myself of ailments just by going on a raw food diet. This is not quack medicine, it was a welcome side effect of trying to eat more healthily. We should always be open minded which is rarely displayed by "free thinkers" in certain subjects where science is in question and is pitted against something more natural. I used to be under the impression that herbalism and homeopathy were the answer but through experience, I have come to the conclusion that they are not. This doesn't mean that I wouldn't be prepared to give some things a try, but I am much more sceptical through trying these things than I was before I started with them. On the other hand, I am very sceptical of doctors and conventional medicine. Emergency treatments are fantastic and surgical advancements are an amazing thing too. There is much that the more scientific approach has to offer but it does not have all the answers.
Isn't it the case that many if not all drugs are, despite being less effective synthetic versions, derived from or based on natural sources anyway?
Godless Not Gormless
June 16th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
"When does anyone ever go to the doctor and come out cured?"
Why would you expect that to happen, unless you had one of the few specific medical needs that could be over and done with during a single consultation? Medicos aren't magical. Most illnesses need a course of treatment before they'll show much improvement, and many illnesses simply can't be "cured".
Nobody's claiming that conventional medicine is anything like "perfect". But it's often a heck of a lot better than nothing. And in terms of their medicinal value, prayers and homeopathy can safely be regarded as "nothing".
June 16th, 2009 at 3:46 pm
Fairy Nuff GNG, but I think the point here is it's kids who are ill, not their parents. The only defence of homeopathic medicine I can see is that it might have something to do with you feeling positive about getting better, so it speeds up your recovery (though I also gather the bit missed from claims of many homeopathic 'cures' is the patient took the conventional medicine THEN went to the homeopath, so it might just have been the course of 'proper' medicine finally kicking in, not the hocus pocus).
Thing is, whatever consenting adults want to believe, how can you expect a kid to take an informed decision and somehow will themselves bettter?
June 16th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
those kids are sitting on a cloud up in heaven now with Jesus, which is the way god wanted it; who are we to interfere in natural selection? The poor bastards.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:05 pm
I was given a lot of homeopathic remedies as a child which was grand as a placebo, have a few bumps and a sugar pills does wonders. I also wasn't vaccinated because of the MMR scare, if you look at medical ghastliness such as thalidomide children and the possibility even faint of your child being autistic rather than having measles I can see the reasons for both. However after my mother had a very successful treatment for leukemia and maintained that she probably could have got better through alternatives alone I questioned the whole business. Her perception was that pharmaceutical companies were entirely for profit and all drugs, including the pills that demonstrably changed her from a shrunken, slightly rotten shadow of who she was to a healthy active adult were basically fakes and harmful. I think the difficulty is that, as in religious cases, we see the small benefits, ala the placebo effect and excuse the sloppy thinking and active harm it causes. i find it hard to convince my mother than medicine is there to help you since the information she's gleaned in her life from environmental, protest groups, various hippies and homeopaths comes forefront and is not combatted enough in the media and by law.
June 16th, 2009 at 6:32 pm
alternative medicine – if it works – gets called medicine.
June 16th, 2009 at 7:05 pm
i really hope these parents get a long sentance, if you want to pray for yourself fine go ahead don't bother me at all but to inflict it on children is just sick – dawkins is right religion in kids is child abuse.
and we really must get homeopathy banned from describing itself as medicine. its beyond a joke either it proves itself in double blinds and you take a medical degree to prescribe it or it shouldn't be allowed to make its claims for cures same for reiki, faith healing, chiropractors and other sorts of voodoo
June 16th, 2009 at 10:55 pm
Bubblecar:
"Why would you expect that to happen, unless you had one of the few specific medical needs that could be over and done with during a single consultation?"
You're taking that a bit too literally there Bubblecar. I didn't actually mean I expect doctors to cure people in one visit. What I actually mean here is that I don't think doctors actually cure anything. Usually, people find themselves on a long term plan like asthma sufferers who have to use inhalers for life or people with skin complaints who have to constantly change from one cream to another as each one's effectiveness wears off, never getting rid of the condition. Modern medical practice is about people living with their ailments whilst taking drugs or using creams on and off or constantly in order to mask the symptoms. Just like in the case of my doctor, underlying causes are often never even considered.
Look at the present situation with swine flu. This seems to have been blown out of all proportion. Maybe not enough people were taking up the standard flu vaccinations therefore impacting on drug company profits so a new scare was invented to make the public think again. Who really stands to gain from this? Drug companies and their shareholders. It's really just another form of flu. It will amount to very little in most people, but those who are old and infirm, the very young with immature immune systems and those who have other complications may be at more risk of suffering more severely or even dying, but this thing has almost been built up to sound like it's the end of civilization.
I have personal examples of alternative medicine and treatments being very effective ON THEIR OWN (Stuart H) and know of others with similar experiences. I also recognise that I have had negative experiences with alternative treatments and I am open minded enough to realise and accept this. Personally, I would rather try a natural route first before taking synthetic substances which may cause other problems. This does not mean using homeopathy which is something I have tried very little of and, I might add, without much success.
Stuart H:
"though I also gather the bit missed from claims of many homeopathic 'cures' is the patient took the conventional medicine THEN went to the homeopath, so it might just have been the course of 'proper' medicine finally kicking in, not the hocus pocus"
Please understand that I'm not here defending homeopathy, but what is the basis for this claim? Do you have figures to back it up or is it just a guess? There are documented cases of people being cured of major conditions using natural remedies, again, probably not homeopathy. Let's not get pedantic about it. Both systems have their merits though I agree that there are plenty of charlatans out there in the alternative camp, peddling fake cures and making false claims. The trouble seems to be that each camp is unprepared to give any ground to the other. I don't know enough about homeopathy to make a judgement though it seems to be a favourite for people to bash.
Mungo:
I gave my children homeopathic vaccinations. The lady who supplied them told me that she would prefer not to but that parents were pressured into doing something. She believed that the best thing was just to let the body learn by itself. I have seen no evidence of my chidren being more ill than any others. When chicken pox hit the nursery they were in, all the children there contracted it and presumably all the other children were vaccinated conventionally. My son who was 2yo wasn't really ill with it. He just had spots. My daughter was under one year and suffered a little bit more.
This is a big subject and there is much to consider but I would prefer not to give my children the crap that is in vaccines. There is good logic behind homeopathic vaccines (whether or not they genuinely work might be debatable) and my children seem very healthy. They certainly look healthier than most other kids I see and we all follow a vegan diet. Oooohh!! More voodoo! lol
Godless Not Gormless
June 17th, 2009 at 7:18 am
Sometimes people just get better. Some people have strong immune systems. Some people are simply lucky and dodge the bullet. None of these obvious facts excuse homeopathy, which is crank nonsense. All this anti-vaccine stuff is put about by alternative practitioners whose motives are every bit as financial as any big pharma firm. Or do homeopathists work for free?
June 17th, 2009 at 8:29 am
I think we many be confusing two types “natural remedies”
Homeopathy is the continued dilution of a substance in water many times so that there is a one in a very big number chance of even a single molecule being present in the final “medicine” Supporters of Homeopathy claim that this water has some sort of memory, but tests have found no evidence of this. Homeopathy has been subjected to double blind properly monitored scientific trials and found to be ineffective; any perceived effect is merely placebo. Have a look at Quackwatch or James Randi’s site. Homeopathy is junk science of the worse kind and a great money making scam. The personal testament of even millions of people does not counter the fact that there is no EVIDENCE to support their claim and that science has found against them.
It is true to say that some natural remedies e.g. plant extracts, herbs etc are indeed effective in treating certain symptoms. Furthermore, many manufactured drugs use material extracted from natural sources such as plants.
June 17th, 2009 at 8:54 am
http://skepticblog.org/2009/06.....thy-awar...
say no more…
June 19th, 2009 at 3:23 am
Anyone who defends homeopathy or any other medical quackery is a disinformed ignoramus with zero competence to evaluate evidence objectively.
August 4th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
Stupid Feks! God isn't true anyway., it's all a story