Atheist Age

Australian Homeopathy Fatality

It’s over a month since the case on the sad death of Gloria Thomas aged nine months after her parents repeatedly and intentionally ignored conventional advice in favour of homeopathy.

Thanks to Channel Nine news, Australia.

The Skeptics Book of Pooh-Pooh points out that homeopathy was debunked as early as 1851. The article is unambiguous in its position that homeopathy is a dangerous scam designed to snare the desperate and gullible. Much like “ancient” Chinese medicine – which does not, and never has existed as claimed – it is modern humans who revive dangerous practices from periods and places when both science and legal responses were yet to firmly dismiss the logic of Snake Oil salesmen/women.

This article pumping out nonsense upon outrageous claim is indicative of the poker face miracle workers who argue that taking water can cure disease because water has a memory. The cutting edge data provided is a 1921 article of bogus testimonials, and the following piffle is indicative of the ignorance exploited at the time:

Julian Winston relates a further comment from his first homeopath, Dr Ray Seidel:

“In reading accounts of the epidemic it seems many deaths were caused by a virulent pneumonia that was especially devastating to those who depressed their system with analgesics, the most common being aspirin. Raymond Seidel told me he decided to become a homeopathic doctor when he was 10 year old delivery boy for a local homeopath. He said, “I saw that the people who were taking aspirin were dying, and about half of those who were drinking a lot of whiskey were dying, and those receiving homeopathic remedies were living.”

Even better, homeopathy “remembers” the agent that caused the illness initially. Remembers? Yes, preparations are claimed to contain the culprit in just the right amount to spark up the immune system. Sound familiar? The magical immune system which according to New Age claims on the hidden joys of medieval blood letting can be turbo charged to practically repair compound fractures.

If you wonder what it’s all about please read this brief PDF from The Australian Skeptics, provided by Young Aussie Skeptics. It contains in its two pages of wisdom:

One typical homeopathic medication, the ‘flu remedy, Oscillococcinum, starts with duck’s liver. The liver mixture is diluted to the ratio of one part in 10400. At that rate, one duck is easily enough to make enough anti-‘flu “medicine” to satisfy the world’s population many times over; in fact it’s so dilute that if you were to prepare the product with only one molecule of the duck liver, it would produce more than enough ‘flu potion to fill the known universe. This product reaps $20 million each year. (The unlucky duck has been dubbed “The Twenty Million Dollar Duck.”) The manufacturers don’t show the quantities of ingredients on packets of homeopathic products; they show dilutions in a special code. This is because the high dilutions ensure the product will actually contain no active ingredients!

Whilst one must accept there are cultural and personal facts influencing why this couple chose to ignore medical advice, such understanding doesn’t forgive the reality that basic intelligence is all one need possess to see that homeopathy is simply impossible. A crucial aspect in science is to grasp fully the theories and/or claims that challenge what one may conclude is factual. Homeopaths do this but only as is required to dismiss challenges.

So, if water has a memory and can detect one molecule in a volume the size of the universe, aren’t we drinking fecal bacteria, urine, blood, flesh, bone, hazardous waste, dish washing chemicals, bleach, chlorine, salt, smog, carbon monoxide, any manner of drugs, etc, etc. Well, no. It’s all in the shaking. Observe:

The duck liver dilution in Oscillococcinum is written as “200C”. This means the mixture has undergone a sequence of two hundred “C” dilutions. Each “C” dilution is a process where a mixture is diluted by 1:100 and then shaken exactly one hundred times. So a 1C mixture is one hundred times weaker than the original; a 2C dilution is ten thousand times weaker, and so on. So the 200C Oscillococcinum preparation has been diluted to 1 part in…. 10000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
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00000. [Page 2].

The parents were found guilty of manslaughter over their choice of homeopathy for treating their daughters eczema. On June 5th The Sydney Morning Herald wrote:

The skin condition wore down her natural defences and left her completely vulnerable when she developed an eye infection that killed her within days of developing.

Thomas Sam, 42, a homeopath, and Manju Sam, 37, of Earlwood, Sydney, were charged with manslaughter by gross criminal negligence…

…The court heard the couple took Gloria to various health professionals, but while they abandoned each conventional medication she was prescribed within a short time of starting it, they solidly pursued homeopathic remedies.

The Crown said these did not work, and all the while Gloria’s tiny body required more nutrition than her mother’s milk could provide, and her immune system became ever more depleted.

By the time she died, she was the weight of an average three-month-old, her body was covered with angry blotches and her once black hair had turned completely white.

Gloria had developed eczema when she was four months old, a condition she probably inherited from her mother, which flared and subsided throughout the rest of her short life.

But the couple, who were raised and educated in India where homeopathy is accepted as equivalent to conventional medicine, were steadfast to their homeopathic remedies and ignored completely or quickly discarded other treatment.

A general practitioner booked them an appointment with a dermatologist they did not attend because they took the child to India instead, a course of action the doctor told them was “cruel”.

They also visited two doctors in India, but discarded the advice of one to return to him every second day, instead consulting a succession of homeopaths including Thomas Sam’s brother, who had recently completed his dissertation on eczema…

…Gloria died on May 8, 2002, in her mother’s arms, unable in her weakened condition to combat the septicemia that had developed in her left eye.

The pathologist who did the autopsy, Ella Sugo, said she had sought advice from experts outside Australia because she had never seen a child so malnourished and her condition was at a level more commonly observed in third world countries.

But even after Gloria died, Thomas Sam adhered to his belief that homeopathy was equally valid to conventional medicine for the treatment of eczema.

He told police: “Conventional medicine would have prolonged her life … with more misery. It’s not going to cure her and that’s what I strongly believe.”

Well it seems the court decided strong beliefs like these look more like using an innocent infant to prove a point that like so many others of this nature, is vital to those more obsessed with rejecting medicine than providing care.

Tags: Alternative medicine, Biology, Crime, Homeopathy, Media, Medico-legal, Scam, Video