What’s the harm? An Australian child dies while undergoing a particularly cruel form of quackery

[SidDithers]

A common criticism aimed at those of us who are highly critical of various alternative medicine treatments and, in particular, of the “integration” of such treatments into conventional medical treatment is: What’s the harm? What, they ask, is the harm of homeopathy, acupuncture, iridology, or traditional Chinese medicine? They argue that it’s pretty much harmless, or, to quote Douglas Adam’s The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy about earth, harmless. Of course, fans of the novels know that Ford Prefect, a contributor to the guide, reacting to Earthling Arthur Dent’s outrage that the entry for the planet earth consisted of only one word, assured him that in the next edition the entry would be expanded to read “mostly harmless.” An analogy to this sort of quackery could be made, except that it is anything but “mostly harmless.” It can—and is—often harmful to individual patients, not to mention the corrosive effect integrating pseudoscience into conventional medicine has in general.

I’ve documented various examples over the years, examples such as Madeleine Neumann, a 11-year-old diabetic girl who died of diabetic ketoacidosis when her parents relied on prayer instead of medicine to treat her diabetes. Then there have been children like Daniel Hauser, Katie Wernecke, Abraham Cherrix, Jacob Stieler, an Amish girl named Sarah Hershberger, Cassandra C, and, most recently, two aboriginal girls from Canada, Makayla Sault (who died) and JJ (who will, hopefully, live, although her chances of ultimately surviving were greatly compromised by her mother’s insistence on pursuing a Florida quack‘s medicine instead of chemotherapy). These were all children or teens with cancer whose parents chose (or supported their choice) not to undergo chemotherapy and to pursue quackery instead. Then there was Mazeratti Mitchell, who suffered a spinal cord injury while wrestling, whose mother wanted to rely on a naturopathic quack instead of surgery to fuse his spine. The list goes on and on and on; depressingly so, in fact.

I’m sighing with sadness as I add another one to the list: Aidan Fenton of Sydney, Australia, a seven-year old boy with type I diabetes who died undergoing quack treatments associated with using traditional Chinese medicine:

A Chinese healer, who slaps patients until they produce dark bruising and is now under investigation over the death of a Sydney boy, had brought his treatments to Perth.

Self-proclaimed healer Hongchi Xiao was using slapping therapy on seven-year-old Aidan Fenton to treat type 1 diabetes when the boy died in Hurstville New South Wales on Monday evening.

Mr Xiao brought his traditional Chinese medical treatments to Perth in 2013 and was sponsored by Perth traditional medicine practitioner Chai Chua.

Mr Chua told 6PR Mornings on Friday that anyone, especially children, undergoing Chinese therapy for serious health conditions should be supported by conventional medical advice.

It sounds to me as though Mr. Chua is trying to cover his proverbial posterior here. Basically, Aidan Fenton was taking part in a seven day workshop in Huntsville when his parents found him dead in their hotel room:

Police and paramedics were called to the Ritz Hotel in Hurstville about 9pm on Monday to reports that the boy had collapsed and was not breathing.

His parents’ screams alerted staff at the hotel, who called triple zero. A NSW Police spokesman said the boy died at the scene.

It is believed Aidan, from Prospect, had type 1 diabetes, and police are investigating whether he was no longer taking insulin before his death.

Mr Xiao’s week-long Sydney workshop cost $1800 for participants to attend, and was held at the Pan Health Medical Centre.

More at link: http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2015/05/01/an-australian-child-dies-while-undergoing-a-particularly-cruel-form-of-quackery/


Fucking monsters.

Sid

[AuntPatsy]

1. This world is full of them,

[leftofcool]

2. Parents who don't get their kids 21st Century medical treatment for diseases are just stupid.

I don't advocate running a healthy strong kid to the doctor every time he/she gets a germ but to not get sound medical treatment is child abuse and should be treated as such.

[SidDithers]

3. The last two paragraphs really struck me...

Consider the pain and fear of a seven year old. He’s made to fast, and doesn’t understand why. He’s made to slap himself all over until he’s bruised, which is painful, and he doesn’t understand why. Why, he wonders, why are you doing this to me, Mommy and Daddy? If Aidan underwent Paida as it’s described on Xia’s website, it’s hard not to conclude that he was tortured, either by Xia or his parents. That’s why reading quotes like this drives me crazy:

Neighbours of the Fenton family described Aidan as a “beautiful, really good boy” and said his parents had been too traumatised to speak about the incident.

“All we can hear is them crying, all the time,” said a neighbour, whose daughter was the same age as Aidan and played with him over the school holidays.

“They were such good parents, it is really hard to understand why it happened and how it happened.”

Yes, it is hard to understand how this happened—very hard—if you’re a rational, science-baed person. There is no physiologic rationale why raising welts and bruises would have therapeutic effect for diabetes or any other serious diesease and lots of reasons for it to be harmful. If, as is alleged, Aidan was forced to fast before, then it might actually be even worse if he had still been taking his insulin, because, as all type I diabetics know, taking the same dose of insulin if you haven’t eaten can lead to dangerously low blood sugar. Be that as it may, I must strenuously disagree with the next part. While I have no doubt that they both loved Aidan and are, as described, completely traumatized by his death and suffering profound grief at his lost, it must be said that Aidan’s parents were most definitely not good parents if, as it appears, they took their seven-year-old diabetic child to a week-long session with a quack who advocates beating the “toxins” out of people until they’re bruised all over their body. To subject a diabetic child to such torture—yes, torture—is unconscionable and unquestionably in my mind child abuse, regardless of the parents’ love or good intentions in doing it. Even if Aidan is found to have died of something else, it would still be child abuse in my mind.

It's unbelievable that people would do this to their own child.

Sid

[jeff47]

4. The dead boy just needed to drink some green tea and take some melatonin

It would cure that whole "dead" problem right away! It's the secret big medicine doesn't want you to know.

[Hestia]

5. How children have died through alleopathic medicine? Both sides have a body count

[Orrex]

6. That's a false comparison

Last edited Thu May 7, 2015, 02:04 PM - Edit history (1)

"Allopathic" medicine, by which you mean actual medicine, relies on well-established scientific principles and is, statistically speaking, rather reliable, with many decades of supporting evidence.

"Alternative" "medicine," in sharp and undeniable contrast, relies on magical thinking and has no history of success nor likelihood of success. It is a con game, and no one defends that con game more aggressively than its victims.

[Humanist_Activist]

8. You mean real medicine, right? n/t

[RiverLover]

7. Beating a child is not alternative medicine.

duh

I'm very sorry for the child who died because the adults involved were crazy.

[SidDithers]

10. It's being sold as Traditional Chinese Medicine...nt

Sid

[Doremus]

9. Why is this snake oil salesman not arrested for manslaughter?

And the parents too, for subjecting their precious boy to such horrific cruelty.

[Rex]

11. Slap therapy? JFC! Quack quack quack!