Is parental quackery child abuse

[Spark]

@911GlockDoc
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Car pulled up with unresponsive kid. I tubed him, we coded him for a good hour. Never got him back. His mom stopped his asthma meds and was giving him essential oils from an "article" she read. The essential oil quacks killed a child today with no recourse. Let that sink in

Straightforward question. At what level does refusing established medical treatment for a minor in your care in favour of quackery rise to the level of actual abuse?

 

[harsh.ag]

It likely is abuse but on the whole it's probably best to not get the state involved. No one gets hurt more than the parent when their kid suffers due to their fault.

 

[Ausage]

It likely is abuse but on the whole it's probably best to not get the state involved. No one gets hurt more than the parent when their kid suffers due to their fault.

I'm inclined to agree with this sentiment, but the kid definitely got hurt more than the parent in this scenario.

 

[harsh.ag]

He's with Jesus now, you faithless heathen.

 

[Ausage]

He's with Jesus now, you faithless heathen.

You're right, we should send the parents to see their baby.

 

[smalishah84]

@911GlockDoc
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Car pulled up with unresponsive kid. I tubed him, we coded him for a good hour. Never got him back. His mom stopped his asthma meds and was giving him essential oils from an "article" she read. The essential oil quacks killed a child today with no recourse. Let that sink in ��

Straightforward question. At what level does refusing established medical treatment for a minor in your care in favour of quackery rise to the level of actual abuse?

I don't know about Australia but refusing established medical treatment will be classified as either neglect or abuse in USA.

 

[Burgey]

Let the market decide. It’s most important parents have the #freedom to raise their kids how they see fit.

 

[Flem274*]

I have experience with this.

My answer is no. 'Abuse' seems to imply intent for starters (lawyers to nitpick?). Neglect, yes.

Should the state ban quack treatments? Absolutely. Should parents go to jail for this? No, they're not the true ones to blame, even those who are 'qualified' in their area of quackery.

The cults of the naturalistic fallacy, distrust of medicine and pharma companies, belief in clean living etc is an epidemic not limited to a few homeopaths and anti-vaxxers. Even people who would happily go to the doctor for cancer or the flu still believe in essential oils, superfoods and would supplement their chemo with some **** like naturopathy or whatever. Intelligent people will insist they've seen the effects themselves of whatever they're peddling.

Ultimately our society is responsible for this trash because we've forgotten about polio and smallpox, and we've forgotten how hard it was for our hunter gatherer ancestors to survive.

edit - just read your final sentence properly. I'd have to think about where the state should forcibly intervene, but I wouldn't call it abuse at any level.

 

[Burgey]

Looks like Flem got cut off.

 

[hendrix]

I have experience with this.

My answer is no. 'Abuse' seems to imply intent for starters (lawyers to nitpick?). Neglect, yes.

Should the state ban quack treatments? Absolutely. Should parents go to jail for this? No, they're not the true ones to blame, even those who are 'qualified' in their area of quackery.

The cults of the naturalistic fallacy, distrust of medicine and pharma companies, belief in clean living etc is an epidemic not limited to a few homeopaths and anti-vaxxers. Even people who would happily go to the doctor for cancer or the flu still believe in essential oils, superfoods and would supplement their chemo with some **** like naturopathy or whatever. Intelligent people will insist they've seen the effects themselves of whatever they're peddling.

Ultimately our society is responsible for this trash because we've forgotten about polio and smallpox, and we've forgotten how hard it was for our hunter gatherer ancestors to survive.

edit - just read your final sentence properly. I'd have to think about where the state should forcibly intervene, but I wouldn't call it abuse at any level.

DWTA. We should absolutely be as skeptical as we can be when it comes to trusting medicine and pharma companies. I wouldn't trust a word they say. Not that I think they're bad or anything but we have to get over expecting the best of companies whose incentives don't lineup with public service. The same for doctors in a health system where prescriptions and booking patients is incentivised as opposed to actual health. They're not bad people and they're doing their best but there's a very clear conflict of interest that is the elephant in the room of the whole pharma and medical sector.

Also, while I agree about the quacks and homeopathists and stuff, as usual there is a hint of truth in the whole healthy living movement. A cup of chickpeas lowers cholesterol more than most statins, without the possible side effects of muscle wasting and diabetes.

Here is a drug for type II diabetes, commonly prescribed:
"Sitagliptin has been shown to lower HbA1c level by about 0.7% points versus placebo. It is slightly less effective than metformin when used as a monotherapy" (+ a bunch of ****** side effects.)

Now, T2DM has been shown on numerous occasions to be pretty much completely reversible. The doctors say that they only prescribe these drugs after lifestyle therapy has failed but we all know that that is complete bullshit. We now have a whole range of different insulins from drug companies for keeping people going when they've failed to reverse what is a patently reversibly disease.

That's just one example and I'm not blaming this on the drug companies or anything - they're gonna do what they're gonna do and at least it's not ACTUAL **** like the oxycodone thing. It's society's problem. But we should stop expecting medical answers for non-medical problems.

 

[Flem274*]

Sure we should be skeptical and the medical industry is one of the last I would ever deregulate, but the public has taken this and run with it in the completely wrong direction. If you're going to argue those who, despite their flaws, practice and produce medicine are the real enemy and not anti-vaxx, homeopathy, 'natural' medicine etc then we're going to be at odds. It's a huge industry full of lies and no one is calling it out because too many believe at least a small part of it and they've cultivated this image of being the little guy, the good guy fighting the good fight for your health against doctors and corporations.

I'm not going to get into "what we all know" about type 2 diabetes because I don't have it and have no idea when these hordes of doctors are prescribing drugs. I'm not playing that ball, especially because it has a dubious "what we all know" attached.

Eating celery is good but it won't do anything for asthma. If you have asthma, you get a corporation produced inhaler supplied by a doctor. Sure, get fit and eat well it will help against non-allergy asthma and keep healthy in general but you need an inhaler.

I'm not advocating for replacing dinner with a box of pills or for letting the drug companies do what they like, I'm saying consumers are idiots who buy all the wrong, fake 'medicine' and refuse things that will help them.

 

[sledger]

The parents from spark's example would probably be convicted of manslaughter in the UK. Definitely illegal.

 

[hendrix]

Sure we should be skeptical and the medical industry is one of the last I would ever deregulate, but the public has taken this and run with it in the completely wrong direction. If you're going to argue those who, despite their flaws, practice and produce medicine are the real enemy and not anti-vaxx, homeopathy, 'natural' medicine etc then we're going to be at odds. It's a huge industry full of lies and no one is calling it out because too many believe at least a small part of it and they've cultivated this image of being the little guy, the good guy fighting the good fight for your health against doctors and corporations.

I'm not going to get into "what we all know" about type 2 diabetes because I don't have it and have no idea when these hordes of doctors are prescribing drugs. I'm not playing that ball, especially because it has a dubious "what we all know" attached.

Eating celery is good but it won't do anything for asthma. If you have asthma, you get a corporation produced inhaler supplied by a doctor. Sure, get fit and eat well it will help against non-allergy asthma and keep healthy in general but you need an inhaler.

I'm not advocating for replacing dinner with a box of pills or for letting the drug companies do what they like, I'm saying consumers are idiots who buy all the wrong, fake 'medicine' and refuse things that will help them.

- actually, diet is without a doubt a factor in asthma, there are pretty good mechanistic reasons for this and the RCTs et al will come later. None of this is surprising since asthma is an inflammatory condition and the drugs are bronchodilators and/or anti-inflammatory/anti-immune/antihistamine
- Of course in an acute attack you should use the drugs, but you should definitely look for lifestyle modification.
- We also know that many kids with asthma get over it later in life
- We have had scientific evidence for the adverse effects of long term inhaler use for at least 40 years. Which is not surprising, since all drugs have adverse effects
- Again, use the drugs in an acute attack. Dying is a pretty bad outcome all around.
- It's very clear to me that it has taken a long time for the medical community to come to terms with the health part of medicine.

Also - nothing I said about T2DM was at all scientifically controversial. Those were verifiable facts.

Homeopathy is obviously stupid. Stopping or being sceptical of medication is not necessarily stupid. Obviously, it didn't work out well for this kid; but the reality is that probably a number of factors were involved in that, and simply stopping his medication may not have been the only cause.

I think overall I agree with you, but I don't think we should condemn people for looking for alternatives - rather we should propose they do it in a skeptical, rational manner.

 

[Gnske]

What if there's only one doctor in your area but he's a massive Hitler buff? Is it abuse to potentially risk your child's existence in the task of avoiding such a man and seeking help further afield where the cost of getting it could be unimaginably high?

Agree with Flem that its more neglect though. How willful it is given the information a person processes and chooses to believe, I don't know.

 

[Flem274*]

fair enough, though that summary was very vague on the nature of their asthma. i'd back my 15 year old self to slaughter the majority of you in a long distance run and i had an excellent diet, but i got decked with asthma plenty of times after exposure to cold or just cut hay.

again, i'm quite happy to acknowledge good practice in fitness and diet will help your life so i don't quite know why you're still treating it like i debate it, but anyone who thinks that's all they need or that diets can do miracle jobs and we don't need drugs is kidding themselves.

i think your line of thinking is veering dangerously close to that and having observed all sorts of quackery firsthand, often as a subject of it and denied access to proper medicine, i have zero time for anyone who wants to promote their particular opinion of diet or other "green" health modern fad as the most important thing ever.

and i think anyone with asthma will quite happily take the long term exposure to inhalers over the long term exposure to being unable to breathe. when i finally got my hands on some medicine that wasn't some pretentious **** about breathing exercises at the age of 21 it was pretty much the kiss of life. if you're using the thing often then you need to get to a doctor anyway because there's clearly an issue. touch wood i haven't used mine more than once or twice a year for years, i really need to get round to getting a new one tbh.

 

[GotSpin]

It likely is abuse but on the whole it's probably best to not get the state involved. No one gets hurt more than the parent when their kid suffers due to their fault.

Doesn't matter at all

 

[Maximas]

Let the market decide. It’s most important parents have the #freedom to raise their kids how they see fit.

Tangental point, but it's a better alternative to the state bringing kids up imo, to a degree at least

 

[Ikki]

These are tough things to dissect because there are multiple competing principles.

What if the parent hasn't taken their child to a doctor and the child dies? Is that negligent, is the ignorance the saving grace?
Is using alternative forms of medicine a criminal act? Does that mean not administering a certain medicine should be a crime? That would seem to implicate mandatory medication which is rife with conflict and I can see health and pharmaceutical companies rubbing their hands in glee.

I am with harsh on this. Unless there is gross negligence or real intent to harm, I think the parents are already suffering something far more deep than being put in prison. As if the threat of prison is going to rehabilitate the parents or as if there is an epidemic of parents out there who are trying to harm their kids that need deterrence.

This sad event itself is going to be the ultimate deterrent in both these parents and others taking risk in the future anyway.

 

[sledger]

In English law (so far as I am aware anyway) there is no law mandating certain medication etc. but parents have both statutory and common law duties of care in respect of their children. A failure to perform those duties will be a criminal offence, but it is for judges to decide on a case-by-case basis whether the failure to provide certain medicine etc. would be a breach of those duties, which to me seems to be the most sensible approach.

I am with harsh on this. Unless there is gross negligence or real intent to harm, I think the parents are already suffering something far more deep than being put in prison. As if the threat of prison is going to rehabilitate the parents or as if there is an epidemic of parents out there who are trying to harm their kids that need deterrence.

This sad event itself is going to be the ultimate deterrent in both these parents and others taking risk in the future anyway.

I'm probably just about inclined to agree with this on the whole, but I find it difficult to think of many examples where a child might die due to a parent's failure to act/provide care and it not being grossly negligent.

 

[Spark]

As if the threat of prison is going to rehabilitate the parents or as if there is an epidemic of parents out there who are trying to harm their kids that need deterrence.

I don't know about trying to harm their kids, but there is definitely a whole legion of parents who are captured by quacks and it would help save a lot of misery if they were deterred somehow. But whether that should happen through the legal system is another matter entirely ofc.

I'm probably just about inclined to agree with this on the whole, but I find it difficult to think of many examples where a child might die due to a parent's failure to act/provide care and it not being grossly negligent.

You can make an argument for certain edge cases for certain extremely nasty diseases or cancers where the conventional treatment is of, at best, middling efficacy and the application of it has all sorts of horrible side-effects that wreck the patient's quality of life, and you could make a strong case for the parents having perfectly legitimate reasons to try literally anything they can get their hands on. But that obviously doesn't apply here.