Idiocy vs. Common Sense and The Law

[boxy]

Australian parents jailed for death of their baby

(AP) – Sep 28, 2009

SYDNEY — A husband and wife were jailed Monday for the manslaughter of their baby, who died after they chose to use homeopathic remedies rather than conventional medicine to treat her severe skin disorder.

Thomas Sam, a 42-year old college lecturer in homeopathy, and his wife Manju, 37, of Sydney, were convicted in June of the manslaughter of their nine-month-old daughter Gloria, who died of septicemia and malnutrition in May 2002.

The Indian-born, university-educated parents had faced a maximum penalty of 25 years each in prison if convicted. Instead, New South Wales state Supreme Court Justice Peter Johnson ordered Thomas Sam to serve at least six years in jail, with a maximum sentence of eight years, and Manju to serve at least four years in jail with a maximum of five years and four months. The couple wept as they were sentenced.

Johnson said it was clear homeopathy wasn't sufficient for dealing with Gloria's severe eczema, and said there was a "wide chasm" between her parents' approach and the action a reasonable parent would have taken.

Parents in prayer death get 6 months in jail

By ROBERT IMRIE (AP) – 6 days ago

WAUSAU, Wis. — A central Wisconsin couple who prayed rather than seek medical care for their 11-year-old dying daughter were sentenced Tuesday to six months in jail and 10 years probation in the girl's death.

Dale and Leilani Neumann could have received up to 25 years in prison for the March 2008 death of Madeline Neumann, who died of an undiagnosed but treatable form of diabetes. They were convicted of second-degree reckless homicide in separate trials earlier this year.

In sentencing the couple, Marathon County Circuit Court Judge Vincent Howard said the Neumanns were "very good people, raising their family who made a bad decision, a reckless decision."

"God probably works through other people," Howard told the parents, "some of them doctors."

The case was believed to be the first of its kind in Wisconsin involving faith healing in which someone died and another person was charged with a homicide.

Prosecutors contended the Neumanns recklessly killed their youngest of four children by ignoring obvious symptoms of severe illness as she became too weak to speak, eat, drink or walk. They said the couple had a legal duty to take their daughter to a doctor but relied totally on prayer for healing. The girl, known as Kara, died on the floor of the family's rural Weston home as people surrounded her and prayed. Someone finally called 911 after she stopped breathing.

2 kids dead.

4 idiots in jail.

Idiocy wins on countback.

[AiA in Atlanta]

I suffered from chronic bronchitis with serious lung infections 3-4 times a year and coughing all the time for almost a decade. Allopathy did what it could do by mitigating the symptoms and clearing up the infection in my lungs but there was no chance (according to mainstream medicine) that I would ever be healed. In fact, I was told it would worsen with age. Back in 2005 I began to see a classical homeopath. After a dramatic and painful episode with the bronchitis brought on by a homeopathic remedy I haven't been sick since. Not once. After 10 years of suffering. According to Newtonian physics my healing wasn't supposed to happen and the thick-headed will argue with me to no end. But the fact is, I am healed.

I will assume the second story involves Christian Scientists. While I am not one of their number, in the early days of the movement there were many, many documented healings. In fact, Mark Twain thought that they would one day rule the USA such was the power of the movement. Well, ol' Mark Twain got that one wrong because the Christian Science movement split into Unity, New Thought and a hundred others. Today the numbers of Christian Scientists have dwindled significantly and healings are much rarer I understand. There is a prominent Christian Science church here in Atlanta that shut down in the last year.

I don't know what I would do if I had a child that was seriously ill. Having seen the power of "alternative" medicine I don't have complete faith in allopathy. In fact, I have read that the majority of oncologist surveyed would refuse chemo for themselves and their family but they routinely administer it to their patients. The Medical-Industrial Complex has so completely overwhelmed other healing modalities most people have no other choice but to rely on their physician. Offhand, if I were in a car accident and needed my body put back together I wouldn't hesitate to go to a surgeon. If the condition were chronic however I would seek out every other possibility before submitting myself to allopathy. In the case of a child, I just don't know.

[JWFrogen]

If it is a bet between idiocy and common sense I will always bet on idiocy winning.

I was in the military and a history major.

[boxy]

Brought on by smoking, AiA? Ever heard the saying, "anecdote does not equal evidence"? Basically, statistically, it's not surprising that some people do get better while using homeopathic remedies... it's just that it doesn't get any better results than getting nothing (control or placebo) over large samples.

I don't really care about people using homeopathy, or faith healing in the first instance... but if it's not fucking working, get over it, and go to the doctor before the patient dies, FFS.

[JWFrogen]

Dying for faith is simply natural selection doing it's natural magic.

Bye, bye.

[boxy]

Problem is that the type of idiots that let their kids die like this are probably the same type of idiots that breed a huge gaggle of disposable kids.

[AiA in Atlanta]

Discoveries in quantum physics are now being used in a range of applications except one: the biologic/medical model. It remains frozen in time. When medicine/biology catches up with the rest of science, homeopathy and other healing modalities will make perfect sense.

[Jovial Monk]

Homeopathy and naturopathy are junk. Provide a placebo response as boxy said, but that response doesn't last forever.

Since we are talking about such practices, how many of those practitioners are actually properly qualified? Very few, I bet, since they are not regulated and the practitioners licensed like doctors, plumbers and electricians etc.

[boxy]

Discoveries in quantum physics are now being used in a range of applications except one: the biologic/medical model. It remains frozen in time. When medicine/biology catches up with the rest of science, homeopathy and other healing modalities will make perfect sense.

Will it make it actually work though?

Seriously, it's not that science can't understand/explain what's happening... it's that nothing statistically significant is happening.

[boxy]

Our idiot for today... after his girlfriend broke up with him, he decides to wait in her bed for her, then assault her. After she takes off to get police to boot him out, he decides to stab her fish and leave it in the middle of the floor as a parting gift.

Although, the GF doesn't seem all that bright either. Check out the picture of this guy... if there's anything like a "typical psycho", well this has to be it, folks And she wants him to pay for her to get a tattoo in memory of poor dead DeLorean (the fish).