Homeopaths Take Heed.

'Cruel' parents jailed over baby's death is the headline on the ABC.

Thomas and Manju Sam have been sentenced to 6 and 4 years jail respectively for allowing their 6-month old daughter, Gloria, to die from eczema.

The reason she died? Thomas, being a homeopath, decided that homeopathy would be a better way to help her daughter then proper medicine.

The report that I found from AdelaideNow is more graphic in some details:

On the ninth day, concerned about a lingering eye infection, the Sams took their daughter to the Sydney Children's Hospital at Randwick.

Doctors described Gloria as "incredibly sick" with a "massive eroded rash" and "grossly malnourished".

They gave her morphine for the pain and began treating her eye infection - her corneas were melting.

The sad thing is that even though these people are going to jail, I still don't think that they understand the gravity of their crime. I'm of the opinion that they honestly thought that they were helping their child.

Although this is a child negligence case the ABC article says something interesting:

Thomas Sam got the longer sentence of at least six years because, as a homeopath, he had a double duty of care.

This I believe is very important. And I suspect that it will have some rather big repercussions in the CAM industry. In NSW at least. If the above is actually true it means that homeopaths have a greater duty of care to their clients, and can be held responsible for whatever happens to them. This probably won't affect the "take this along with regular medicine" crowd, but it will affect the "don't take the regular medicine, take this instead" crowd.

Even if it doesn't I hope that people who are in the "Complimentary and Alternative Medicine Industry" take a good long look at themselves and think about the possible ramifications of what they tell people. This little girl never got a chance at life because her parents didn't seem to trust modern medicine. Would you want to live like they do, with the blood of an innocent on their hands?