"A very sad case in our papers today, of a girl aged 11 who died after her parents did not seek treatment for her but relied on faith."
You're aware of the case of the young boy and mother now fleeing. The boy has a form of cancer that is quite treatable. Prognosis is good, if treatment is immediate, but almost certainly fatal without it.
My undergraduate adviser was Chinese. I played chess with his son and worked at the appt complex where he lived. I had even unclogged his toilet. When I showed up to school first day and found out he was my adviser, I was despondent. He only knew me as the janitor and I thought he would judge me harshly. Turns out he was a decent guy. He had gone to uni in Taiwan, but had lived in the US for decades. His son was pretty smart and the prof was intent that the boy would graduate from MIT. His son went into the dr for tonsil removal, but the anethesiologist made a mistake that caused the boy to become brain-damaged. He sued and won, bought a houseboat and took the boy out every weekend to the lake where he continued to worship him and lavish attention on him. Years went by and no improvement. The boy was a vegetable. In desperation, he took the boy to a faith healer and made a large faith offering. When the preacher invited people to come down, he tried to move his truly ill boy down to the stage - but there were extremely big 'ushers' who kept him and the truly sick people away from the stage - and the cameras. I did not witness this - I was told it a few weeks later by some Chinese friends of mine who had gone with him. He was quite upset. A doctor had screwed up, but this faith healer was evil. He wasn't making people feel better. He was using people. He was stealing from them at their very weakest. But you, know, like, it all depends on how you define your terms I guess. You can't like, you know, ABSOLUTELY PROVE the guy is a charlatan.
postscript: the boy acquired some other medical condition - I forget what it was, but he required medicine. The pharmacist gave him the wrong medicine and he died. Two medical mistakes destroyed this family's life - that doesn't mean medicine is wrong. (Medical practice is not science, by the way: common misconception.) And the faith healer: regardless of the terms - he's evil and he's a charlatan.
Last edited by TheFallibleFiend; 05/24/09 07:42 PM.
