General fitness, health and nutrition · Public discussion

Re: Naturopath convicted

Started by Gymmie Bob · · Last activity · 1 post · 360 views

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General fitness, health and nutrition
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9 September 2003
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Gymmie Bob
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  1. You have libelled many with your foolish conclusions and remarks.

    "Peter Bowditch" <[email hidden]> wrote in message
    news:[email hidden]...

    Quoted message said:

    Naturopath convicted (30/8/2003)

    From The Millenium Project
    http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles/

    On Friday, August 20, 2003, a jury in the Newcastle Supreme Court
    (NSW, Australia) found naturopath Reg Fenn guilty of manslaughter over
    the 1999 death of 18-day old Mitchell Little. Mitchell was born on
    September 7, 1999. On September 16 he was diagnosed with critical
    aortic stenosis - a narrowing of his aorta (the major artery out of
    the heart to the rest of the body). We are always being told by the
    media about the dire condition of our public hospitals and how long
    patients have to wait for treatment, but corrective surgery for
    Mitchell was scheduled for the next day in a major Sydney hospital and
    ambulance transport was arranged to take the child the 200 kilometres
    or so to the waiting surgeons. Doctors know how serious the condition
    is, which is why the surgery was immediately arranged. They also know
    how successful this particular surgical intervention is, and there was
    no reason to suggest that Mitchell would have come out of the
    operating theatre with worse prospects for a long life than any other
    ten-day-old baby.

    Mitchell Little did not get that surgery, because a naturopath named
    Reginald Fenn told Mitchell's parents that he could cure the child
    with a magical Mora "radionic" machine and some drops of jojoba snake
    oil. Mitchell died on September 25. To nobody's surprise, the reaction
    of the alternative medicine industry was to close ranks and go into
    denial mode. Articles have appeared in "natural health" magazines
    (some as recent as this year) suggesting that the charges against Fenn
    were just part of a witch hunt. I was told that he wasn't really a
    naturopath (his business was the "Lake Macquarie Naturopathic Clinic"😉
    and that he must have been inexperienced (he has been doing this for
    at least 15 years). Another defence was that he is 74 years old. When
    the people saying that were asked to comment on the fact that
    alternative hero Linus Pauling only started pushing vitamin C at about
    that age and that Hulda Clark is that old and is still inventing new
    forms of quackery the silence was palpable.

    The ridiculous machines are still on sale and being recommended by
    quackery supporters. Of course, the number of people "killed" by real
    doctors was inevitably mentioned (complete with the usual lying,
    fabricated or long-discredited statistics) as if mistakes by real
    doctors can be used to justify the deliberate actions of people
    committing fraud. What was never said is what can never be said - a
    person with no medical knowledge used his ignorance and arrogance to
    cause a needless death.

    The facts here are simple. There is no form of "alternative medicine"
    that can expand a constricted artery, just as there is no
    "alternative" cure for cancer or AIDS or for most of the other
    diseases which quacks claim to be able to treat. While ever the
    practitioners of alternative medicine refuse to accept that there are
    limitations to the usefulness and effectiveness of their potions,
    palliatives and placebos, tragedies like the death of Mitchell Little
    will continue to happen. They keep using terms like "complementary" to
    suggest that they really want to work alongside real doctors, but
    whenever a problem with alternative medicine arises solidarity trumps
    complementarity. Surely, the alternative medicine industry could not
    be such an obvious house of cards that the exposure and elimination of
    criminals, charlatans and incompetents would cause it to collapse. Or
    could it? That's what the inhabitants seem to think.

    --
    Peter Bowditch
    The Millenium Project http://www.ratbags.com/rsoles
    The Green Light http://www.ratbags.com/greenlight
    To email me use my first name only at ratbags.com

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