When she was admitted to the hospital, one Australian girl was described by a doctor as "the sickest girl I've ever seen" and was running a temperature of 42 degrees Celsius. (For those of you keeping score in crazy America land, that would be about 107 degrees Fahrenheit.) Her mouth was peeling, black, and she could barely breathe thanks to her throat being stuffed with pills.
Now that she's confined to a wheelchair and suffering from brain damage, the eleven-year-old girl's father is off to six months in prison. But what is his crime?
According to various sources, it's not stuffing the pills down her throat or even waiting so long to take her to a doctor. It's the fact that he used alternative medicine-- in the form of widely discredited supplements called Mannatech, which aren't even supposed to treat anything. They're basically vitamins, according to the product's official website, which notes the pill is designed to optimize "skin, weight [loss], physical fitness and general health." When the girl's mother learned of her ex-husband's drug of choice, she decided not to intervene, lest he attempt to take away her custody.
Dad's lack of understanding of basic medicine, however, does not explain why he didn't take her to the hospital when her condition grew grave. The media is forgetting that it isn't the alternative medicine that's the biggest culprit here-- it's the parents' neglect. And before you say it's all Daddy's fault (he is mostly to blame, to be sure), let's not forget Mom worrying more about what's best for her and not gambling a bit of future paternity to intervene with, say, the police.
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