Wednesday, a jury found that fourteen members of the religious group “The Saints” were guilty of manslaughter guilty of Elizabeth Struhs, eight years old,. Two were acquitted of murder.
As a doctor and mother, I read the news and I felt deeply sorrow.
Under the direction of religious leaders, the family had hidden modern medicine following life. Like little Elizabeth Die of diabetic ketocetosisAdults – his parents among them – would have prayed and sung, instead of giving him insulin and vital medical care. It was not the first time that they prevented him from receiving medical care: his mother had already been imprisoned for the medical negligence of Elizabeth’s imminent death. It was an entirely avoidable disease and death. As a parent, I feel sick that a little girl can be mistreated in this way, under the cover of the powers of “healing” of God.
I see the rise in anti-drug and anti-sciences everywhere. A patient from my clinic tells us that she stopped her HIV antiviral tablets because her pastor told her that she had been healed by prayer. A parent rejects mental health treatment for his impulsive and suicidal adolescent, telling me that ADHD and major depression are modern conditions. A pregnant mother asks me to sign her advanced care directive, saying that she refuses blood products in the event of deadly bleeding during birth, fearing that she would receive blood “contaminated by the vaccine”. Another tells me that she will be “at free birth” without midwife or medical care.
During the cocovated pandemic, conspiracy theorists distributed unwanted COVI-19 cases connecting them to 5G mobile phone towers. Consequently, I spent countless hours doing community awareness, health promotion work and endless individual consultations trying to demystify pseudosciences and explain (often without success) the risk-to-further ratios Vaccines. In the past year, we have seen outbreaks of darling, measles, chickenpox, hepatitis and flu, often linked to the pockets of refusal of the vaccine.
Doctors and scientists are now confronted with a dam of anti-scientific and anti-medicine stories, and we have the impression that we lose the battle. We are no longer instinctively confident. So how are we engaging with people who were wary of us? How can we engage with the stories that paint modern medicine like evil? Elizabeth Struhs’ parents seem to have really believed that their God would save her. That they acted in his best interest. They seem to have believed that science and faith were incompatible.
On the one hand, there are many good reasons to challenge medical practice. Medicine and medical culture are still evolving. Western medicine emerges from a patriarchal and hierarchical mode of operation. We must all listen to better, especially those who have faced historical discrimination. Medicine has the same biases as broader society, and these biases require a detachment.
We need better medical research, more social diversity among health care providers, affordable care, more inclusive clinical directives, better clinical communication, better education. We must be able to better support those who are stressed, frightening and not facing the requirements of chronic disease. We need systems that support health workers to take time, listen and recognize patients’ concerns carefully, especially for vulnerable families and children.
On the other hand, the amount of medical disinformation is overwhelming. For many, the promise of “natural” healing is intoxicating: a simpler and purer lifestyle. As a clinicians, how can we walk on the stiff rope of care centered on the patient: how do we respect the prospects and preferences of patients, recognize our limits, while clearly signaling nonsense often dangerous hawked?
On a larger scale than ever, we see disinformation, false promises, faith and fraudulent “science” propagated by Tiktok influencers, “well-being” Whackos, religious leaders, healers of faith and some Alternative medicine practitioners.
Also worrying, US President Donald Trump signed An executive decree To withdraw and undo the World Health Organization, the World Public Health Organization based on evidence. In recent days, he has announced that he would try to stop Pepfar Global distribution of HIV medicine. If he had succeeded, it would have meant as much as 600,000 HIV deaths in the next decade in South Africa only. Untreated and uncontrolled HIV could also mean worsening propagation and resistance to drugs around the world.
These anti-drug stories have consequences for individual patients and for communities in the world. My patients are refused and, in some cases, refuse, modern medicine which prevents diseases and suffering. I do not know how to fight this, except to say that many of us think about it. Worry about it. Work on it.
Our worst sorrow is when vulnerable children rely on parents and caregivers are in late care, or not at all. In press articles, little Elizabeth Struhs looks as vital and joyful as my own little girls. She had a well understood medical condition, type 1 diabetes. It could have been managed. Instead of turning to the medical profession for support, his father turned to a religious group for psychological and logistical support. I’m so angry. And I’m really sorry to have failed this little darling: not just the doctors, but all of us.