Whilst the Australian Homeopathic Association (AHA) continues to claim that homeopathy can be used to treat eczema.

Readers may recall last week’s guilty verdict in the court case against parents whose daughter died of septicaemia as a result of severe eczema. A letter in the Sydney Morning Herald yesterday, from a dermatologist working in pediatrics, questions why parents are turning towards alternative medicine and reminds us that medicine could have saved 9 month old Gloria.

Gayle Fischer, a senior lecturer in dermatology at Sydney University says;

“I am frustrated by the increasing preference of parents for complementary therapy over scientifically tested, safe and effective medical treatment. I frequently find myself unable to help children like Gloria because of their parents’ unshakeable fear and distrust of Western medicine. I hear the term “toxic chemicals” to describe what we use”.

You can read the entire letter here, an extract appears below..

Gloria Thomas died because her parents refused modern medicine and instead chose to treat her with “homeopathic drops.” Even after a GP referred them to a dermatologist, they missed two appointments, instead relying on advice from the father’s brother, who has recently finished his homeopathic thesis on eczema and the father himself, who is also a practicing homeopath. When her parents presented in hospital with Gloria with what they thought was conjunctivitis, it was discovered she had an eye infection so severe, her cornea had virtually melted away.

An eye specialist said she would have lost at least one eye due to an extreme vitamin A deficiency usually only seen in Third World countries.

“Probably only a third of the cornea was left [in the left eye], the rest had melted completely … there was virtually no cornea left,” he told the court. “I think it would have been impossible to reconstruct that eye and I think that eye would have been lost.”

She died shortly after from septicaemia as a result of severe eczema. Which makes it seem rather odd that the AHA publish a pamphlet that claims they can treat eczema.

You can see the complete pamphlets in pdf form page 1 here and page 2 here.

Thanks to Jo and Richard for the tip offs.

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