When the book was published 6 years ago Works! Healthy children all year, dedicated to homeopathy for children, I warned that it was a dangerous book. Not because homeopathy treatments can have serious side effects, but because dealing with homeopathy depending on what ailment it can mean put children at risk, as there is no evidence that it has any primary effect beyond the placebo effect.
Interestingly, after reading 15 pages of the book, I focused on one of the remedies to cure children's otitis: Hepar Sulfur 30 CH, and I explained why such a remedy cannot help cure any otitis. A few years later, I find this news, which makes me sad and angry in equal parts: a 7-year-old boy dies when his parents treat an otitis with homeopathy.
The infection reached the brain
As we read in La Voz de Galicia, it happened in Italy, where the (necessary) debates about this issue occur.
The parents explained that since their son was three years old they always treated him with homeopathy, even when he had had otitis, and everything had always gone well.
This time, the fever did not go down in two weeks and the child began to get worse little by little. This is how they decided to finally take him to the emergency room, where days later he lost consciousness because of the infection he had, which already affected his brain.
Three days later, last Saturday, the boy had such a severe affectation that doctors declared brain death.
How are the other otitis able to cure them with homeopathy?
Because many otitis are viral (in fact, most are). This means that they heal yes or yes, whether or not the child is given an antibiotic.
But not all are because of a virus, because there are bacterial. The fever warms the body so that with the increase in temperature viruses and bacteria die (in addition to other mechanisms of the immune system to end infections).
On many occasions, even when otitis is bacterial, the body is also able to fight it and overcome it successfully. But in others it is not enough and the infection manages to continue: this is where antibiotics are necessary (which are often prescribed before because it is impossible to know if the child will overcome it quickly or get worse at times).
Where does homeopathy come into this equation? Nowhere. If you look, I have not mentioned it at any time because what they were doing with him, since he was three years old, was simply waiting for his body to react and resolve all infections. The parents thought he was cured by homeopathy, but actually heals himself.
On many occasions it was enough, but with 7 years he suffered one that he could not fight for himself. Whether he was given homeopathy or not was irrelevant, because homeopathic treatments have no effect on viruses and bacteria.
Hepar Sulfur 30 CH
According to the book mentioned at the beginning of this post:
This remedy is used when there is infection in the ear area and the child has a painful congestion and is very sensitive to contact. The child feels stabbing, so he can be calm and suddenly start crying because he notices a sudden prick. There is a yellowish discharge with a bad smell. It is important to remember that the dilution recommended in this case will not be less than 30 CH, as there is a risk of perforation of the eardrum.
He Hepar Sulfur is sulfur, a nonmetal chemical element that is used as a fertilizer and to make gunpowder, laxatives, matches and insecticides.
Consume Sulfur is no remedy that cures any child from otitis. And if it were, a dilution of 30 CH is equivalent to putting a molecule of Hepar Sulfur in a sphere of water with a diameter of 150 million kilometers (the distance between the Sun and the Earth). With this I assure, without any fear of being wrong, that it is impossible for the Hepar Sulfur 30 CH to cure anything.
I don't know if it's what they tried to cure the child, but deep down it doesn't matter, because there is nothing that can change what happened. A 7 year old boy has died victim of parents who were victims of treatments that should have been banned a long time ago.
Hopefully at least now (usually happens: until someone dies at the junction, do not put the traffic light), governments take action on the matter and control this. I went to the pharmacy yesterday for an antihistamine and they recommended that I take a more natural treatment based on homeopathy instead.
Luckily my allergy is mild ... imagine if I was at risk of anaphylactic shock or similar and they would tell me that it is best to try something natural (luckily, there is no homeopathic alternative to adrenaline).
