OT: Vaccines, Alternative Care for Children and some of our well known doctors....

[Guest guest]

In today's LA Times. Dr. Incao, Dr. Jay Gordon, Dr. Fleiss lots of well known

alternative care friendly docs mentioned and involved here.

 

I realize there was a vaccine thread a while back. Some pediatric doctors that

many of us look to for gentle child care are noted. Only the first page is

here. The link at the bottom takes you to the whole article. Registration is

required though if you want to read the entire article.

 

Dale

www.independentchildbirth.com

 

 

A Mother's Denial, a Daughter's Death

By Charles Ornstein and Daniel Costello

Times Staff Writers

 

September 24, 2005

 

Christine Maggiore was in prime form, engaging and articulate, when she

explained to a Phoenix radio host in late March why she didn't believe HIV

caused AIDS.

 

The HIV-positive mother of two laid out matter-of-factly why, even while

pregnant, she hadn't taken HIV medications, and why she had never tested her

children for the virus.

 

" Our children have excellent records of health, " Maggiore said on the Air

America program when asked about 7-year-old Charlie and 3-year-old Eliza Jane

Scovill. " They've never had respiratory problems, flus, intractable colds, ear

infections, nothing. So, our choices, however radical they may seem, are

extremely well-founded. "

 

Seven weeks later, Eliza Jane was dead.

 

The cause, according to a Sept. 15 report by the Los Angeles County coroner, was

AIDS-related pneumonia.

 

These days, given advances in HIV care, it's highly unusual for any young child

to die of AIDS. What makes Eliza Jane's death even more striking is that her

mother is a high-profile, charismatic leader in a movement that challenges the

basic medical understanding and treatment of acquired immune deficiency

syndrome.

 

Even now, Maggiore, a 49-year-old former clothing executive from Van Nuys,

stands by the views she has espoused on " The Ricki Lake Show " and ABC's " 20/20, "

and in Newsweek and Mothering magazines. She and her husband, Robin Scovill,

said they have concerns about the coroner's findings and are sending the report

to an outside reviewer.

 

" I have been brought to my emotional knees, but not in regard to the science of

this topic, " said Maggiore, author of an iconoclastic book about AIDS that has

sold 50,000 copies. " I am a devastated, broken, grieving mother, but I am not

second-guessing or questioning my understanding of the issue. "

 

One doctor involved with Eliza Jane's care told The Times he has been

second-guessing himself since the day he learned of the little girl's death.

 

Dr. Jay Gordon, a Santa Monica pediatrician who had treated Eliza Jane since she

was a year old, said he should have demanded that she be tested for human

immunodeficiency virus when, 11 days before she died, Maggiore brought her in

with an apparent ear infection.

 

" It's possible that the whole situation could have been changed if one of the

doctors involved - one of the three doctors involved - had intervened, " said

Gordon, who himself acknowledges that HIV causes AIDS. " It's hindsight,

Monday-morning quarterbacking, whatever you want to call it. Do I think I'm

blameless in this? No, I'm not blameless. "

 

Mainstream AIDS organizations, medical experts and ethicists, long confounded

and distressed by this small but outspoken dissident movement, say Eliza Jane's

death crystallizes their fears. The dissenters' message, they say, is not just

wrong, it's deadly.

 

" This was a preventable death, " said Dr. James Oleske, a New Jersey physician

who never examined Eliza Jane but has treated hundreds of HIV-positive children.

" I can tell you without any doubt that, at the outset of her illness, if she was

appropriately evaluated, she would have been appropriately treated. She would

not have died.

 

" You can't write a more sad and tragic story, " Oleske said.

 

It is a story not just about Maggiore and her family but about failures among

child welfare officials and well-known Los Angeles County doctors.

 

 

 

Continues at

http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-eliza24sep24,0,4489960,print.story?coll=\

la-home-headlines

 

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