Treated only with homeopathy, a little boy with severe ear infection and fever died after several days of coma.
It is a disappearance that moved all of Italy. On May 28, a 7-year-old child died from a simple ear infection, treated only with homeopathy.
His parents, originally from Ancona, had only treated their son with homeopathy since he was three years old. Moreover, they told the Italian press that his previous ear infections had been treated like this, without any complications. But this time the fever did not pass, and the child weakened considerably. After two weeks, the boy was finally rushed to the emergency room on Wednesday when he lost consciousness.
The child was in a coma for several days due to brain damage from the infection. He was declared brain dead on Saturday morning.
Italian newspapers denounced this disappearance and through it, the practice of homeopathy. “Omeopazzia” (the madness of homeopathy) thus titled the Corriere della Serra, the largest Italian newspaper.
Recognized in France
In France, the practice of homeopathy has been recognized by the Ordre des médecins since 1997. And 56% of French people use homeopathic medicines (against 39% in 2004), according to a survey carried out in 2012 by Ipsos and the laboratory homeopathic Boiron. Among them, 34% said they use it on a regular basis.
And yet the practice is controversial. A report produced by an Australian state body, the National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC), concluded in 2015 that homeopathy was ineffective. “No reliable evidence” allows to establish that it is more effective than “a pill of sugar”, wrote the researchers, who assure that the studies on the subject are all biased. Worse, according to them: this medicine could prove to be dangerous, “if the people who choose homeopathy reject or delay the treatments which have, them, proved their safety and their effectiveness”. A warning that appears sadly prophetic today.
.
