Seeing the irony in the reporting of the Globe and Mail, I submitted this letter, which was, of course, not published.
It is ironic that on Saturday (June 25, 2016) the Globe & Mail (Toronto based newspaper) documented the sentences given as punishment to a couple who, while clearly loving their son Ezekiel, delayed treatment that may have saved his life (we cannot actually know). But on Monday you report on an estimated 70,000 Canadians a year injured (and a good fraction killed) by the allopathic medical system that the Stephan family avoided. A recent American paper estimated that medical errors are the third leading cause of death and a 1998 JAMA paper estimated that properly prescribed drugs in hospitals are the fifth leading cause of death. Yet, out of those 70,000 Canadians injured or killed each year, probably nobody will go to jail. The parents who followed standard medical practice for their children, such as use of an antibiotic that caused an anaphylactic reaction, will not be punished. Nor will the doctors who prescribed treatments that backfired and injured or killed someone. Not even when it is a genuine error will anyone be punished. When Health Canada approves a drug that is later found to have a high rate of injury or death, nobody at Health Canada, or the drug company that twisted the data to win approval, will go to jail. This is reminiscent of an oppressive religion that tolerates abuse and deadly mistakes within its ranks, but will never tolerate dissent. And although there are not enough stakes to burn all the heretics, the modern equivalent of an occasional public hanging helps scare patients into conformity and critics into silence.
