Well, sometimes idly surfing blogs can be more disheartening than cheering. While reading about the latest insanity some Intelligent Design idiot has come up with to try and protect their fragile faith is always going to be entertaining, reading about people tricked into believing some alternative quackery therapy is going to save their children is depressing.

I found a post on the Respectful Insolence blog about the madness which surrounds alternative therapies, and while never a happy topic at least most of it was light hearted enough.

After a few paragraphs I came to a few bits which saddened me more than anything else. First this little gem: (emphasis mine)

Prior to the ominous warning above [about the need to pay for regular MRIs to check the progress of cancer], Katie’s family had taken her to an unnamed medical practitioner, her father making the claim that he “really can’t say anything because it could jeopardize her treatment.”

Now this is worrying. If I am sick and I go to see my doctor he will still treat me if I tell people what he is doing. Can you imagine what is going through the mind of a distraught father who is worried that discussing his daughter’s cancer treatment will prevent her getting treated? What sort of treatment makes that demand? It is insane. It is worse than insane, it is fundamental cultist brainwashing.

In any sane country there would be sufficient legal weight to ensure that this practice is stamped out.

Further down we see more of the mental state of the father who has allowed such lunatic quacks to have access to his daughter (I nearly wrote “treat” there but that is the last thing they are doing to her). Again, emphasis is my own:

Indeed, it was the very honesty of Katie’s oncologists about these potential long-term side effects that scared her father into rejecting further conventional therapy and turning to “alternatives.” Anyone want to guess what probably happened next? Although I cannot know personally, my best guess is that the blandishments of alternative practitioners promising to cure Katie’s cancer without the potentially nasty side effects of conventional had their effect. Mr. Wernecke seems to have been pretty distrusting of the “conventional” medical establishment to begin with, and his distrust, coupled with his belief that prayer could help his daughter, likely made him even more receptive than average to such promises of cure with little or no pain.

Two more strikes against the poor father. For what ever reason the father was predisposed against “conventional medicine” and this was pounced upon by the quacks. I am going to go out on a limb here and suggest this predisposition was more than a little influenced by his religious beliefs and upbringing. This would be another tick for Richard Dawkins’ “Why Religion is Evil.”

What a wonderful world.