Parents should realise the dangers of treating childhood illnesses with alternative medicines – following a series of deaths, researchers warned today.
In Australia four deaths have been reported in the last ten years linked to parents trying to treat sick children with complementary and alternative medicine (CAM).
Researchers said all four deaths occurred when alternative therapies were substituted for prescribed treatments.
In one case a child was given homeopathy and a restricted diet for eczema – and died from septic shock.
In a second case, a three months old child was put on a rice milk diet for constipation – and also died from malnutrition and septic shock.
Paediatrician Dr Alissa Lim, of the Royal Children’s Hospital, Melbourne, Australia, reports an analysis of 46 incidents linked to attempts to treat children with these therapies.
She says in two cases children were overdosed – possibly because parents did not think a "natural" treatment could be harmful.
In 44 per cent of cases children were harmed because parents substituted alternative therapies for conventional medicine, she says. And in 77 per cent of cases doctors said the incidents were "probably or definitely" linked to alternative treatments.
Writing in the Archives of Disease in Childhood, Dr Lim says: "Discussions with families about CAM use may empower them to talk about any medication changes suggested by a CAM practitioner before altering or ceasing the medication.
"However, many of the adverse events associated with failure to use convention medicine resulted from the family’s belief in CAM and determination to use it despite medical advice."
* Patients may get better even if they are told their pills are fake, researchers have claimed.
A study of the so-called "placebo effect" has found it may work even when patients are told their pills are not real.
Medical researchers know that patients may improve simply because they believe they are being treated with effective pills – even when the pills are dummies made of sugar.
But a study of bowel disease has found that this may work – even when patients are told they are being given a placebo.
The study of irritable bowel disease found that giving placebos – and telling patients about them – doubled the rate of improvement. After three weeks, some 59 per cent of these patients said they had "adequate" relief of symptoms compared with just 35 per cent of those not given pills.
Some 80 patients took part in the study conducted by Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts, USA, and reported in the journal PLoS ONE.
Researcher Ted Kaptchuk said: "Not only did we make it absolutely clear that these pills had no active ingredient and were made from inert substances, but we actually had ‘placebo’ printed on the bottle.
"We told the patients that they didn’t have to even believe in the placebo effect. Just take the pills."
He added: "These findings suggest that rather than mere positive thinking, there may be significant benefit to the very performance of medical ritual.
"I’m excited about studying this further. Placebo may work even if patients know it is a placebo."
Archives of Disease in Childhood December 23 2010; doi 10.1136/adc.2010.183152
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