Physician studies fate of ill children ‘treated’ by faith healing

Many cases of religiously motivated medical neglect never become public due to cover-ups, lack of investigations and poor record keeping, according to postdoctoral fellow's research.

by Scott J. Turner

Most pediatric research takes place in a medical or scientific setting such as a clinic or lab. But one postdoctoral fellow in forensic pediatrics is more likely to conduct his work in a cemetery. Seth Asser, M.D., studies the deaths of children due to medical neglect on religious grounds.

In the past 15 years, more than 200 children have died in the United States because their parents relied exclusively on faith to heal them. The children died of treatable ailments such as diabetes or dehydration.

“Typical parents cannot relate to this topic because it is so unbelievable,” said Asser. “But freedom of belief doesn’t allow you to throw away a young life.”

Last year Asser became a fellow at the Medical School and at Hasbro Children’s Hospital after working close to 20 years as an intensive-care pediatrician, primarily in San Diego and San Antonio. He is also a former medical director for the county-administered California Children Services in San Diego.

In 1998, Asser published a paper in the journal Pediatrics that evaluated the deaths of 172 children between 1975 and 1995 from families of 23 religious groups whose rituals dictated that healing must occur through prayer. The article was the largest study ever conducted of such deaths

The study found that 140 fatalities “were from conditions for which survival rates with medical care would have exceeded 90 percent,” and that overall only three children would likely not have benefited from medical care. “Not only did they die needlessly, but many of the deaths were slow and painful,” Asser said.

Public officials, said Asser’s co-author, Rita Swan, have long ignored these deaths. Swan is president of Children’s Healthcare Is a Legal Duty (CHILD). This Iowa-based nonprofit organization works to protect children from abusive religious and cultural practices, especially religion-based medical neglect.

There are “many laws that allow parents to deprive their children of various kinds of health care on religious grounds,” said Swan. “The religious exemption laws are a rare example of discrimination de jure: laws that deprive one group of children of protections afforded to others.”

Many cases of religiously motivated medical neglect never become public due to cover-ups, lack of investigations and poor record keeping, Asser said. His most recent findings provide bone-chilling evidence that some individuals and groups look outside of medicine for healing illness and disease.

Asser studied the deaths of youngsters in an obscure religious congregation. In 1998, 78 graves of children buried since 1955 were discovered in a cemetery of the Followers of Christ Church in the suburbs of Oregon City. The finding sparked widespread publicity about poor record keeping and inadequate investigations.

Last fall Asser flew to Oregon to examine public records for information about cause of death. He tramped through mud to record data on the children buried in the Followers of Christ cemetery. Asser combed through the group’s telephone directory and counted the people coming to a service at the Followers church, as he stood on the sidewalk receiving their hostile glares.

These methods allowed Asser to compare the proportion of child deaths for the group with statewide numbers. Children born into the Followers of Christ Church were 4.5 times more likely to die compared to peers in the surrounding population, he found.

 “Once again many of the deaths were from conditions easily prevented or treatable,” Asser said. After the deaths were publicized, Oregon repealed laws giving religious exemptions to charges of child abuse, neglect, manslaughter, criminal mistreatment, and criminal nonsupport.

In fact, no children in the Oregon Followers of Christ Church have died of medical neglect since the repeal, Asser said, and members were witnessed taking children to doctors. Concluded Asser, “To stop these preventable deaths, other states should promptly repeal similar exemption laws.”

“Children don't have the option of saying ‘yes’ or ‘no’ to care if their parents decide to deny them that care,” said Carole Jenny, M.D., professor of pediatrics and director of the Child Protection Program at Hasbro Children's Hospital.

“In addition, children are not competent to understand the long-term consequences of foregoing medical care in life-threatening situations,” she said. “Society needs to make sure they are protected until they are able to make those decisions on their own.”

Jenny is “proud” of Asser’s work. Religiously-motivated medical neglect is “not a popular topic to study – people are often afraid to stand up for these kids,” she said.“Many powerful institutions are on the ‘other side’ of the issue.”

Swan thinks that few physicians would have the patience to gather the information that Asser does. "It's quite a tedious project to track down data on these kids," she said, adding that "a coroner who has not reported a child's death to law enforcement may not be happy to have a researcher inquire about a case and implicitly expose the coroner's indifference."

Asser has followed the events in Attleboro, Mass., closely. There, two religious sect members have been charged with murder in the starvation death of their year-old son. Two other religious sect members were jailed for refusing to provide information on the whereabouts of their child or its remains.

“Despite the local tradition of independence in New England,” Asser said, “we don’t tolerate people who dispose of children as if they were used tissues.”

Asser said he would continue to collect data on religion-motivated medical neglect to “push legislators to change laws.” He advocates for medical care for a simple reason: It saves lives.

“Witnesses to some of these deaths tell how the babies died,” Asser said. “Each story is worse than the last. They died in pain. They died horribly. They died within easy access to top-notch medical facilities. These are examples of how hard-headed some parents can be in the face of what is reasonable and logical and good – protecting and saving the lives of their own children.”