WOMAN CLEARED IN BOY’S DEATH
Naturopath knew little about case
Alberta regulators have thrown out a disciplinary complaint against the naturopath who prescribed Echinacea f or a t oddler suffering from a fatal attack of meningitis, a case that led to criminal convictions against the boy’s parents.
The province’s College of Naturopathic Doctors says there was “no evidence” to find Tracey Tannis guilty of unprofessional conduct, concluding that she never saw or examined the child — or even knew that the herbal remedy was for someone with the deadly illness.
The regulator cited in part evidence it received from the parents themselves.
“They … did not in any way seek her advice or assistance regarding his care,” the body said in a letter to the doctors who filed a complaint against Tannis.
Ezekiel Stephan died from the brain inflammation in March 2012, after the parents had for days treated the 19-month-old with non-medical, natural products, from hot peppers to garlic and horseradish, believing him to have croup or flu.
After a six- week trial that put alternative health care as a whole on the hot seat, the Stephans were convicted last April of failing to provide the necessaries of life. The father was sentenced to four months in jail, the mother to three months of house arrest.
Prosecutors are appealing those sentences, while the couple has appealed their guilty verdicts, arguing at a hearing last week that the judge in the case failed to provide them a fair trial.
As the trial ended, 43 physicians from across the country wrote to the college asking it to investigate Tannis’s role in the affair, arguing no health professional should treat a sick child without first examining them.
Evidence was less than clear about what she did or did not do in the hours before Ezekiel was rushed to hospital by ambulance.
The naturopath testified that a mother called the Lethbridge Naturopathic Medical Clinic and i ndicated her baby might have meningitis and was interested in something to boost his immune system.
Tannis told court that she instructed an employee to tell the woman she should take Ezekiel immediately to hospital, and never met her in person.
Collet Stephan came separately to the clinic asking f or an i mmune- boosting remedy for her sick child — who at that point was so stiff he had to be laid out in her car’s back seat.
One witness told the trial she met with the naturopath, then bought an Echinacea product called “Boost.”
The college said “multiple witnesses” report that Tannis immediately recommended a trip to emergency when she heard a patient might have meningitis.
“Dr. Tannis is fully aware of her abilities, competencies and l imitations as a naturopathic practitioner, and will not hesitate to refer patients to other health care providers when necessary,” the agency said in a letter explaining its decision.
What’s more, when the mother did actually come in to the clinic, she was alone and did not ask the naturopath about her son, while Tannis was unaware she was the same parent with a child who might have meningitis, the college said.
The parents “readily admitted that they did not take their son Ezekiel into the ( clinic) to see Dr. Tannis.”
Michelle Cohen, t he Brighton, Ont., family doctor who filed the complaint on behalf of her colleagues, says she can accept that the naturopath had no idea the Echinacea product was for a possible meningitis patient — if the college has established that fact with “a high degree of confidence.”
But she said the college was “pedantically specific” in just focusing on Tannis’s actions in the case.
It should have issued a general warning against naturopaths peddling herbal treatments, which she called “non- medically necessary.”
“They c ompletely i gnored their greater responsibility to the public to deal with the question of selling herbal products out of a naturopathic clinic,” said Cohen.