An Australian couple have been found guilty of manslaughter after their baby daughter died following months of treatment with homeopathic remedies for eczema.
Gloria Thomas, from Sydney, Australia, died aged nine months after suffering from severe eczema.
A court heard that the skin condition left her vulnerable and she developed an eye infection that killed her.
Her parents, Thomas Sam, a homeopath, and Manju Sam, were found guilty of manslaughter by gross criminal negligence by a jury at the New South Wales Supreme Court.
This is a desperately sad story and my first instinct was to say "why prosecute the parents, surely they have suffered enough for their mistake?"
But then I read some of the evidence given in court.
The Sydney Morning Herald says: "By the time she died, she was the weight of an average three-month-old, her body was covered with angry blotches and her once black hair had turned completely white."
Despite this, the parents had carried on with homeopathic remedies and abandoned conventional medications.
The couple were apparently raised and educated in India where homeopathy is accepted as equivalent to conventional medicine.
But you would think that whatever your beliefs, if your baby was suffering that badly, you would have tried taking doctors' advice.
The couple's lawyers said they were devoted parents and wanted the best for their child.
But surely, if your baby was that ill and in pain, you would try anything to make her better. Why wasn't she taken to hospital sooner?
Apparently even after Gloria died, her father still stuck to the belief that homeopathy was just as good as conventional medicine for treating eczema.
He told police he did not believe conventional medicine would have cured her.
But a dermatologist who was supposed to have seen Gloria when the family went to India instead, said the child could have recovered within 24 hours if she was treated properly.
There is a place for homeopathic remedies but to deny your baby access to conventional medicine is misguided, ignorant and cruel.
Perhaps you disagree? What's your experience of homeopathic medicine? What do you think of the actions of these parents?