Father’s Mannatech mania causes girl brain damage –
An alternative medicine devotee will spend six months behind bars for causing his sick daughter brain damage by refusing to take her to hospital.
Yup another case for the “What’s The Harm” file:
The doctor who finally examined the 11-year-old said in a report the girl was as “sick as the sickest person I’ve ever seen in 35 years”.
I can imagine that means she was pretty fuckin’ sick.
Prosecutor Belinda Merrin said it was the father’s distrust of conventional medicine that had caused him to delay seeking treatment.
Instead, he had been relying on the glyconutrient dietary supplement Mannatech to cure his daughter.
A psychologist report tendered in court said the father’s belief in Mannatech bordered on “obsessive” and that he had an “exaggerated view of his own knowledge and ability” about health treatments.
This reads like a textbook on what we expect to see happen when people with serious medical problems swallow the CAM Kool-Aid. Mannatech is pyramid scheme with no science whatsoever backing up its claims. And despite paying out millions of dollars in damages suits the Mannatech folks are still profiting off of it. A little more detail can be found here.
The court was told the girl’s mother asked him on a number of occasions to seek medical treatment, but had not pushed the issue for fear her estranged partner would deny her access to her children.
Also very typical. And of course the inevitable conclusion:
She now uses a wheelchair and has reduced vision and severe, ongoing cognitive and fine motor skills.
The court was told she may never walk unaided again.
The father pleaded guilty to one count of grievous bodily harm.
He was sentenced to three years’ jail, but will be released on parole after serving six months.
The mother has pleaded guilty to a charge of child cruelty.
She was sentenced to 12 months’ jail but release immediately on parole.
It’s depressing as hell but more people need to hear how these stories play out. This is why skeptics do what they do. This is precisely the reason why we fight, to try to prevent these tragedies from happening. And for every article like this you personally come across I assure you there are thousands more cases like this happening every single day around the world.
Skepacabra 
The father was brain damaged from an accident in 1996 and the mother was not living with the father. He was an infit father, so blaming a supplement company, no matter which way you look at this case, is not the cause of his daughter’s demise.
Clearly, it is an unfit parent.
Mannatech associates are people in general, who believe in doctors and even paid 10,000 dollars to the Dr. Ben Carson’s college fund so that the less fortunate can go to medical school.
Also, until you understand that MLM is not a scheme, you sound uninformed. It is a Direct Sales business in which the sales people get paid. Over 90 percent of the associate base are customers and about 30% are practicing physicians and RN’s.
Get your facts straight!
Unfit father or not, the product is dangerous. And as Scam Watch (which I linked to above) shows, the company that produces the product are the ones perpetuating the fraudulent medical claims. So certainly part of the blame does fall on the credulous father who trusted the wrong people with his daughter’s life instead of voices of reason who, as reported, urged him repeatedly to seek proper medical treatment.. But to blame the father entirely and say the company actually responsible for setting him up for the fall is as preposterous as blaming a rape victim for being foolish enough to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Mannatech is blatantly anti-medicine and their products are entirely bogus. These sick people have (sold) glyconutrients to people so they can help fix/cure/help a genetic disorder, regardless of whether toss their petty cash at medical institutions to give the illusion of legitimacy.
But if it looks like a scam, quacks like a scam, and it gets caught scamming people, IT’S A SCAM!
Mannatech, in my opinion, is selling it’s products in an unethical manner by targeting people through multi-level marketing. Their salespeople have no medical knowledge in most cases, and if they do, they certainly do have a conflict of interest.
Most MLM salespeople are hooked by the idea of get-rich-quick schemes, are desperate for a sale and will say anything to anyone. Mannatech does nothing, as far as I can see, to prevent it’s agents from making false claims.
This is what is sick – not necessarily the misled and desperate parents trying their best to make their kids well by “natural” means. Mannatech has alot to answer for in these instances – but their bottom line is all that seems to be speaking volumes. If it’s okay with you, my latest blog post (my blog is aimed at holistic health practitioners) has something to say about this. http://clickholistic.wordpress.com