Deadly Choices: How the Anti-Vaccine Movement Threatens Us All (30 page)

• In the late 1890s and early 1900s, many children of Christian Scientists died from diphtheria, even though diphtheria antitoxin was widely available. Christian Science healers were unrepentant, one stating, “We do not feel bound to the laws of hygiene, but to the laws of God.” Several parents were charged with manslaughter, none successfully.

• In 1937, Edward Whitney, a widowed insurance salesman, left his ten-year-old daughter, Aubrey, in the care of her aunt in Chicago. Aubrey was a diabetic. The aunt, a Christian Scientist, took Aubrey to her practitioner, William Rubert, who immediately took her off insulin. On December 10, 1937, Aubrey Whitney died in a diabetic coma; Rubert wasn’t held accountable for her death. Twenty-two years later, Edward Whitney walked into Rubert’s office, pulled out a 32-caliber handgun, and shot him at point-blank range.

• In 1951, Cora Sutherland, a fifty-year-old Christian Scientist who taught shorthand at Van Nuys High School in Los Angeles, argued successfully that she should be exempt from the periodic X-rays required by her school to detect tuberculosis. Three years later, in March 1954, she died of tuberculosis, but not before exposing thousands of students. The health department petitioned the board of education to eliminate religious exemptions, without success.

• In 1955, seven-year-old David Cornelius became ill; his parents, Edward and Anne Cornelius, took him to a doctor who diagnosed diabetes and started insulin. Later, a Christian Science clinician stopped the insulin, causing David to die in a diabetic coma. The district attorney indicted Edward and Anne Cornelius for involuntary manslaughter, but dropped the charges when a senior church official persuaded him that the Corneliuses “had sincerely believed that they could save their son through prayer.”

• In 1967, Lisa Sheridan, the five-year-old daughter of Dorothy Sheridan, contracted strep throat. For the next three weeks Lisa found it harder and harder to breathe. Dorothy, a Christian Scientist, prayed but to no avail; Lisa Sheridan died of pneumonia on March 18, 1967. At autopsy, the pathologist found a quart of pus in Lisa’s chest that had collapsed her lung—pus that could have been removed easily had Dorothy sought medical attention. Sheridan was convicted of manslaughter and sentenced to five years in jail. The church, frightened by the verdict, issued a scathing rebuke: “We must not yield to the mesmeric claims of medicine by calling a doctor and being forced to worship a false God.” Christian Science officials successfully lobbied the Department of Health and Human Services to exempt faith healers from prosecution. In 1974, when the federal exemption was made, eleven states already had a religious exemption statute; ten years later, all fifty states and the District of Columbia had it.

• In 1977, Matthew Swan, the second child of Rita and Douglas Swan, had a high fever. The Swans asked their Christian Science practitioner, Jeanne Laitner, to treat him. Laitner complied; sitting next to Matthew’s crib she said, “Matthew, God is your life. God didn’t make disease, and disease is unreal.” Matthew continued to scream in pain. On July 7, Matthew Swan was pronounced dead from bacterial meningitis. Unlike other Christian Science parents, Rita Swan saw the death of her son as a wake-up call. She founded Children’s Health Care Is a Legal Duty (CHILD), an organization devoted to changing religious exemption laws.

• On March 9, 1984, Shauntay Walker died of bacterial meningitis. Her mother, Laurie, a Christian Scientist, had kept her home for seventeen days. At the time of death, Shauntay, who was five years old, weighed only twenty-nine pounds. In 1990, Walker was convicted of manslaughter, but the conviction was overturned with the help of her lawyer, Warren Christopher, who would later become Bill Clinton’s secretary of state.

• On April 8, 1986, Robyn Twitchell—the two-year-old son of David and Ginger Twitchell—died of a bowel obstruction. David and Ginger had graduated from a Christian Science college in Missouri. After the bowel obstruction ruptured, Robyn vomited stool and portions of his bowel. He died in his father’s arms. At trial, Dr. Burton Harris, chief of surgery at Boston’s Floating Hospital for Infants and Children, testified, “It’s beyond comprehension that the parents of a child who’s vomiting stool wouldn’t seek medical help.” The Twitchells were found guilty; the verdict was overturned on appeal.

• On June 5, 1988, twelve-year-old Ashley King died of bone cancer. The only child of John and Catherine King, Ashley lay at home for months without medical care. At the time of her death, the tumor was the size of a watermelon; her hemoglobin level was incompatible with life, and she was covered with bedsores. John and Catherine King each pleaded no contest to one charge of reckless endangerment: a misdemeanor. They were sentenced to three years’ probation.

• On May 9, 1989, eleven-year-old Ian McKown—the son of Kathleen McKown—died in a diabetic coma. Doctors testified that insulin given even two hours before his death could have saved his life. The police officer called to the house said that the child was so emaciated that “he didn’t even look human.” Kathleen McKown was protected from prosecution by Minnesota’s religious exemption law.