Four years ago, a toddler named Ezekiel Stephan died miserably of bacterial meningitis, in a place—southern Alberta—where life-saving medical treatment is freely available. Bacterial meningitis was the proximate cause, anyway; the real cause of death was a toxic mix of quackery and piety.
The child’s father, a scion of southern Alberta’s Mormon country, was also a vice-president of the family business, Truehope Nutritional Support, which is quite as alternative as it sounds and claims to control a wide range of mental illnesses with a multivitamin mix called EmPower Plus. That the Stephans are also anti-vaxxers is sadly predictable. During the weeks of the child’s illness, the parents diagnosed him with reference to Google, hydrated him with an eyedropper, and dosed him with naturopathic remedies that sound strangely like recipes for BBQ sauce: hot peppers, garlic, onions, ginger, horseradish, maple syrup, beefed up with some of the family business’s nutritional supplements. When he was days from death and stiff as a plank, they brought in the big mojo, echinacea. What they did not do until the poor kid turned blue was call an ambulance—and by then, it was too late.
Sadly, this is not a new story. Every year, helpless children die preventable deaths because of their parents’ religious beliefs and/or devotion to alternative medicine—and many of the parents, like the Stephans, end up in court on criminal charges. What makes this case a little different was the very public manner in which the parents defended their folly on social media, backed up by the functionaries who both pushed and defended Truehope in wrangles with Health Canada. The case took nearly four years to come to trial.
Truehope itself melds piety and quackery. Essentially, David Stephan’s father had a light-bulb moment back in the 90s, when he saw how certain vitamin and mineral mixtures made his pigs stop biting each other’s ears and tails—and if the vitamins made for saner pigs, why not saner people? The company’s history is a separate story, but its founder gives God at least equal billing with the vitamins:
“Truly God has answered my pleadings and intense prayers with a great blessing.” Hundreds of participants have borne that same witness and acknowledged the hand of God in bringing restoration to their life or that of a loved one. Hence, we have named this web site “TRUEHOPE” because we believe that true hope can only be found in the healing sustenance that God has provided for us. No man or company or science can ever replicate or replace that which our Creator has provided for us. In seeking to treat the symptom, we have all ignored the Source.
When criminal charges were filed against Zeke Stephan’s parents, their reaction was
to assume the role of martyrs standing up for parental rights against an oppressive system. It was all a plot, a frame-up, a sinister and punitive conspiracy. They set up a Facebook page called Prayers for Ezekiel and a website called Stand 4 Truth, pushing the conspiracy theory with hefty doses of misinformation and all the passion of 9/11 truthers. Astoundingly, their narrative boiled down to blaming the ambulance paramedics for the child’s death.
The jury disagreed, and found the Stephans guilty of not providing their child with the necessities of life. After the verdict, Mr. Stephan posted on his Facebook page an open letter which was a classic of self-delusion:
Dear Jury,
I deeply Love each one of you and appreciate the tremendous sacrifice that you have made over the last 8 weeks. I only wish that you could’ve seen how you were being played by the crowns deception, drama and trickery that not only led to our key witnesses being muzzled, but has also now led to a dangerous precedent being set in Canada. The flood gates have now been opened and if we do not fall in line with parenting as seen fit by the government, we all stand in risk of criminal prosecution. Remember what the crown prosecutors closing remarks were to combat the fact that the ill equipped ambulance resulted in Ezekiel’s brain death. She communicated that this was not about him dying, but rather about whether or not his life was endangered at any point due to our actions. How many parents have lost children for various reasons, all of which could be concluded that the child’s life was endangered and that the parents should have been able to foresee it? How many parents have had close calls to losing a child, wherein it could be concluded that the child’s life was endangered and the parents should have been able to foresee it? Whether medical attention is sought or not and your child lives, it is of no consequence. It is only about whether or not it can be proven that at some point your child’s life was endangered, and if so you may find yourselves in the same boat as us.
The flood gates have now been opened and my main concern is no longer for Collet and I, but rather for Canadian’s as a whole. May Heaven help us all!
Last week, the child’s parents were given what many consider to be outrageously light sentences: four months in jail for Dad and three months of strict house arrest for Mum, in each case followed by two years of probation and 240 hours of community service. But in spite of having been tried, convicted, and sentenced, the Stephans have never exhibited the slightest remorse or self-awareness, or any doubt as to the efficacy of herbal smoothies and olive-leaf extract. The cognitive dissonance is strong in these two and their supporters. Indeed, they seem to have found a silver lining to their dark, tragic cloud:
To the group that has actively and maliciously attacked Collet and I… We Forgive You! Not only do we forgive you, but we Love you. We Love you as Divine Creations of our Father. And as hard as it has been to come to this conclusion, we thank you! Albeit, we do not like the hardship you have put us in, we are grateful for the role that you have played in our progression. May God bless you with an abundance of Love as he has blessed us. May any bitterness that has place within your soul be far removed from you.
It’s nice they feel they’re growing as people. I just hope they get the other kids vaccinated.
