Faith Healing and Childrens' Death

Another child has died in Tulsa. The First Born church there believes in faith-based healing but is publicly struggling with accusations of neglect in the wake of the death of 9 year old Aaron Grady from complications of diabetes. From Tulsa World:

The Church of the First Born is one of the most frequent offenders in religion-based child medical neglect, said Dr. Seth Asser, a Rhode Island pediatrician who has published a study about children who died after their parents offered them prayer without medical help.

Asser said the Church of the First Born, well-known in Oklahoma, and Followers of Christ, an offshoot of the church that is located in the Pacific Northwest, together are responsible for more child deaths than any other group.

He estimated that one to two dozen American children die each year because their parents neglect to get them medical help, choosing instead to pray for their healing. That is about 1 percent of all child-abuse deaths.

"It's not a big number, but unlike a lot of the others, these are entirely preventable," he said.