In St. Petersburg, on August 26, a ten-year-old girl diagnosed with HIV died due to lack of treatment. The child’s adoptive parents deliberately did not give her medication, but treated her with dietary supplements in Germany. Later it turned out that the father of the deceased was a priest of the St. Petersburg diocese. According to the publication Doctor Peter, the parents, knowing about the diagnosis, did not want to give the girl the necessary medications for religious reasons.
St. Petersburg Children's Ombudsman Svetlana Agapitova published information about the child long before the incident. In addition, an article about the girl also appeared on the Doctor Peter portal. The materials discussed the protection of the rights of children with HIV-positive status: how the relevant authorities, prevention subjects, medical institutions and non-profit organizations can most effectively act in the event that parents refuse to treat their child.
“Based on the results of our research among HIV dissidents, we discovered the following paradox: the higher the level of education, the more people are inclined to deny HIV, and, accordingly, the need for treatment. For them, this is a global conspiracy theory. The arguments of doctors and sensible people have no effect on them. Insight comes only when health conditions deteriorate. But how many years will pass until this moment is unknown. It is especially difficult for women who have become infected with HIV and become pregnant to realize the need for treatment. They regard the problems that doctors tell them about as far-fetched, because they feel fine - there is no incentive for treatment. Their change of opinion depends on the health of the child. As soon as symptoms of the disease appear, some of them still disappear from AIDS dissident groups on social networks, having become disillusioned with them,” a sociologist, senior researcher at the International Laboratory of Economics, Management and Health Policy at the Higher School of Economics, commented on the situation to Doctor Peter. Peter Meilakhs.
According to the publication, in 2015, during one of the routine examinations, doctors detected a critical amount of the virus in the girl’s body and went to court. According to the law “On the Fundamentals of Protecting the Health of Citizens in the Russian Federation,” the court ordered the patient to be hospitalized and provided with antiretroviral therapy. However, the parents never started treatment.
The child was hospitalized only after a doctor at a private clinic, to whom the girl was once brought for an appointment, called an ambulance. The patient was taken to the intensive care unit. According to the publication, she spent more than three months there in “very serious condition.” She was given antiretroviral therapy, which reduces the amount of immunodeficiency virus in the body.
After this, the girl felt worse, and therefore she was transferred to the Republican Clinical Infectious Diseases Hospital, the chief doctor of the clinic told Fontanka. Laboratory studies showed that the girl “has no immunity at all; an adult in this condition would have already died.” The child’s well-being improved here, but all this time the parents assured the doctors that the girl was healthy and did not need to take medication. After finishing therapy in mid-2016, they took their daughter home, where she became worse, writes AIDS.Center.
In December 2016, the girl was again sent to intensive care because her condition worsened: “She was transferred to the department and returned to intensive care again, regularly requiring blood transfusions. The girl’s immunity indicators were at zero, she was already killed by all existing AIDS-associated infections (tuberculosis, generalized herpes, cytomegalovirus, mycobacteriosis), they affected almost all organs and systems,” the girl’s attending doctors told Fontanka.
The hospital doctors noted that they “saw how touchingly the mother cared for her adopted daughter.” However, parents opposed ART therapy, and doctors also confirmed this.
According to the publication, “she never went home from hospitals again”: the last time the girl was admitted to intensive care was on August 26, “in a terminal condition.” The doctors were unable to save her.
For the first time, the AIDS.Center reported the death of an HIV-positive child. Referring to information from an anonymous source, the foundation emphasized that the death occurred due to the parents’ refusal to give the child the drugs necessary for treatment. According to the foundation, doctors notified the parents about the deterioration of the girl’s condition, but they did nothing.
Information about the girl’s death was confirmed by the chief freelance specialist on the problems of diagnosis and treatment of HIV infection of the Russian Ministry of Health, Evgeny Voronin and Svetlana Agapitova. They also reported that the child’s death occurred because treatment began very late, since the parents categorically refused therapy.
“Unfortunately, too much time has passed since the lawsuit was filed,” notes Agapitova. “In total, the proceedings lasted about a year and a half. When the decision of the City Court came into force, the child was, in fact, at the fourth stage.”
The Office of the Children's Ombudsman reported that the child was adopted on June 29, 2017. He was adopted by a couple raising several children with different diagnoses. According to Fontanka, the girl’s adoptive father was a priest of the St. Petersburg diocese.
“The baby was adopted, her adoptive mother and father knew about the disease and took it calmly. Only later did it become clear that both adoptive parents were ardent opponents of traditional medicine, confident that AIDS was a hoax invented by greedy pharmaceutical companies. For several years, they claimed that they were examining their daughter in Germany, did not take tests and did not allow doctors to see her. At the same time, the parents assured that Christina was feeling great,” the children’s ombudsman said in a statement.
The girl was born with HIV. According to the Ombudsman, the parents knew about the diagnosis when they took her into custody, but at that time all the child’s tests were normal. At the same time, parents were warned in advance that the patient needed special care and that she should be under the supervision of a doctor.
The Ombudsman's Office also referred to a story about the fate of a child published in 2014. It turned out that after the girl once became ill and the AIDS Center demanded urgent treatment for her, the parents took the patient to a clinic in Germany, where they use “alternative methods.”
“The AIDS Center specialists learned that the girl had undergone alternative treatment after a request to the guardianship authority. Having studied the extract from the medical record presented by the Solovyovs, the doctors came to the conclusion that all of Christina’s treatment by the German doctor was limited to taking dietary supplements, and control tests were never carried out. This meant that the girl’s life was still in danger,” said the St. Petersburg Ombudsman’s Office.
At this time, specialists from the guardianship authorities hoped to convince the girl’s parents to allow her to undergo therapy. The parents, according to the device, in response to this stated that the girl “looks great and is not sick with anything.”
At the moment, the Investigative Committee of Russia for St. Petersburg is conducting a pre-investigation investigation into the death of a ten-year-old girl. The progress of the pre-investigation check is under special control of the leadership of the Main Investigation Department of the Investigative Committee for the city.
In St. Petersburg, a 10-year-old HIV-infected girl died, whose own parents did not allow her to be treated for religious reasons. The family believed that she was absolutely healthy, even when the child’s condition became critical. The doctors' exhortations were in vain. It later turned out that the girl grew up in a foster family, and her religious parents did not recognize the methods of traditional medicine. Law enforcement agencies have already begun investigating the incident, but the religious couple is raising several more children with complex diagnoses. Their lives may also be at risk.
Believing parents
Christina (the girl's name has been changed - editor's note) was born with a diagnosis of HIV. Having learned about this, the mother abandoned the baby, and the newborn ended up in an orphanage. Soon the girl found a new mom and dad. Christina ended up in the family of a priest. At first glance, a better fate could not have been imagined for her: her new parents were believers and had already raised several children with serious diagnoses.
The couple was aware of the responsibility they were taking on: the spouses were warned about the girl’s illness and reminded that the child should always remain under the supervision of a doctor, because the only way to combat the disease is highly active antiretroviral therapy, which must be carried out throughout the patient’s life. Then the future parents assured that they were not afraid of difficulties, because they already had experience in raising children with various diseases. In addition, the family was in good standing with the guardianship authorities.When the girl was taken home, her immune status was normal, and the parents just had to keep them in the same condition by regularly visiting the doctor with their daughter. Only a few years later it became clear that the adoptive family had neglected the recommendations of specialists. Christina’s new parents had their own beliefs on this matter: in their opinion, medicine and medicine were of no use. Thus, the girl was not seen by a doctor for several years, and her condition rapidly deteriorated.
Instead of therapy, they fed them dietary supplements
The AIDS Center employees were the first to sound the alarm. They turned to the girl’s parents with a convincing request to take the child to the doctor, to which the couple replied: “Christina looks great and is not sick with anything!” The center staff did not have any tools to influence religious parents other than persuasion, so all that was left was to monitor the situation. Two years ago the situation became critical. Parents were again warned that with a disease like Christina’s, the child could look good for a long time, and then “fade away” in a few days. The advice did not have the desired effect, and since then the family has stopped communicating with the center staff altogether. Then the concerned employees contacted the guardianship authorities. There they were told that the parents finally decided to place the girl on treatment - albeit on an alternative one.
The child was taken to Germany, where the entire course of treatment was limited to taking dietary supplements, and local doctors never carried out control tests. According to the center's staff, the girl was not properly examined there. The Commissioner for Children's Rights in St. Petersburg, Svetlana Agapitova, was involved in the case. “Realizing that the child is dying, we cannot let the situation take its course,” the AIDS Center noted then, “but we don’t know how to save him.”
The girl was hospitalized only after she was brought to an appointment at a private clinic - after returning home to St. Petersburg. The institution's doctor called an ambulance, and the girl was taken to the intensive care unit, where she spent three months. At that time, the child was already in serious condition. Shortly after being discharged, Christina found herself back in the hospital. Doctors did everything possible, but treatment was started too late. Every day the baby got worse. She was endlessly transferred from intensive care to a regular ward and back, they gave her blood transfusions, but nothing helped. The last time the girl was in intensive care was on August 26. The next day the child was gone. Christina was only 10 years old.
Who is responsible for the death of a child?
St. Petersburg human rights activists have already sent several appeals to the prosecutor's office demanding that the parent of the deceased girl be brought to justice. “They did not fulfill their parental responsibilities to take care of the child’s health,” refers lawyer Alexander Ezdakov on Part 1 of Article 63 of the RF IC, thereby violating the constitutional right of the child, which led to the death of the girl.”After this, the Investigative Committee began an investigation into Christina’s death. Law enforcement officials plan to study documents from the hospital where the girl was treated. A forensic medical examination will be carried out, after which specialists will “assess the actions of medical workers and persons whose job responsibilities include the prevention of crimes against minors.”
According to statistics from the AIDS Center, 380 HIV-positive children currently live in St. Petersburg, and at least 10 of them are growing up in families of “HIV dissidents” - people who, for various reasons, refuse treatment for the disease. And if nothing changes at the legislative level in the near future, there will be more child deaths.
HIV deniers do not want to admit this disease for various reasons, and often for religious reasons.
On August 27, a 10-year-old girl with HIV died in St. Petersburg. The girl’s adoptive father, an Orthodox priest and HIV dissident, did not treat the child, who in another family would probably have survived, writes Meduza.
The girl was taken from an orphanage. The adoptive father of the child, as the media write, was an Orthodox priest. The family knew that the girl was born with HIV. However, the Orthodox priest at that time was raising several adopted children with different diagnoses.
All those years that the girl lived with the family, the inspectors had no complaints about her upbringing and maintenance. The child turned 10 years old in 2017. The girl was not treated for HIV for religious reasons. The couple allegedly adhered to the position of the Russian Orthodox Church in this.
The girl’s adoptive parents believed that the disease was “an invention of pharmaceutical companies” that want to profit from people.
Meanwhile, the girl’s disease progressed. After a routine examination at the AIDS Center, doctors discovered the child’s critical condition. They tried to draw the parents' attention to this, but they only took the child to a clinic in Germany, where HIV is treated only with dietary supplements.
In 2016, the girl was hospitalized by court decision, as caring employees of the St. Petersburg AIDS Center contacted the guardianship authorities, the prosecutor's office and the office of the Commissioner for Children's Rights in St. Petersburg. However, even after this, the parents did not give their adopted daughter medication.
The guardianship authorities assured the doctors that everything in the family was fine and the child was being treated, but the bailiffs threw up their hands, not understanding how they could force the parents to give the child pills.
The child was hospitalized only after the doctor at the private clinic, to whom the girl was brought for an appointment, called an ambulance. The girl spent more than four months in the St. Petersburg Children's City Hospital. She was in intensive care for a long time, but her parents constantly tried to take her out of the clinic.
The child was returned to the family again. Then the girl felt bad again. She was hospitalized, but on August 27, 2017, the girl died.
They started treating the girl too late, she had almost no chance of recovery, this was stated in the office of the children's ombudsman of St. Petersburg, Svetlana Agapitova. As Evgeniy Voronin, chief freelance specialist on diagnostics and treatment of HIV infection at the Russian Ministry of Health, said, this is “another death on the conscience of AIDS dissidents.” According to Russian law, the adoptive father and mother may face criminal liability for the death of a child.
This is not the first time an HIV-infected child has died due to his parents’ refusal to treat him. In Tyumen, a 34-year-old HIV dissident refused treatment for her three-year-old daughter, and the girl died in April 2017. The woman was accused of causing death by negligence (part one of Article 109 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation). However, on July 31, the court closed the case due to the reconciliation of the parties.
Those HIV dissidents who refer to the position of the Russian Orthodox Church on this issue are mistaken in that this disease should not be treated. The Russian Orthodox Church does not officially deny HIV. As stated in the concept of “participation of the Russian Orthodox Church in the fight against the spread of HIV/AIDS and working with people living with HIV/AIDS,” HIV is “one of the most serious threats to the CIS countries.” The concept also does not say that Orthodox Christians are recommended to refuse therapy. But at the same time, some representatives of the Russian Orthodox Church claim that there is no HIV. Thus, a video is popular among HIV dissidents, where the head of the Moscow Patriarchate commission for family protection, Dmitry Smirnov, speaks about the absence of the disease.
AIDS does not arise from a fictitious virus, but from four reasons - stress, depression, destruction of human immunity by vaccinations and external intoxication,”
says Smirnov.
At the same time, the head of the sector for caring for HIV-infected people of the St. Petersburg diocese, Archpriest Maxim Pletnev, notes: “The Church treats this topic soberly. We deny “AIDS dissidence.”
According to doctors, most often HIV dissidents still refer not to religious reasons for refusing treatment, but to an alleged conspiracy of pharmacological companies and the destructiveness of the treatment itself.
There are groups on social networks that support HIV dissidence, as well as those who, on the contrary, are trying to fight this phenomenon. According to activists who run the group “HIV/AIDS dissidents and their children” on VKontakte (they study the situation with HIV dissidents), 60 people have died over several years due to refusal to treat HIV. 13 of them are aged from several months to ten years.
The Investigative Committee in St. Petersburg will conduct a pre-investigation investigation into the death of an HIV-infected girl. Law enforcement agencies reported this on Thursday, August 31. “During the inspection of the institution where she received treatment, the necessary medical documents will be confiscated, a forensic medical examination will be ordered, based on the results of which a number of questions will be asked, including the causes of her death, the correctness of the prescribed and ongoing treatment,” the statement says. .
The day before, on August 26, a 10-year-old girl diagnosed with HIV, whose parents fundamentally refused professional treatment due to religious beliefs, died in St. Petersburg. The parents of the deceased child are so-called “HIV dissidents” - people who deny the existence of the virus. They are convinced that HIV is the product of a conspiracy that was invented by pharmacologists in order to make money on drugs.
According to media reports,
The girl's father is an Orthodox priest. The St. Petersburg diocese expressed condolences over the death of the girl and emphasized that it does not welcome refusal of medical care for reasons of faith.
The hierarchy did not comment on the information that the child’s adoptive father is related to the Russian Orthodox Church.
The diocese emphasized that they expect reliable information about the “real cause of the child’s death”: “The Church treats this topic soberly. We deny AIDS dissidence."
The head of the communications sector of the St. Petersburg Metropolis of the Russian Orthodox Church said that “responsibility for the decision to take or refuse medications by children should be in the sphere of civil law. A priest of the Russian Orthodox Church, like any other citizen of the Russian Federation, is responsible before the law for fulfilling his duties as a parent.”
Chairman of the Commission on Social Policy and Health Care of the Legislative Assembly of St. Petersburg August 30 stated News that the family of a girl who died from HIV did everything for her recovery. According to the parliamentarian, the child died under the supervision of doctors from serious diseases that developed as a result of congenital HIV infection. “The family of the girl’s adoptive parents treated her very kindly and put a lot of effort into the child’s recovery. As far as I know, her father consulted doctors in Russia and took the child to a consultation in Germany. The fact that the girl with congenital HIV lived for so long is the merit of her parents,” said Kiseleva.
“He was a very resilient child.”
The girl was taken into foster care in 2014. The parents were told in advance about the diagnosis and that the child needed special care. The disease did not frighten the couple: their family already had children with various health problems. The guardianship authorities, according to Rosbalt, monitored the family for many years, and there were never any complaints against the parents.
The couple refused to treat all their children with traditional methods and argued that modern methods did more harm than good. Among other things, they were convinced that the girl’s HIV diagnosis was a hoax invented by greedy pharmaceutical companies.
The child's illness progressed.
Specialists from the St. Petersburg AIDS Center assured the parents of the need for treatment, but they brushed it off. They assured the doctors that the girl “looks great and is not sick with anything.”
When complications began to manifest themselves especially strongly, the couple decided to take the child to a German clinic, where HIV infection is treated with so-called non-toxic methods. There the child was prescribed biologically active food supplements. However, no control tests were carried out on the child in Germany.
At the end of 2014, employees of the St. Petersburg AIDS Center and public organizations asked the guardianship authorities, the prosecutor's office and the office of the Commissioner for Children's Rights to take measures against the family. At an emergency meeting with the participation of employees, specialized committees, doctors and lawyers, it was decided to go to court with a claim for compulsory treatment. The guardianship authorities then managed to force the parents to consent to the child starting taking antiretroviral drugs. However, the wife, as it turned out, made the promise in words.
From the moment the claim was filed, the proceedings lasted about a year and a half. When the city court's decision came into force, the child was actually at the fourth stage of the disease. The girl was forcibly hospitalized. She spent a year in children's city hospital No. 5 and a specialized HIV treatment center in Ust-Izhora.
In 2016, the story received publicity in the media. Activists of the “Coalition for Readiness for Treatment” then turned to the prosecutor’s office with a request to bring the child’s parents under a new article - 156 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation on “Failure to fulfill obligations to raise a minor.” The appeal was signed by more than 30 public organizations and representatives of NGOs. In August 2016, the prosecutor's office announced that information about violations was sent to the authorities to resolve the issue of initiating criminal proceedings against the guardians. Social activists hoped that the child would not return to the family of “HIV deniers,” but later law enforcement officers refused to initiate a criminal case.
As a result, the girl returned home and again lost her medications. Soon the child was admitted to the hospital in an almost hopeless condition: according to the chief HIV specialist Evgeniy A, she had almost no immunity.
“Children practically cannot survive in this condition. However, this was a very resilient child who fought for his life,”
- said Voronin. He also emphasized that over the past year the child had been so weakened that the body was unable to fight the virus. The office of the Commissioner for Children's Rights in St. Petersburg also reported that the girl had practically no chance of recovery, since treatment began too late.
On August 26, the girl died. Voronin called the incident “another death on the conscience of AIDS dissidents.”
The office of the Commissioner for Children's Rights in St. Petersburg stated that this is not the first time that the death of children in the families of “HIV dissidents” has been observed. Every year, 6-7 sick residents of St. Petersburg refuse to undergo chemoprophylaxis during pregnancy and childbirth, as a result of which HIV-infected children are born. At the same time, Russian legislation does not regulate such situations in any way: the Family Code only contains a clause on the removal of a child from the family in the event of an immediate threat to his life or health.
Evgeniy Voronin said that it is necessary to take away children from parents who deny the diagnosis of their child. He also noted that this initiative needs to be formalized by law.
Voronin is convinced that the law should include a warning to parents about the potential consequences of refusing to treat a child for HIV, as well as the right of guardianship authorities to seize and treat such children if the parents do not do so.
The specialist also emphasized that Russia is the only country where the rights of parents are much more important than the rights of the child. “When a threat to a child’s life arises, there must be: first, prevention, and second, removal of the child from the family and treatment,” says Voronin. The Ministry of Health has already sent an appeal to the Commissioner for Children's Rights of the Russian Federation so that the department resolves the issue of “HIV dissidents.”
According to the Center for Prevention and Control of AIDS, 380 children with HIV infection are registered in St. Petersburg, and 10 of them are not treated. At the same time, in Russia over the past two years, 70 cases of death of children under 10 years old due to lack of treatment have been recorded.
Refusal of HIV tests is refusal of the child’s health
The case of parents refusing treatment for HIV infection of their children is not the first in Russian practice. In early July, a criminal case was opened in Tyumen after the death of a three-year-old girl, whose mother refused to treat the child for AIDS. The woman adhered to the views of “HIV dissidents” and believed that her daughter was the victim of an incorrect hepatitis vaccination, after which she developed side diseases.
This story came to the attention of journalists after the mother of the then-living girl wrote a post on social networks in March 2016 asking for help. “My daughter is in critical condition. She does not develop physically or mentally, does not sit, does not walk, and has a dozen illnesses, including carditis, candidiasis, lung damage, and the Epstein-Barr virus. We ran around to a bunch of doctors, were treated by a homeopath, a neurologist, an osteopath, but the condition was either worse or a little better,” she wrote in one of the “HIV dissidents” groups.
For a long time, the woman did not give permission to test the child. However, the doctors still insisted, and the virus was confirmed. “I did a test on the child so that they would get rid of it, but her condition is critical...
What should I do to avoid killing her? Treat with everything they give? I never took therapy and never gave birth to a child. There were courses of antibiotics and a bunch of medications, but not against HIV. What should I do?” the woman asked. However, the author did not note that she herself was diagnosed with HIV infection before the birth of her child.
In April 2017, a three-year-old girl died. After the death of the child, a criminal case was opened against the girl’s 34-year-old mother under the article “causing death by negligence.” “During the investigation, it was established: since November 2013, the accused was aware that she had a disease caused by the human immunodeficiency virus, but after the birth of her daughter in June 2014, ignoring the recommendations of doctors, breastfed the child, refused to examine the child for HIV infection, as well as from taking medications,” notes the report of the Investigative Committee for the Tyumen Region.
According to the department, as a result of the actions of the accused, the death of her young daughter occurred from HIV infection, the treatment of which could have prolonged the girl’s life.
The woman could have faced up to two years in prison, but at the end of July 2017 it became known that the criminal case against the “HIV dissident” was dropped due to the reconciliation of the parties. It was reported that the accused reconciled in the courtroom with her husband, who acted as the victim.
The parents, doctors, ombudsman for children's rights, and the staff of the AIDS Center knew that the 8-year-old child had HIV infection three years ago. The girl was taken into a foster family from an orphanage, and everyone who should have known about it, including her parents, was informed about her congenital diagnosis. They missed the time necessary for treatment solely because of their persistence. They are zealous Orthodox Christians and do not believe in the existence of HIV. St. Petersburg children's ombudsman Svetlana Agapitova told Echo of Moscow about this.
A year and a half ago, the social service and the prosecutor's office brought the case to court. It took consideration in two instances for the child to begin treatment. The girl was hospitalized and treated. She felt better, but after she returned to her family, her parents stopped treatment. When the child was admitted to the hospital again, it was already too late. For refusing to treat a child, parents face the criminal code article “causing death by negligence.”
According to the Center for Prevention and Control of AIDS, today there are 380 children with HIV in St. Petersburg. Ten of them are not being treated. The parents of five are outspoken HIV dissidents. In the city, about 10 women annually refuse to undergo chemoprophylaxis during pregnancy and childbirth.
State social services are to blame for the death of a child whose parents did not treat for HIV. The officials responsible for the tragedy should be removed from service, said Anton Krasovsky, a journalist and director of the AIDS Center Foundation, on Ekho Moskvy.
Echo.msk.ru
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