A prominent Alberta health professor says the conviction of a Calgary mother whose son died of a strep infection after she treated him with natural remedies shows that ideology shouldn't be allowed to get in the way of treating sick kids.

Tamara Lovett was found criminally negligent Monday by a judge in Calgary in the 2013 death of her seven-year-old son, Ryan, who was bedridden for 10 days before he died.

He was never taken to see a doctor or treated with conventional medicine. A simple antibiotic, the trial heard, would have saved his life.

Timothy Caulfield, a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy and professor at the University of Alberta, spoke to the Calgary Eyeopener on Tuesday to weigh in on the judge's ruling.

Q: Justice Kristine Eidsvik said in her ruling that Lovett gambled with her son's life. What's your reaction to the judge's ruling?

A: I think that is a good summary of really both the message and the reason the court came to this decision. This was a child that was very ill — and was ill for a long time — so the court thought it was obvious that it would be reckless for this mother not to take this charge to a physician. Of course, the message here is that we shouldn't allow ideology, or a philosophical approach to health, to be paramount over the best interests of the child.

Q: Lovett treated what she thought was a cold and flu with oil of oregano and dandelion tea. Are these widespread treatments?

Timothy Caulfield is a Canada Research Chair in Health Law and Policy and a Professor in the Faculty of Law and the School of Public Health at the University of Alberta. (University of Alberta)

A: You certainly see these kind of treatments in the natural health community. This idea that we should be using natural health products, that we should be leaning in that direction, I think, is becoming unfortunately more common, despite the lack of evidence to support their use in most situations.

Q: This story brings to mind the recent high-profile case of toddler Ezekiel Stephan — whose parents were also found guilty of failing to provide the necessaries of life. That conviction has since been appealed. But what are the implications of these rulings?

A: I think that this is an appropriate message to be sending the public — that we have to use science-informed [treatment], the best available evidence to treat kids. This is not where we test our ideology. These are rare extreme cases, but nevertheless, I think the message is important. Science matters, evidence matters when we're talking about our kids.

Q: What needs to change in the natural health industry?

A: There has been, over the last five to 10 years, this embrace of pseudo-science in society more broadly — you see it from celebrities, even from health care institutions where they're offering remedies. This creates confusion about what the science actually says. I would like to see more regulation. There should be clarity about what the evidence actually says about the effectiveness of these remedies.

With files from the Calgary Eyeopener