The Court of Cassation confirms the three-year prison sentence for manslaughter against the doctor Massimiliano Mecozzi, 62 years old, from Pesaro, for the death of little Francesco Bonifazi , the 7-year-old boy, originally from Cagli (Pesaro and Urbino), killed by an ear infection that degenerated into encephalitis.
The little boy, treated only with homeopathic remedies when antibiotics would have been needed , died after three days of agony on May 27, 2017 at the Salesi hospital in Ancona, where he had arrived in desperate conditions.
The Supreme Court, rejecting the doctor's appeal and confirming the appeal sentence, made the conviction final .
The child's grandfather, with the lawyer Federica Mancinelli, and the National Consumers Union, with the lawyer Corrado Canafoglia supported by professors Matteo Bassetti and Enrico Bucci, joined the trial as civil parties: they claimed that the cause of death was attributable to Mecozzi's conduct .
From defense investigations by lawyer Canafoglia it emerged that Francesco's death, treated with homeopathy, was not an isolated case. "Already in 1991, in New Zealand and in 2015 in Pennsylvania - the lawyer reports - two other minors died from bacterial ear infections treated with homeopathy, an event that could have been avoided if a simple antibiotic had been administered. The same story occurred in 2023 in Lecce where a 14-month-old child died again because a doctor and the parents would not have administered antibiotic medicines in favor of homeopathic ones ".
For Francesco's family, a painful chapter has ended. "The truth has been definitively recognized," comments lawyer Mancinelli. " The family had turned to Mecozzi, a doctor regularly registered with the professional association, to guarantee Francesco the best care and they would never have thought or accepted that Mecozzi would treat him without following the dictates of good medical practice . No one will be able to fill their loss, but seeing the conviction confirmed by the Supreme Court leads them to hope that it will be a warning in the future and will prevent others from experiencing a tragedy like theirs."
(Online Union)
