Hear David Stephan on naturopathic remedies

Transcript of an excerpt of David Stephan's interview with the police, published by the CBC. (Line breaks added to improve readability.)

---

Are we experts in, uh, in that field? Uh, I would say no, because there's so much to know about so many things.

Uh, are we very well acquainted with that we use in our, in our own home? Absolutely, and uh because we've just kept it pretty basic and pretty simple down to just the number of remedies like you've seen there, uh I mean there's hundreds of remedies that you can use, and we've just chosen to use a few, a few of the most powerful and most, uh, well-recognized ones uh and that's olive leaf extract uh and the garlic, um which are very well-recognized for, for being anti-fungal, anti-viral, all that stuff.

So um, so do we have formal education? No. Are we educated in them? Absolutely. We can have ... have we experienced the benefits of them in the past? Absolutely. Has it worked for us, um, in every single scenario in the past, before this? Ah, yes.

I think what the problem was here is that um ... what it ultimately would've taken is 24 hour supervision from a doctor, which we would not have received because they're not going to give somebody with croup that, to recognize that okay, he's now moved out of croup and, uh, he's now moving into uh the initial symptoms of um meningitis.

Uh, I don't think anybody would've caught that unless he was under 24 hour supervision of a doctor who, who was monitoring him just for curiosity's sake because uh, I think any doctor probably would have looked at him and said, “Yeah, okay, he's getting better, he's just a little bit lethargic, 'cause he prob'ly hasn't gotten enough stuff while he had the croup so let's nurse him back to strength,” uh I think anybody would've speculated the same thing that we speculated, and uh and then like I said unfortunate by the time he was actually showing symptoms of croup, uh or not croup, meningitis uh that's .. we jumped back on this, like I said they weren't severe symptoms but they were symptoms nonetheless that we recognized that we had to do something about it, just like we'd done something about the croup, just like we've done stuff about their colds and flus in the past, and um so we took that on.

But never would've we ever thought that um that uh there could've been a turn for the worse that quickly, otherwise, um, I promise ya, if we would've known that, he would've uh, he would've been in the hospital on the Sunday when we first when we uh started to get a little bit uh concerned about uh him maybe having something else now.

Transcript: Hear Collet describe what she did when Ezekiel's condition first started deteriorating.

Transcript of an excerpt of Collet Stephan's interview with the police, published by the CBC. (Line breaks added to improve readability.)

---

... and Tuesday, um ... I had noticed he was becoming a little bit more lethargic, a little bit more weak,

um so I went back online to look at what these symptoms could be and um figured that there's prob'ly some dehydration and so forth (inaudible) the previous week and um within the smoothies I stopped putting in the an... natural anti-inflammatories and as well as the natural like antibiotic and um anti uh viral just because he was doing so much better, I didn't want to overdo with any of that, he seemed to be fine,

and so Monday and Tuesday he didn't have that in his shake and on Tuesday he seemed not as alert, um, he wasn't as responsive with communication – he's not talking yet but he does do sign language with me – um, and he would do a movement with his hand that didn't seem like it was him controlling it? Uh, something maybe more neurological where he would um kind of pull at his diaper almost like he's taking off it and then rub the side of his head with the side of his fist twice and he'd do that a couple times and then stop,

um, so once I saw that I ... we increased the fluids, we made sure he was getting even more fluids, and we increased the smoothies, and um he improved quite quickly, he was responding a lot faster, and so we kept up with that and we introduced um some solids, he liked um rice baby crackers, he started eating those and was doing well, and it was like that and he just kept getting better the next couple of days

and then Sunday, that following Sunday we noticed he started to become a little bit more lethargic again, and uh once again I wasn't putting any of the anti-inflammatories or the natural antibiotic and um that night he didn't sleep as good so Monday when we woke up we decided not to go to school um just because of how he was, his sleep wasn't very good that night, I didn't want to expose him to any of the children,

and um and I called my um birth attendant, I had both my children, she's an RN, um and I had her come out um come over and check his vitals, I wanted to make sure that his lungs were clear, I wanted to make sure there was no pneumonia or anything, no fluid in the lungs, and he was... make sure things were okay and he was asleep when she got there and um so because he didn't seem to be as responsive as he was before

um, through her experience she said he does look like he's showing signs of meningitis so I went online and researched meningitis and um figured that he did look like he had about 95% of those symptoms of viral meningitis, I researched all three meningitises, and um with the viral it takes much longer and the recommendation on the medical websites as well as the natural websites was boosting the immune system, um, increasing it a lot and then um one of the options they said if we were to go to a hospital you would be put on an antibiotic so I started the natural antibiotics immediately again with natural anti-inflammatories in case there's any inflammation um trying to prevent anything so that it didn't turn a bacterial if it was meningitis

uh so we started that um immediately as well as um, another natural product, uh, what's it called, Total Reload? which is filled with um electrolytes, vitamins, um and broke down amino acids like that already broke down form of protein so the body wouldn't have to break it down so it's easily digestible and so we started getting that into him immediately and he started to improve very quickly ...

Transcript: Hear Collet Stephan about seeing the naturopath

Transcript of an excerpt of Collet Stephan's interview with the police, published by the CBC. (Line breaks added to improve readability.)

---

And uh Tuesday we had to go into Lethbridge to sign papers,
and um with one of the symptoms of meningitis uh the back and the neck will arch,
and uh on the medical website that I was on, the WebMD, they had two exercises that you could test your child to see if meningitis was a possibility,
and the one it's called the Burzinski or something and the child is laying on his back and you put your hand lightly behind the back of their head and tilt it forward to try and touch their chin to their chest, and if their knees start to raise, um it's a sign of meningitis which he did immediately, his knees raised,
and then the second exercise is laying on their back you put your hand over the kneecap and your other hand um behind their ankle, and and lift their leg straight up to do a 90 degree angle with their body, um but if their knee starts to bend uh, there's obviously some tightness, stiffness which is another sign of the viral meningitis which he had done.
This was all on the Monday. Um I did this testing as soon as he woke up after after the birth attendant left, and so that's when we started everything and he started improving immediately

and so sorry back to Tuesday having to go to having to go back into Lethbridge, because he was so stiff still uh we could not get him in his car seat to to be able to buckle him up and um, I had folded the seats down in the Blazer and put in the ... his mattress and then I had laid beside him so we could get these papers we signed at the lawyers,
and um I had called a natural doctor in Lethbridge, Dr Pike, earlier that day and just asked um for menin... for viral meningitis what they would suggest and they had a, they have a product called BLAST that is filled with lots of um homeopathics, natural antibiotics, and immune booster, to help boost that immune,
and so we signed the papers and got that, and I gave him one millilitre of that um as soon as we received it, and um I decided that I would drive home 'cause I get car sick so my husband laid with him in the back and he started responding very quickly, um 'cause we were continuing with the fluids, we brought them with us, um he had relaxed, he wasn't so arched anymore, he had become a lot more alert, um he was reaching over and playing with my husband's lip, um trying ... he was trying to make a sound or whatever, he was much more alert, and soon as we got home we gave him a lot more fluid again, we were trying to build up those electrolytes and uh boost his immune through um um the EMPower Plus,

---

The "exercises" Collet Stephan refers to are Brudzinski's sign and Kernig's sign.

The "natural doctor, Dr Pike" is not a doctor, she is a naturopath. She now uses the name Tracey Tannis.

EMPowerplus is supplement alleged to treat bipolar illness and many other conditions. The company that sells it, Truehope, was co-founded by Collet Stephan's father-in-law, Tony Stephan. David Stephan is the vice president.