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Four children in one Idaho family died after their parents declined medical care for religious reasons. Canyon County Sheriff Kieran Donahue told ProPublica that Idaho’s faith-healing exemption kept ordinary neglect-based child-protection laws from applying in the case. But “authorities could do nothing” is not a complete description: the report also describes a narrow emergency court process and says officials may act when there is evidence of another crime.
What happened to the four children?
ProPublica reported on October 1, 2026, that the children were siblings in a family associated with the Followers of Christ, a faith-healing group. The parents told officers they had not taken the children to a doctor because of their religion. ProPublica did not identify the parents or publish the children’s full names, citing their privacy.
- Emma Joyce was 3 when she died in August 2009 after days of sickness and vomiting.
- Her sister Ava Joan died in July 2010 from a complication of untreated diabetes.
- A toddler brother died from the same complication less than two years later.
- Nine years after that, a 4-year-old brother died after weeks of similar symptoms.
ProPublica describes the group’s belief as treating modern medicine as a sinful lapse in faith and trusting God to heal the faithful, with life and death left to divine will. Those descriptions concern the group and the reporting; they should not be generalized to other religious communities or every person associated with the sect.
Why couldn’t Idaho authorities step in?
Donahue told ProPublica that Idaho’s exclusion of faith-healing practice from the definition of neglect meant neglect-based child-protection laws did not apply in this situation. He said deputies could not act without evidence of a crime and did not notify child-welfare agencies.
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That is the local sheriff’s explanation of the law as applied to this family, not a claim that Idaho officials can never intervene in any faith-healing case. ProPublica also describes a separate emergency medical-treatment pathway, and Donahue’s account leaves room for action when there is evidence of another crime.
The report quotes Idaho Deputy Attorney General Mary Jo Beig, speaking to a legislative work group in 2016: “If you were saying that your child broke their femur and you were praying to resolve this medical issue, the Department of Health and Welfare cannot say that you are a neglectful parent because you are not seeking medical treatment.”
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What is the Followers of Christ faith-healing exemption?
In this account, “faith-healing exemption” refers to the legal treatment of parents who rely on spiritual healing rather than medical care. ProPublica reports that Idaho’s exemption prevented ordinary neglect-based child-protection processes from being used against the parents in this case. The report identifies Idaho Code section 16-1627 as a distinct emergency route, not a general replacement for neglect law.
The official Idaho statute page cited in the reporting was not accessible for independent verification. The precise current statutory wording and amendment history therefore cannot be established here; the legal description above is attributed to ProPublica’s reporting and the officials it quotes, rather than presented as an independent reading of current code.
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Could a doctor or judge force treatment for a child?
ProPublica says Idaho Code section 16-1627 provides a narrow emergency pathway: a doctor may ask a judge to order care if, without treatment, a child’s life “would be greatly endangered.” The report says the judge must consider spiritual treatment the child is receiving and describes use of the pathway as unusual.
The article gives an example of school staff noticing a child having as many as 13 seizures a day, after which a doctor brought the case to court. That example illustrates a possible route to intervention; it does not show that the process is routinely used or establish the outcome for the four siblings in this family.
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How many children in Idaho died after faith healing?
A separate ProPublica investigation published August 25, 2026, reviewed death records gathered from coroners and police in five Idaho counties with pediatricians and birthing specialists. The reviewers concluded that at least 15 babies and children from the sect died from illnesses that could have been successfully treated between 2015 and 2025. This is an investigative finding, not a population-wide rate or a count of every death.
- Six additional deaths could not be evaluated because records were incomplete or unavailable.
- Experts could not confidently determine whether medical care would have changed the outcome in four other cases.
- The investigation found at least five sets of parents had lost multiple children, which ProPublica said had not previously been reported.
The same investigation described two newborn siblings who died from pneumonia and bleeding lungs. Doctors reviewing the records for ProPublica said hospital antibiotics and newborn care could have treated those conditions; those are expert assessments reported by the outlet, not independent clinical findings here.
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For medical context, a 2009 Journal of Perinatology study by Singh, Clark, Powers and colleagues examined a de-identified dataset of neonatal intensive-care admissions from 1997 through 2007. Among 162,075 term neonates in that dataset, 7,518 (1.8%) had a meconium aspiration syndrome admission diagnosis; 88 (1.2% of that diagnosed group) died. These figures describe that NICU dataset, not all full-term births, and do not establish an outcome for any individual child in the Idaho reporting.
What changed in Oregon?
ProPublica’s October 2026 report contrasts Idaho with Oregon, where the state began rolling back faith-healing exemptions in 1999. Oregon prosecutors and detectives told ProPublica that more parents sought medical care after the change. Former Oregon district attorney John Foote described the aim this way: “If you don’t do anything, kids are going to die.” The officials’ account is a reported assessment, not a controlled study or a quantified estimate of the law’s effect.
| Question | Idaho, as described in ProPublica’s October 1, 2026 report | Oregon, as described in ProPublica’s reporting |
|---|---|---|
| Faith-healing exemption | ProPublica says the exemption kept ordinary neglect-based child-protection law from applying in this family’s case. | ProPublica reports that Oregon began rolling back faith-healing exemptions in 1999; granular current statutory details are not stated in the comparison. |
| Emergency court route | ProPublica describes a doctor petitioning a judge when a child’s life would be greatly endangered without treatment; the report says this route is unusual. | Not stated in ProPublica’s comparison. |
| Reported enforcement outcome | Authorities said neglect-based action was unavailable in this case absent evidence of a crime. | Prosecutors and detectives told ProPublica that more parents sought care after the change; the reporting does not quantify the change or establish causation. |
What Idaho’s broader medical-neglect figures do—and don’t—show
The Idaho Department of Health and Welfare told ProPublica it does not track how many medical-neglect reports involve faith healing. Across 318 investigations into medical-neglect reports over seven years, the department said it found actual neglect in 28 cases; in 10 of those, children were placed in state custody. These figures concern medical-neglect investigations generally, not faith-healing-specific cases.
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