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"The New Child Abuse Panic" NYT article about accusations of "medical child abuse"

Kyla

ᴀɴɴɪᴇ ɢꜱᴀᴍᴩᴇʟ
Messages
721
Location
Canada


http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/12/opinion/sunday/the-new-child-abuse-panic.html?_r=2


Here's a section:

Recently, the situation of these parents has gotten even harder. Some doctors and hospitals have begun to level a radical new charge — “medical child abuse” — against parents who, they say, get unnecessary or excessive treatment for their kids. That this care is usually ordered by other doctors hasn’t protected parents from these loaded accusations.

Although most of these cases have nothing to do with real child abuse, credulous child welfare officials have too often supported the doctors, threatened parents with loss of custody, and even removed kids from their homes — simply because the parents disagreed with the doctor’s plan of care.
 

user9876

Senior Member
Messages
4,556

Little Bluestem

All Good Things Must Come to an End
Messages
4,930
Dr. Richard G. Boles, a mitochondrial disease specialist who has worked on some 100 cases involving suspected medical child abuse, said that only about five fit the classic Munchausen situation and should be considered abuse. Of the rest, he says, about two-thirds involved a demanding mother who got on a doctor’s nerves; the remainder involved a parent who was too anxious in dealing with doctors who couldn’t give adequate answers.
Essentially, this is a way that doctors get back at parents who illuminate their inadequacies.
 

beaker

ME/cfs 1986
Messages
773
Location
USA
Great opportunity to write about Kristina Hansen and get the word out on her case in comments section.
If anyone w/ more of the facts than I or links to her site can post that would be great. If you can post some of the talking points here for others to then write up ( like me: ) that would be of great help . Thank you l
 

beaker

ME/cfs 1986
Messages
773
Location
USA
Great opportunity to write about Kristina Hansen and get the word out on her case in comments section.
If anyone w/ more of the facts than I or links to her site can post that would be great. If you can post some of the talking points here for others to then write up ( like me: ) that would be of great help . Thank you l

Here are link I found -- her Facebook page: http://ow.ly/PuHYm
 

Sidereal

Senior Member
Messages
4,856
The task force identified these warning signs of medical child abuse: a “highly attentive parent” who is “unusually reluctant to leave his/her child’s side”; a parent who “demands second and third opinions”; a parent who “is not relieved or reassured when presented with negative test results and resists having the child discharged from the hospital”; and a parent who has “unusually detailed medical knowledge.” These warning signs accurately describe many, if not most, loving parents of medically fragile children.

Yes, God forbid you ask for a second or third opinion instead of taking the (usually incompetent) doctor's word as gospel. How abusive.

I see, the parent is supposed to jump with joy when the hospital's tests come back negative even though their kid is STILL SICK with no explanation or treatment.
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
This is absurd. Surely the powers-that-be are aware of the high prevalence of misdiagnoses and differences of opinion in medicine?

For example, see this article about cancer treatment. It says:
The radiation oncologists raised their hands in almost equal numbers for the two treatments. Some believed the higher risk of fibrosis was unacceptable, given the treatability of most local recurrences, whereas others believed the trauma of recurrence outweighed the discomfort of fibrosis.

This division of opinion was not completely surprising. Often medical facts — such as data on rates of cancer recurrence versus rates of fibrosis — don't point toward an objectively superior treatment but instead reveal trade-offs, whereby the best choice for an individual patient depends on her preferences, on how she weighs the relative pros and cons of her alternatives.
physicians must recognize that their medical recommendations sometimes involve value judgments and that reasonable people may disagree on the best course of therapy

Physician's First Watch features case studies 5 days a week, and it is striking how long it takes to diagnose most cases correctly, and how the comments from other physicians differ. It's common for the patient to be given a range of (ineffective) treatments, sent home and repeatedly readmitted before they get it right.
 

jimells

Senior Member
Messages
2,009
Location
northern Maine
This is absurd. Surely the powers-that-be are aware of the high prevalence of misdiagnoses and differences of opinion in medicine?

It's about maintaining control. Society used to put doctors on thrones and no patient dared to question their pronouncements, at least, that was how we were told to act. Patients are now pushing back, and some doctors don't like it. Disobedience must be punished.
 

jimells

Senior Member
Messages
2,009
Location
northern Maine
Physician's First Watch features case studies 5 days a week, and it is striking how long it takes to diagnose most cases correctly, and how the comments from other physicians differ. It's common for the patient to be given a range of (ineffective) treatments, sent home and repeatedly readmitted before they get it right.

I used to watch a TV program on the satellite called "Mystery Diagnosis". It sounds a lot like "Physician's First Watch". Very rarely was the illness some obscure one-in-ten-million genetic defect. Mostly they were fairly common ailments and the biggest mystery was, "How could it possibly take a dozen of years and a gross of doctors to figure this out?"

One episode featured a woman with POTS. I instantly recognized her symptoms to be similar to mine, and I had never heard of POTS or dysautonomia or PEM or anything beyond the CDC CFS Toolkit rubbish. That one program directly lead me down the rabbit hole to my current understanding of the illness, whatever it is.
 

MeSci

ME/CFS since 1995; activity level 6?
Messages
8,231
Location
Cornwall, UK
I used to watch a TV program on the satellite called "Mystery Diagnosis". It sounds a lot like "Physician's First Watch". Very rarely was the illness some obscure one-in-ten-million genetic defect. Mostly they were fairly common ailments and the biggest mystery was, "How could it possibly take a dozen of years and a gross of doctors to figure this out?"

One episode featured a woman with POTS. I instantly recognized her symptoms to be similar to mine, and I had never heard of POTS or dysautonomia or PEM or anything beyond the CDC CFS Toolkit rubbish. That one program directly lead me down the rabbit hole to my current understanding of the illness, whatever it is.

Physician's First Watch is an e-newsletter which I signed up for for free some years ago. I recommend it - it alerts readers to the latest findings in clinical research, including what has been found to be ineffective (often common treatments that have been used for years), what hazards have been identified, etc.

I also realised what I had (ME) due to serendipity - a video included in my Open University course, which featured a woman with ME going up stairs on her hands and knees (as I did - but rarely do now thanks largely to pacing), and walking like I do/did, dragging her feet. It was such a revelation that I cried.
 

Never Give Up

Collecting improvements, until there's a cure.
Messages
971
The comments section on this article is getting very interesting today. If you haven't been there today it's worth checking back in.
 

Little Bluestem

All Good Things Must Come to an End
Messages
4,930
The task force identified these warning signs of medical child abuse: a “highly attentive parent” who is “unusually reluctant to leave his/her child’s side mmm”
I have read that anyone who is in a hospital should ask what every drug or treatment they are given is, to be sure that it is something they are supposed to be getting. A child is not going to be able to this. They are going to have to have someone with them to do it for them. Parents would seem the best candidates.

I have also read that anyone in a hospital should have someone with them because when you are ill/injured you are often not able to keep track of these things for yourself.

When one of my parents is in the hospital, we always have someone with them. We have never had any problems from the hospital. Apparently highly highly attentive children who are reluctant (unwilling, actually) to leave their parent's side are OK.