Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy Essay

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Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy: Loving Parents or Child Abusers If a parent seeks medical attention for their ailing child they expect to get answers and a cure for their child’s illness. They do not expect to be accused of manifesting their symptoms. Doctors may be at a loss as to why the child is sick and accuse the parent of having Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy. When their child has died from a mysterious cause they may be the target of a murder indictment. We need clearer lines between the child abuser (sufferer of Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy) and the loving parent. Law enforcement agencies and the medical profession need to come up with a diagnostic system for identifying the Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy sufferer. A prominent British Pediatrician, Sir Roy Meadow, discovered Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy or MSBP in 1977. He published an article in a medical journal called The Lancet. In this article Meadow published his theory of MSBP. People that suffer from this disorder are said to harm or fake symptoms of illness in their children (parents are most common) or persons in their care. They do this in order to gain attention from the medical community. He based his theory on two cases of this bizarre type of behavior he found in two mothers. One of the mothers had poisoned her child with enormous quantities of salt. The other mother had added her own blood in her baby’s urine sample. There are three different…show more content…
Because of the number of high profile acquittals where Meadow was the star witness, the court system began to question the accuracy of Meadow’s theory. At this time, there are currently 250 convictions which relied on Meadow’s testimony under investigation. Meadow himself is under investigation by the British General Medical Council for suspected professional

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