Did a false condition lead to false abuse charges?

By Wendy McElroy
web posted February 9, 2004

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP) is the psychiatric
diagnosis by which a parent -- almost always a mother -- is
believed to intentionally harm or kill a child in order to garner
attention.

Diagnosing a mother as having MSBP is a tool often used by the
state to remove children from the care of the parent, terminate
parental rights or in the case of a child's death, charge the parent
with murder. Now, due to a raging scandal in Britain, that
diagnosis is being discredited.

According to British newspapers, over the last decade,
thousands of British women who sought medical treatment for
their children were in fact risking being diagnosed with MSBP --
a diagnosis that could lead to the termination of parental rights
but also to imprisonment. Perhaps as many as tens of thousands
of children have been taken by the state from their parents on the
basis of "expert" testimony that the parent had MSBP.

But with MSBP’s originator -- pediatrician Sir Roy Meadow --
under government investigation, British authorities are being
forced to re-examine cases dating back to 1996. The Guardian
comments: "[T]he fallout from the Meadow affair is set to go
global. Thousands of families around the world who have had
their children taken into care are to demand their cases be re-
examined."

In recent years, a slew of articles on MSBP have appeared in
American medical journals. An August, 2003, FBI Law
Enforcement Bulletin included an article entitled "Munchausen
Syndrome by Proxy: the importance of behavioral artifacts."
Some American doctors, such as Dr. Marc Feldman, advertise
online their availability to testify as expert witnesses in MSBP
trials.

According to the Chicago Sun-Times, Feldman estimates there
are more than 1,200 new cases of Munchausen's by Proxy
annually in the United States. Organizations like Mothers Against
MSBP Accusations (MAMA) have sprung up in "response to
the fast growing number of false allegations" of MSBP. MAMA
claims "families across America, Britain, Australia, Canada and
New Zealand are being destroyed by doctors and other
professionals who make false and even malicious allegations
against desperate mothers of chronically/critically ill children."

The London Times points out that, this week, "the first anti-
Munchausen’s conference will take place in Australia."

How will the furor impact North America? The best indication
may be the unfolding events across the Atlantic.

The scandal in Britain was sparked by a High Court review that
revealed three mothers had been wrongly accused based on his
testimony. In one case, where a family had lost two children to
unexplained infant deaths, Meadow assessed the odds of this
happening at one-in-73 million; that figure sent the mother to jail.
In that case, Meadow’s math was rejected by the Royal
Statistical Society, which issued a press release advising the
government of a misconduct of justice.

The three cases are not isolated. Attorney General Lord
Goldsmith has announced an investigation into 258 other
verdicts. With the High Court’s reversal of "Meadow’s cases,"
the news magazine The Economist aptly stated in its Jan. 24
issue, "an entire medical and legal edifice collapsed." It is not
merely Meadow’s credibility but also the research upon which
MSBP rests -- research inexplicably shredded by Meadow --
which is under	attack.

The anxiety of anti-MSBP campaigners, who have been vocal
since 1996, now revolves around one question: what happens
next?

Parents cry out "return our children!" But Margaret Hodge, the
British minister for children, says it may be wrong to do so.
Admitting that tens of thousands of children could be involved,
Hodge maintains: "If an adoption order was made … 10 years
ago, what is in the real interest of the child? … [I]f the child was
adopted at birth the sensible thing to do is to let it stay."

At least three factors strongly contributed to this sustained
debacle in Britain.

First, medical advances and educational campaigns have caused
a marked decrease in "cot deaths" that is, unexplained deaths of
babies in Britain. Over the last decade, The Economist explained
that the number of such deaths "halved … and has since fallen to
around 300." But the fact that fewer babies die mysteriously
casts greater suspicion upon those who do. Someone must be to
blame.

Second, in both Britain and North America, there has been a
great willingness some would say a great eagerness to place legal
blame upon parents for any problem concerning children. Every
bruise seems to raise the specter of child abuse. The Economist
reports, "As early as 1995, the Canadian government was
encouraging investigators in cot death cases to ‘think dirty’ a
slogan later picked up in other countries where infant deaths had
fallen." Parents were considered guilty until proven innocent.

As one web site claims, "It's been estimated that as many as one
in five cot deaths is really … Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy."
(The "murdering" mother is said to bask in widespread sympathy
even as she poses a threat to her other children.)

Third, there has been a lack of accountability. 

The Guardian pointed to high-level negligence: Prime Minister
Tony Blair and key officials ignored warnings from "a leading
child psychologist and former government adviser" regarding
several cases in which parents had been wrongly separated from
children because of MSBP accusations. The British child welfare
system seems to be systemically flawed.

The parallels between Britain and North America are too strong
for the scandal not to ripple over. Soon, courts over here may be
reversing verdicts; officials may be weighing whether to return
children to parents who are strangers. The facts of MSBP -- is it
a valid psychiatric condition and, if so, what is the prevalence? --
may be lost in the emotional explosion.

Wendy McElroy is the editor of ifeminists.com and a research
fellow for The Independent Institute in Oakland, Calif. She is the
author and editor of many books and articles, including the new
book, "Liberty for Women: Freedom and Feminism in the 21st
Century" (Ivan R. Dee/Independent Institute, 2002). She lives
with her husband in Canada.

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