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SYSK Selects: How Munchausen Syndrome Works · Stuff You Should Know

0:01
Speaker 1: How do you everybody, it's February first, two thousand eleven.
0:05
Speaker 1: No it's not. It's modern times. But this is a
0:08
Speaker 1: throwback to February first, two thousand eleven, when Josh and
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Speaker 1: I released our episode on Monkhousen syndrome. Very very fascinating
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Speaker 1: one here everyone, really really interesting condition and very sad
0:21
Speaker 1: as well. But you should be delighted to learn all
0:26
Speaker 1: about Monkhausen syndrome today, So I hope you enjoy it.
0:29
Speaker 1: It's a it's a pretty pretty interesting one, and that's
0:31
Speaker 1: why I picked it. Welcome to Stuff you Should Know
0:37
Speaker 1: from house Stuff Works dot com. Hey, and welcome to
0:46
Speaker 1: the podcast. I'm Josh Clark with me as always as
0:48
Speaker 1: Charles W. Chuck Bryant that makes this stuff you should
0:52
Speaker 1: know the podcast. I think you didn't know. How's it going.
0:58
Speaker 1: It's going great. Your nails are shiny. I got my
1:02
Speaker 1: first manicure last week and I went for the clear
1:04
Speaker 1: cooat and I didn't notice. I didn't know this about
1:08
Speaker 1: that's an overcoat. I didn't know this about Chuck. But
1:11
Speaker 1: he um bites his nail, so he has very shiny,
1:15
Speaker 1: well trimmed half nail stubs. Yeah, a little bleedy cuticles.
1:20
Speaker 1: It's like you have some sort of like keratin deficiency
1:23
Speaker 1: or something. Let's go with that. But it's very shiny,
1:26
Speaker 1: like the caratin you do have is radioactive or I
1:30
Speaker 1: could fake like I have a carratin deficiency. Speaking of faking, Chuck,
1:34
Speaker 1: that's just amazing that you said that word, because we're
1:37
Speaker 1: going to talk about a syndrome wherein people perfectly healthy,
1:42
Speaker 1: people at least who start out healthy, fake their own illness.
1:47
Speaker 1: Bear with me. Yeah, okay, have you seen the movie
1:51
Speaker 1: The sixth Cents? Have you seen the television show The
1:55
Speaker 1: O C? No, you've never seen The C I used
2:00
Speaker 1: to be hooked on that really? Oh yeah? Is that
2:02
Speaker 1: how you got rid of TV? Yeah? I was like
2:05
Speaker 1: I can't, it's ruining my life. Um, I can't remember
2:08
Speaker 1: the girl's name in The o C. But she plays
2:11
Speaker 1: the girl in the sixth Sense who dies and who
2:13
Speaker 1: shows up to Haley Joel Osmond's character. Is it Misha Barton,
2:17
Speaker 1: like the lead girl? Yeah? Yeah, really she was the
2:19
Speaker 1: little girl in that. Yes, she was that she had
2:21
Speaker 1: to vomit and remember she was like hanging outside of
2:23
Speaker 1: his tent and just scaring the tar out of him. Well, yeah,
2:27
Speaker 1: but she turned out to be okay. She's just a
2:29
Speaker 1: little upset that her mom was feeding her pines, all right, right,
2:32
Speaker 1: and she eventually dies. She had videotaped herself. I hope
2:35
Speaker 1: everyone's seen the sixth sense if you haven't, I'm actually
2:38
Speaker 1: not really spoiling it. There's a way I could spoil
2:41
Speaker 1: it way worse than this. But um, she videotapes her
2:45
Speaker 1: mother poisoning her soup with pine saw and her mom
2:49
Speaker 1: is outed for having what's called Munchausen's biproxy and that's
2:53
Speaker 1: a derivative of what's called Munchausen syndrome, right, Munchhausen, that's
2:58
Speaker 1: another way to put it. Yeah. They also call a
3:00
Speaker 1: f II. Have you heard of that? Factitious? Close fabricated
3:04
Speaker 1: or induced illness? Where's the other F or f I?
3:09
Speaker 1: F I I induced illness? Yeah, my brain didn't function.
3:13
Speaker 1: But yeah, you were gonna say facetious disorder, which is
3:16
Speaker 1: what it is. Factitious? I was it factitious? I feel
3:19
Speaker 1: like a dummy now. I was like, yeah, that's pretty facetious.
3:23
Speaker 1: I remember when I came across the word facetious. I
3:25
Speaker 1: I used it in um my everyday vocabulary, or tried
3:29
Speaker 1: to and um, I but I was reading it in
3:32
Speaker 1: books here there and never put the two together. So
3:36
Speaker 1: finally I'm like, what is that word? And I sounded
3:38
Speaker 1: it out and a facidious, fatidious facetious. I was like,
3:42
Speaker 1: oh that's facetious. Oh yeah, no, fastidious. Is that what
3:46
Speaker 1: you were thinking? Okay, it's like facet like the facet
3:49
Speaker 1: of a diamond. I O U s. And this is fastidious.
3:55
Speaker 1: I've been reading this wrong. Okay, this is factitious. Factitious. Man,
3:59
Speaker 1: I'm a dumb We keep this in yeah, I think
4:02
Speaker 1: so all right, let's do this. Okay. So, um, this
4:05
Speaker 1: is a Munchausen or is you say? Munkhausen syndrome is
4:10
Speaker 1: a really mysterious disorder. Um. People imagine it's extremely rare. Um,
4:17
Speaker 1: but we have no idea how prevalent it is. Because
4:20
Speaker 1: one of the hallmark characteristics of Munkhausen Munchausen syndrome is
4:25
Speaker 1: that is dishonesty. Yeah, right, like you don't want to
4:28
Speaker 1: admit you have it. That's the whole point. No, And
4:30
Speaker 1: and to define it's it's where somebody who is not
4:33
Speaker 1: ill either fakes an illness or makes themselves intentionally ill
4:38
Speaker 1: in order to be able to go seek medical care
4:41
Speaker 1: and or sympathy and empathy from friends, neighbors, relatives for
4:46
Speaker 1: you know, having an illness inflicted upon them. Yeah, it's
4:49
Speaker 1: like fight club ed Norton and Helena Bottom Carter visit
4:56
Speaker 1: support groups for illnesses to get you know, get attention
4:59
Speaker 1: and feel a part of a club. I guess right, exactly.
5:03
Speaker 1: And that's actually there's a new thing called Monkhausen by Internet. Yeah,
5:07
Speaker 1: that's a big one, And that's like a new deal
5:09
Speaker 1: where you go online to online support groups and feign
5:12
Speaker 1: being sick just to feel like you're fitting in. I
5:14
Speaker 1: guess right. And it's sad. It is sad, but as
5:17
Speaker 1: we'll figure out, um, Munchausen by Internet is actually kind
5:22
Speaker 1: of a um. It provides somewhat less harmful sucker to
5:28
Speaker 1: people who need that. Right, So you're still feeding this
5:32
Speaker 1: pathological illness. It's not a mental illness, but mentally it's
5:37
Speaker 1: just as dangerous. Physically, it's not because you're getting what
5:40
Speaker 1: you want, what you crave, what you need, which is
5:43
Speaker 1: that attention and that sympathy, but you're not having to
5:46
Speaker 1: like inject gasoline to get it, and you're not going
5:50
Speaker 1: to the doctors, and you're not running up insurance premiums
5:53
Speaker 1: that shouldn't be there and all that bad stuff that
5:57
Speaker 1: happens with the real Munchhausen. Well, let's talk about the
6:00
Speaker 1: history of this. Well y one I think was when
6:03
Speaker 1: it was first described by Richard Asher in the Lancet, Right,
6:08
Speaker 1: that's when it first got its name. Okay. I read
6:11
Speaker 1: somewhere that there's like biblical accounts of people like like
6:15
Speaker 1: basically doing harm to themselves to get attention. Yeah, well,
6:19
Speaker 1: I know, I don't want to say it makes sense,
6:20
Speaker 1: but it makes sense that it goes back that long
6:23
Speaker 1: because what better way if you're very lonely then to
6:25
Speaker 1: get people to feel sorry for you then to like
6:28
Speaker 1: jump in a wheelchair all of a sudden or something
6:30
Speaker 1: a prehistoric wheelchair exactly, or at least a um. Yeah,
6:34
Speaker 1: So he named it in the Lancet, and he named
6:36
Speaker 1: it after, of course, Baron von Monkhausen, who was the
6:40
Speaker 1: eighteenth century German military man who apparently went off to
6:46
Speaker 1: fight the Russians, the Turks, the Turks and came back
6:50
Speaker 1: with all these fanciful stories that people thought were largely
6:53
Speaker 1: probably made up to get attention, right, And there's this
6:56
Speaker 1: Munchausen Appreciation Society who like actually like the guy and
7:00
Speaker 1: like the tales. Um, and they've only they've been able
7:04
Speaker 1: to pin three tales to the actual Baron Munchausen, but they, um,
7:11
Speaker 1: there's you know, whole books of what he's supposedly these
7:15
Speaker 1: tales he's supposedly told, and then Terry Gilliam got ahold
7:17
Speaker 1: of them. Well, of course we'll be remiss without saying
7:21
Speaker 1: that former Monty Python Alam made that great movie. Did
7:25
Speaker 1: you see it? Yeah? The Adventures? It was good. It
7:29
Speaker 1: seems good. I think it was Uma Thurman's first role,
7:31
Speaker 1: if I'm not mistaken. Was she in it? Yeah? That's
7:33
Speaker 1: very neat, very young Uma from from the Adventures of
7:37
Speaker 1: Baron Munchausen too, Super mom my super ex girlfriend? Yeah,
7:41
Speaker 1: what was the one where she's a mom? Though it
7:43
Speaker 1: came out even more recently, I don't know she's She's
7:46
Speaker 1: been in a bit of a talespen lately. We like
7:49
Speaker 1: him with though uh Uma and Oprah classic bit, we
7:55
Speaker 1: should probably get back to the serious timber Yes. Um,
7:58
Speaker 1: we should point out that it is not hypochondria, because
8:01
Speaker 1: hypochondriacs actually believe that they're sick, and people with Monk
8:06
Speaker 1: House and disordered. They know they're not sick, they're trying
8:08
Speaker 1: to pretend that they're sick. Right. Um, there's another, UM,
8:12
Speaker 1: I don't know if you call it a disorder, there's
8:14
Speaker 1: another state of mind that someone can be in called malingering,
8:18
Speaker 1: And that's where you pretend to be sick, either for
8:20
Speaker 1: financial gain or to get out of work. Like um,
8:23
Speaker 1: maybe from arrested development when she had the alter ego
8:27
Speaker 1: who was wheelchair bound and like raised a bunch of
8:29
Speaker 1: contributions for Yeah, I think everyone's lingered at one point
8:32
Speaker 1: or another, if it's to get out of work, right,
8:34
Speaker 1: I guess even just sending an email like, yeah, that's lingering. Yeah.
8:40
Speaker 1: In fact, the next time I do that, I'm gonna
8:41
Speaker 1: just put in the subject line malingering and see if
8:44
Speaker 1: anyone even notices what that means. That's way worse than
8:47
Speaker 1: um or. It sounds way worse than playing hookey. Yeah,
8:50
Speaker 1: you malingering. It sounds like you're defrauding somebody. So why
8:54
Speaker 1: would someone do this? Well, Um, there's a lot of reasons.
8:57
Speaker 1: The underlying reason, the underlying um part of the disorder
9:04
Speaker 1: is that it's psychological. They believe, right, it's a part
9:07
Speaker 1: of a personality disorder. And there's a number of risk
9:10
Speaker 1: factors that people who have munch House in syndrome tend
9:14
Speaker 1: to exhibit, like UM, they were they either lost a
9:17
Speaker 1: parent while they were young, or they were abandoned by
9:20
Speaker 1: a parents. Another big one, they may have UM had
9:23
Speaker 1: some sort of prolonged childhood illness is one. UM. They
9:30
Speaker 1: some are want to be doctors and nurses. Yes they can't.
9:34
Speaker 1: Maybe couldn't get a job in the medical profession or
9:37
Speaker 1: never wanted to try hard enough because it's kind of
9:39
Speaker 1: hard to do that. It's easier to just you know,
9:42
Speaker 1: hurt yourself, take it before you make it, and then
9:46
Speaker 1: you've got UM sexual physical, emotional abuse. It's this is
9:52
Speaker 1: this provides some sort of outlet. It's a really I
9:55
Speaker 1: guess really the easiest way to understand it is these
9:59
Speaker 1: people who need to be, who need attention, who need
10:03
Speaker 1: to be taken care of, who just need more than
10:07
Speaker 1: they're willing to ask for overtly have found an easy
10:10
Speaker 1: street between where where they are and where they need
10:13
Speaker 1: to be as far as attention goes. Well, it's interesting
10:16
Speaker 1: you say that because they do point out passive aggressive personality,
10:19
Speaker 1: and a lot of these people if you could just
10:21
Speaker 1: teach them like, you know, if you need more support
10:24
Speaker 1: and love, then you should be able to ask for that.
10:27
Speaker 1: But this is like the ultimate and passive aggressive I think, right,
10:30
Speaker 1: exactly exactly. Um, So when you're when you're addressing Munchausen syndrome,
10:36
Speaker 1: you um would usually treat it like you would depression
10:39
Speaker 1: or anxiety and just kind of approach it from that route.
10:44
Speaker 1: And I imagine probably as well as using cognitive behavioral
10:48
Speaker 1: therapy where it's like no, no, don't don't do that anymore,
10:51
Speaker 1: don't eat that salt, snap the rubber band on your wrist,
10:55
Speaker 1: remind yourself risk if you're lucky. Um, what else are
11:00
Speaker 1: we talking about, Chuck? Oh, some more defining characteristics. Usually
11:04
Speaker 1: people who have munch house and syndrome are young or
11:07
Speaker 1: middle aged, although there is a record of a guy
11:09
Speaker 1: who is pretty much a munch House in patient his
11:12
Speaker 1: whole life. He became famous. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, we're
11:15
Speaker 1: gonna get to him, right, That was at the cherry Yeah.
11:35
Speaker 1: And then so what do they do? I mean, how
11:36
Speaker 1: do you how do you feign illness? Well, this is
11:39
Speaker 1: where it gets really interesting, because it goes anywhere from
11:44
Speaker 1: just lying, but it's not just a lie, it's he's
11:47
Speaker 1: usually very specific, like they say that any symptom that
11:51
Speaker 1: can't be like proven medically is what they'll usually use.
11:56
Speaker 1: And they always say it's very very specific, like textbooks,
12:00
Speaker 1: symptom that they clearly read from a book. So they said, hey,
12:04
Speaker 1: if I say that i'm this, this, and this right,
12:06
Speaker 1: then I can get this attention. But the problem is
12:08
Speaker 1: if if you know, these doctors use these same physician
12:11
Speaker 1: desk references, so they go look up this, this, and this,
12:14
Speaker 1: and they go, oh, well, it's probably this, so I'm
12:18
Speaker 1: going to treat it with nitroglycerin. The problem is if
12:21
Speaker 1: you're faking these three symptoms and the nitroglycerin doesn't have
12:24
Speaker 1: any effect, that you raise some red flags for your
12:27
Speaker 1: you know, physician or nurse. Right that that's a big
12:30
Speaker 1: problem with UM, with um Munchausen syndrome is that eventually
12:36
Speaker 1: people are going to start to get suspicious, right, and
12:39
Speaker 1: you're lying too, So it's not like you can just
12:41
Speaker 1: hide behind your conviction. You're hiding behind a lie, which
12:45
Speaker 1: I think is is much more stressful. Well, and they'll
12:48
Speaker 1: go even further. I mean that's just the basic lies told.
12:51
Speaker 1: People will also physically inflict harm upon themselves everything from h,
12:57
Speaker 1: well this isn't really harm on yourself, but like heating
13:00
Speaker 1: up your thermometer, right, tampering with stuff like Henry and
13:02
Speaker 1: e T. Yeah, he was he clearly had munchausen. Well
13:06
Speaker 1: he's trying to get out of school though, so he
13:08
Speaker 1: was really lingering to stay with Yeah, but um, that
13:11
Speaker 1: is something that they will do. Uh, injecting yourself with toxins,
13:17
Speaker 1: tainting your urine samples, which you could use anything for that.
13:22
Speaker 1: I mean, even like a little salt in your urine
13:24
Speaker 1: will change things. Blood if you put a little blood
13:28
Speaker 1: in your urine or your stool. Taking medications you shouldn't
13:31
Speaker 1: be taking, yeah, or just poisoning yourself in any in
13:34
Speaker 1: any way, shape or form. But apparently injecting is is
13:37
Speaker 1: fairly common. Um. And then you said also when you
13:41
Speaker 1: were talking about feigning illness and choosing specific um symptoms,
13:47
Speaker 1: they may also take a different route and and choose
13:50
Speaker 1: very broad symptoms like chest paint or um like nausea
13:54
Speaker 1: or something like that. It could be anything. Yeah, that'll
13:56
Speaker 1: just tie a doctor up for hours, if not days,
13:58
Speaker 1: which is what they want is more and attention, Like oh,
14:01
Speaker 1: you're gonna have to come in tomorrow too. They're probably sweet, right.
14:03
Speaker 1: And And one of the one of the reasons that
14:07
Speaker 1: tying a doctor up is just great is because within
14:09
Speaker 1: those hours, this doctor is going to get more and
14:12
Speaker 1: more baffled and order more and more tests. And one
14:15
Speaker 1: of the if the doctors paying attention, he or she
14:18
Speaker 1: would notice that the munchaus And patient is more than
14:20
Speaker 1: happy to do this next test, like sure, stick that there,
14:24
Speaker 1: or maybe even suggested like shouldn't you do this test
14:26
Speaker 1: and stick that there? Those are two uh characteristics are
14:30
Speaker 1: two um um symptoms of Munchausen syndrome. Is that you
14:34
Speaker 1: are very willing, if not eager, to any and every
14:37
Speaker 1: test that they want to do, whereas most people are
14:39
Speaker 1: probably you know, like do you have to do that?
14:43
Speaker 1: Is there another thing to do? Right? Um? And then
14:46
Speaker 1: extensive knowledge about um tests and procedures and symptoms and
14:53
Speaker 1: the inner workings of a hospital. Those two things should
14:56
Speaker 1: be big red flags if you are a physician and
14:58
Speaker 1: you suspect, you know, you're having kind of troubled dealing
15:02
Speaker 1: with somebody's symptoms, but not because you're dumb, because you're
15:06
Speaker 1: trying everything well. Yeah, and inconsistency is one thing to
15:09
Speaker 1: look for it in your medical history. If they say, well,
15:12
Speaker 1: you're in here for high blood pressure, you were in
15:15
Speaker 1: here last year for low blood pressure. So that's a
15:17
Speaker 1: little weird. Yeah, because I think I would imagine if
15:22
Speaker 1: you're getting what you need, and especially if it's like
15:24
Speaker 1: a standard kind of um pathological behavior where it builds
15:29
Speaker 1: up and up, like remember we talked about kleptomania, Like
15:32
Speaker 1: the urge just builds up and builds up and until
15:34
Speaker 1: it becomes irresistible, and afterwards there's just catharsis and then
15:38
Speaker 1: the guilt or whatever. I don't I didn't see it anywhere,
15:41
Speaker 1: but if Munchausen syndrome is like that, one would imagine
15:44
Speaker 1: that you kind of lose touch with your previous lies
15:49
Speaker 1: and you're not looking at it as a big picture
15:51
Speaker 1: thing like this for the rest of my life. It's
15:53
Speaker 1: very like, you know, let's let's do it now and
15:56
Speaker 1: get this done and get this over with. And maybe
15:58
Speaker 1: if they actually sat down and saw their metal history sheet,
16:01
Speaker 1: they'd say, oh, right, need to take this in a
16:04
Speaker 1: different direction. I UM. I read an account of a
16:07
Speaker 1: guy who um feigned bereavement. It was called factitious bereavement,
16:11
Speaker 1: and he showed up at the hospital UM and was
16:13
Speaker 1: committed for like four weeks because he was um grieving
16:17
Speaker 1: over the car accident death of his wife seven weeks
16:21
Speaker 1: earlier and the heart attack death of his mother three
16:24
Speaker 1: weeks earlier. And then he was interviewed. He was giving
16:27
Speaker 1: a family history, and three of his fourteen siblings had
16:30
Speaker 1: died young from things like throat cancer, some other accident
16:34
Speaker 1: and another thing um. And they started asking this guy
16:38
Speaker 1: more and more questions, and he wouldn't produce like a
16:40
Speaker 1: photo of his wife, and he wouldn't let anybody talk
16:43
Speaker 1: to his family, and they started to get kind of suspicious.
16:46
Speaker 1: Finally contact and found out who his family was. Contacted
16:50
Speaker 1: his mother, who was alive, His eleven siblings were all
16:53
Speaker 1: doing well. He didn't have fourteen and three hadn't died,
16:56
Speaker 1: and he was never married. And when they confronted him
16:59
Speaker 1: with this stuff, he just continued to lie and lie
17:02
Speaker 1: and lie. So there's a pathological bent pathological lying aspect
17:08
Speaker 1: too Munchausen, which is called pseudological fantastica. Yeah, well, you
17:15
Speaker 1: brought up an important point. Not letting family be involved.
17:17
Speaker 1: That's a big tell too. If you. They say, you know,
17:19
Speaker 1: you should probably bring your husband in and uh, oh no, no, no,
17:22
Speaker 1: we don't need to involve him, right or or he's dead, yeah, exactly, Yeah,
17:27
Speaker 1: you don't want to talk to him. He's dead. It's
17:29
Speaker 1: not funny at all. So that's Munchausen syndrome. UM. There's
17:34
Speaker 1: a high risk of suicide with Munchausen, probably accidental suicide.
17:40
Speaker 1: I mean people that go too far by accident, or
17:43
Speaker 1: they just coming to the end of the road. I
17:45
Speaker 1: hadn't thought about that. UM, I heard come to the
17:47
Speaker 1: end of the road. That's terrible. What I mean like that, Um,
17:50
Speaker 1: thirty to seventy percent is what I saw. But I
17:52
Speaker 1: don't know. Maybe it would be accidental suicide. Interesting, I
17:56
Speaker 1: don't even know if there's such a thing. But there's
17:58
Speaker 1: also all sorts of other myriad problems that arise from
18:01
Speaker 1: Munchausen syndrome, right, like UM, real illness, Like if you're
18:05
Speaker 1: a Munchausen suffer happily, you can eventually make yourself like
18:09
Speaker 1: genuinely ill um from injecting toxic stuff. UM. I read
18:14
Speaker 1: another account of a guy who was UM, who had
18:17
Speaker 1: suffered a number of amputations, medical amputations. He was missing,
18:21
Speaker 1: like pieces of his fingers. He forced, like the doctors
18:27
Speaker 1: to do it, he would cut himself. He kept a
18:31
Speaker 1: little knife in a little bag of liquid feces on
18:33
Speaker 1: him at all times because this thing was to cut
18:36
Speaker 1: and then smear poop on the cut to make sure
18:39
Speaker 1: it got infected. Let it faster, go seek medical attention.
18:42
Speaker 1: And it was far too late and have his limbs amputated,
18:46
Speaker 1: have his extremities amputated. But apparently the cut and smear
18:51
Speaker 1: is not He's not the only one doing that. The
18:53
Speaker 1: cut and smear, that's what I've done that. I was
18:56
Speaker 1: about to say it has a name, No, I just
18:57
Speaker 1: made up. Well, that's what I'd call it. Cutting smear. Well,
19:01
Speaker 1: clearly one of the biggest problems too, is not just
19:03
Speaker 1: the harm you're doing yourself, but you're tying up doctor's time.
19:07
Speaker 1: You're you're spending money, if not your money, maybe it's
19:10
Speaker 1: Medicare or whatever insurance carrier you have. It's very wasteful
19:14
Speaker 1: and it's taking up time doctors have to treat real
19:17
Speaker 1: patients when you need to be treated by a mental
19:20
Speaker 1: health professional is what you need. And a lot of
19:22
Speaker 1: these guys too. When you're talking about tying up physicians time.
19:25
Speaker 1: They'll go um at times when there's different staff, lesser staff,
19:30
Speaker 1: so like weekend nights, holidays, that kind of thing. So
19:33
Speaker 1: when they tie up because there'll be different people who
19:36
Speaker 1: haven't met them before and are familiar with them. Um,
19:39
Speaker 1: So when they're tying up people's time, they're really tying
19:42
Speaker 1: up their time, you know. No good. So that's traditional
19:45
Speaker 1: monk housen, which is bad. Yeah, but it gets worse. Yeah,
19:50
Speaker 1: Mike Housen by proxy. Right, twenty years after the guy
19:53
Speaker 1: um Richard Asher Dr. Richard Asher um coin the term
19:57
Speaker 1: one chius in syndrome. Uh, another guy named um Roy
20:03
Speaker 1: Meadows coined the term Munchausen syndrome by proxy, and that
20:09
Speaker 1: one is not as recognized, readily recognized as real as
20:15
Speaker 1: Munchausen syndrome. Yeah, did you run into that recognizes? What
20:20
Speaker 1: do you mean? Well, I proven, Yeah, scientifically proven. It's
20:26
Speaker 1: I think the way that I'm seeing it is it's
20:29
Speaker 1: viewed by some as more like remember the Satanic worshiper
20:32
Speaker 1: hysteria of the eighties. It kind of falls into line
20:36
Speaker 1: with that, although this is much more established than that.
20:40
Speaker 1: Is like the A m A recognizes it that American
20:43
Speaker 1: Psychological Association recognizes it, but it's still it's easily it's
20:50
Speaker 1: a lot more easily misconstrued than Munchausen syndrome. Is because
20:55
Speaker 1: there's another person who's being harmed and because they're usually
20:59
Speaker 1: chill and right. Well, yeah, this is the deal. It's
21:02
Speaker 1: usually children, but not always. It's basically your caregiver to somebody,
21:06
Speaker 1: um and you are maybe poisoning them, you maybe are
21:10
Speaker 1: smothering them so they developed breathing problems. Uh, there's all
21:15
Speaker 1: sorts of awful, abusive things that you can do to
21:19
Speaker 1: bring your child in And that's when I mean you
21:22
Speaker 1: talk about getting sympathy, is when you run into a
21:24
Speaker 1: hospital with your baby saying my baby is sick, my
21:27
Speaker 1: baby is sick, or even worse than dead baby. Yeah,
21:30
Speaker 1: and that happened sadly all the time. Well, the first
21:32
Speaker 1: two cases um that that the guy Roy Meadows, Dr
21:37
Speaker 1: Roy Meadows um described we're. One of them was a
21:42
Speaker 1: dead kid um, a little fourteen month old Charles whose
21:47
Speaker 1: mom had been feeding him salt and kept bringing him
21:50
Speaker 1: back to the hospital and doctors had no idea what
21:52
Speaker 1: was going on, and eventually he died. The other one
21:55
Speaker 1: was a little girl, right. Yeah, her name was Kay
21:58
Speaker 1: and she was six and she was admitted twelve times
22:02
Speaker 1: for a urinary tract infection, treated with all kinds of
22:05
Speaker 1: antibiotics and none of them ever worked. And that's obviously
22:09
Speaker 1: the doctors were like, something's going on here, or at
22:11
Speaker 1: least Roy Meadow was well. He wrote a study about
22:16
Speaker 1: both of these cases, called it Munchausen by Proxy and
22:18
Speaker 1: just basically like changed everything. Yeah, I mean you took
22:22
Speaker 1: this fairly obscure disease um and turned it into this huge,
22:29
Speaker 1: almost hysterical entity. Yeah. One of the problems is if
22:36
Speaker 1: you are suspected of this, at least in the States,
22:40
Speaker 1: and I think the UK is big on it too.
22:42
Speaker 1: But if you're suspected of this um, all a physician
22:46
Speaker 1: has to do is say, uh, you know, called Family
22:49
Speaker 1: and Children's Services or whatever you call it, county or state,
22:53
Speaker 1: and say, I think I have a Munchausen m case. Here.
22:57
Speaker 1: A social worker comes, takes your kid, and then you
23:00
Speaker 1: go through the hoops to prove that you don't have it. Right,
23:03
Speaker 1: the burden of proof is on the parent who's been accused. Yeah,
23:06
Speaker 1: this is a tricky one. We got We'll talk about
23:09
Speaker 1: this doctor well we can talk about him right now. Southall, Yeah,
23:13
Speaker 1: Dr David Southall in England, very controversial guy who conducted
23:18
Speaker 1: some hidden video experiments surveillance in the nineties and UH
23:23
Speaker 1: in hospitals. So what he would do was he would
23:26
Speaker 1: videotape these parents inflicting harm on their kids for cases
23:30
Speaker 1: that they suspected. It was Monkhausen and in the end
23:33
Speaker 1: he got thirty three of these UH thirty nine suspected
23:38
Speaker 1: abusers were prosecuted. Twenty three were diagnosed with f I
23:42
Speaker 1: I And you think, well that's awesome, but it's also
23:46
Speaker 1: like your videotaping someone doing harm to a kid. It
23:49
Speaker 1: was very, very controversial, and this guy has been removed
23:53
Speaker 1: and put back on the UH the list the GMC
23:56
Speaker 1: General Medical Counsel which means you can practice medicine in England.
23:59
Speaker 1: He's been on and off of this thing for years
24:01
Speaker 1: and I think just this year he was finally reinstated again. Right,
24:05
Speaker 1: They finally said that we're not going to go after
24:07
Speaker 1: this guy anymore. But tell about the big the documentary. Well,
24:12
Speaker 1: he accused these um, these parents publicly of UM killing
24:17
Speaker 1: their two sons based on a TV documentary he saw them. Yeah, well,
24:21
Speaker 1: the woman was already convicted of killing the sons, and
24:24
Speaker 1: then he was watching the documentary and said, you know,
24:26
Speaker 1: I think the husband, Stephen was the guy. And then
24:30
Speaker 1: that was that, like a huge inquisition was launched and
24:34
Speaker 1: like this guy's life was turned up on, you know,
24:36
Speaker 1: upside down. Um, and there are a lot of accusations
24:39
Speaker 1: like that. I get the feeling from this guy that
24:42
Speaker 1: he was one of those uh, if you look for it,
24:45
Speaker 1: you're going to find it kind of guys. Think about
24:48
Speaker 1: the prevalence in one hospital that he was able to
24:50
Speaker 1: document thirty thirty three, uh thirty nine total that he
24:55
Speaker 1: was spying on thirty three prosecutor he was able to
24:58
Speaker 1: document thirty three k is the Munchausen by proxy? I
25:01
Speaker 1: mean like that means the prevalence is like probably more
25:06
Speaker 1: than half of the global population suffers from Munchausen by
25:10
Speaker 1: proxy in that case, Like, if that's the case, you
25:13
Speaker 1: know what I mean? Well, I thought these were special
25:15
Speaker 1: cases he was surveilling. Now I don't know. I don't
25:17
Speaker 1: think it was just random. Okay, well that would definitely
25:20
Speaker 1: change the ratio. But still and thanks for that, But
25:25
Speaker 1: still I don't even know what I meant by that
26:02
Speaker 1: there are there are people also out there, um, who
26:05
Speaker 1: question if Munchad's and biproxy does exist. Yeah. Apparently. Um.
26:12
Speaker 1: There's a lot of accusations that fly at parents of
26:14
Speaker 1: autistic kids. There's a sub term that's been coined called
26:20
Speaker 1: Asperger's by by proxy. Yeah. Um. And there's a lot
26:24
Speaker 1: of autistic parents who are like, oh, yeah, yeah, is
26:27
Speaker 1: that what you think, not saying my kid is sick,
26:29
Speaker 1: like ill with physically ill, but my child has Asperger's Yeah,
26:34
Speaker 1: And the physicians are like, no, your kid doesn't. It's you.
26:36
Speaker 1: You're doing this too. You're developmentally delaying your kid for
26:39
Speaker 1: attention or whatever. Again, if it does exist, it you
26:44
Speaker 1: know clearly the kid needs protection from the parents. This
26:47
Speaker 1: is the parent almost every time he's doing it. I
26:50
Speaker 1: think pent of the time it's the mom. But you're
26:53
Speaker 1: also running the risk of taking a kid away from
26:57
Speaker 1: you know, perfectly normal parents, right. Um. And apparently the
27:02
Speaker 1: other big bonu contention is the people who make this
27:06
Speaker 1: diagnosis almost every time is a pediatrician, not a psychiatrist
27:11
Speaker 1: or psychologists. All a pediatrician has to do is pick
27:14
Speaker 1: up the phone and say I think I got a
27:15
Speaker 1: munch house in case here, get over here, right, get
27:17
Speaker 1: this kid. Yeah, well it's important. You said, it's a
27:21
Speaker 1: nine percent in the times by the mother, and that's
27:24
Speaker 1: that's what is going on most times, that the the
27:26
Speaker 1: cases are all sort of the same, and that there's
27:29
Speaker 1: a woman who's the generally responsible for the stay at
27:33
Speaker 1: home parenting. Maybe the husband is not very involved in
27:36
Speaker 1: giving them enough attention. In one way to stop that
27:40
Speaker 1: and its tracts is to make your baby sick. That's
27:42
Speaker 1: what happened with this one lady may Mary Beth Tinning.
27:46
Speaker 1: Between seventy two and eighty five, all nine of her
27:49
Speaker 1: children died and she was very distraught and got lots
27:54
Speaker 1: and lots of sympathy. Was arrested in eighty six and
27:57
Speaker 1: it turns out that she had smothered her children, uh
28:00
Speaker 1: with a pillow. And then they asked a husband and
28:03
Speaker 1: he said, quote, you have to trust your wife. She
28:06
Speaker 1: has her things to do, and as long as she
28:07
Speaker 1: gets them done, you don't ask questions. So that's kind
28:10
Speaker 1: of the typical case of this uninvolved husband. Clearly uninvolved husband,
28:15
Speaker 1: that's beyond un involved, that's like apathetic, Yeah, exactly almost,
28:19
Speaker 1: And that's allegedly apathetic allegedly, and she was convicted UM
28:24
Speaker 1: for real in eighty seven and sentenced to twenty years.
28:26
Speaker 1: And that's one of the saddest cases I've ever heard.
28:29
Speaker 1: There's another one, UM w Nita Hoyt. You know, SID
28:32
Speaker 1: Sudden infant death syndrome still is a medical mystery. UM.
28:36
Speaker 1: But there was a time when they thought that it
28:40
Speaker 1: ran in families, and they were hot on the trail
28:42
Speaker 1: of explaining sid's as like a genetic uh disorder UH.
28:48
Speaker 1: And it was based on a woman named Juanita Hoyt
28:51
Speaker 1: who UM had six children died between nineteen six five
28:55
Speaker 1: and nineteen seventy one, and her primary physician wrote a
29:00
Speaker 1: study that kind of made a name for himself as
29:02
Speaker 1: a career UM as an expert on SIDS based on
29:05
Speaker 1: this woman's experience and UM in the nineties a I
29:10
Speaker 1: guess a local prosecutor heard about this story and was
29:13
Speaker 1: suspicious and started digging around, and it turned out that
29:17
Speaker 1: this lady had killed her kids, all six of them,
29:20
Speaker 1: but not only had killed her kids, had also derailed
29:22
Speaker 1: The investigation of SIDS also raised a lot of questions
29:26
Speaker 1: of what what does account for SIDS? Is there such
29:30
Speaker 1: thing as SIDS? Is it all cases of mother's killing
29:33
Speaker 1: their children. Um, there's there's a lot of questions about
29:38
Speaker 1: what percentage of mysterious infant deaths are related to you know,
29:44
Speaker 1: foul play. Well, and that that's just a prime example
29:47
Speaker 1: of all the ramifications that Monkhausen has not just on
29:51
Speaker 1: your child, but like diverting the path of medical research. Yeah,
29:55
Speaker 1: and and not only that the chuck again, we keep
29:58
Speaker 1: coming back to, you know, a engine being a parent
30:01
Speaker 1: who lost your kid. You have no idea how right, Um?
30:05
Speaker 1: And no other people are accusing you of killing your kid. Right? Okay,
30:10
Speaker 1: So chuck. If the the the idea that Munchausen biproxy
30:16
Speaker 1: uh does exist, as I said, is endorsed by the
30:18
Speaker 1: A M A and the A P A. What are
30:20
Speaker 1: some of the um, what are some of the symptoms
30:23
Speaker 1: of it by proxy? Yeah. One of the things is
30:27
Speaker 1: that the symptoms don't match the test results. One thing
30:31
Speaker 1: is sometimes a caregiver is actually a nurse or works
30:34
Speaker 1: in the health care industry. Uh, they could be siblings.
30:39
Speaker 1: The child might have died under weird circumstances. Um, it's
30:44
Speaker 1: kind of the same as the adult things. There's a mysterious,
30:46
Speaker 1: unexplained symptoms that aren't going away, uh not, Matt, you know,
30:51
Speaker 1: bizarre medical history. All these things are red flags. And
30:54
Speaker 1: there's also UM. It's prevalent in healthcare workers. Remember with
31:00
Speaker 1: Munchausen syndrome, you wanted to be a healthcare worker. In
31:03
Speaker 1: Munchausen by proxy, you may be a healthcare worker. Oh
31:08
Speaker 1: you did? Yeah? Okay, well you so you know, like
31:10
Speaker 1: the angels of death, like the that's a type of
31:13
Speaker 1: Munchausen by proxy. Yeah, oh yeah, I guess so. Yeah,
31:17
Speaker 1: people who like kill the elderly. There's a doctor. I
31:20
Speaker 1: think that the United Kingdom's most prolific serial killer was
31:25
Speaker 1: a physician who just like dispatched his patients. He was
31:28
Speaker 1: like treating them, but really killing him. And he killed
31:32
Speaker 1: a lot of people. Well, speaking of a lot of things,
31:37
Speaker 1: we can't close without talking about William You pronounced that,
31:41
Speaker 1: Michael Hoy. Yeah, he is in the Guinness Book of
31:45
Speaker 1: World Records actually because he UM had four operations in
31:51
Speaker 1: a hundred different hospitals to the tune of four million dollars.
31:55
Speaker 1: But because it's Britain, it's all subsidized healthcare, so that's
31:59
Speaker 1: a lot of dough go into this one guy and
32:02
Speaker 1: he didn't have any of these things. He was a
32:05
Speaker 1: monk howser. Can I say that? I think you can't.
32:10
Speaker 1: It's not funny because he eventually died. Well, actually he
32:14
Speaker 1: just died in a retirement home, so it doesn't really
32:17
Speaker 1: say that he might have died from any of his treatment. Yeah.
32:19
Speaker 1: I wonder though, Yeah, was he a monk howser cutting smear,
32:23
Speaker 1: cutting monk howser operations? He was cutting and smear and something. Um,
32:27
Speaker 1: I've got one for you. That's here. So remember we
32:31
Speaker 1: talked about Munchausen by Internet. Ah, yeah, so there was
32:34
Speaker 1: like this. The first description came in the nineties. Obviously,
32:37
Speaker 1: you can't have Munchausen by Internet. Before the internet was around,
32:40
Speaker 1: you'd be very far ahead of your time. But very
32:44
Speaker 1: very quickly, right off the bat, there was a huge
32:46
Speaker 1: what was first termed by The New York Times as
32:48
Speaker 1: a hoax. Um. There was a little nineteen year old, spunky,
32:52
Speaker 1: very positive nineteen year old named Casey Swinton who lived
32:57
Speaker 1: in Kansas, and she kept um The New York Times
33:01
Speaker 1: referred to in two thousand one as a weblog right
33:04
Speaker 1: of her um battle with leukemia, which she lost in
33:09
Speaker 1: May two thousand one. And she had this huge following
33:11
Speaker 1: of people who really genuinely cared and were supportive of her,
33:15
Speaker 1: and we're pulling forward and let her know. Um. And
33:17
Speaker 1: then in May two thousand one, there they went to
33:20
Speaker 1: the weblog and found news that Casey had died, and UM,
33:25
Speaker 1: I don't know who exactly got suspicious, but people started
33:28
Speaker 1: looking at Casey's mother, who actually turned out to be Casey.
33:33
Speaker 1: There was no Casey ever. This woman just created this
33:36
Speaker 1: whole fictitious character too that had leukemia and who died
33:42
Speaker 1: and received like cards and presents and flowers and condolences
33:47
Speaker 1: for a kid that never existed. You know, if I
33:49
Speaker 1: was going to fake something on the internet, I would
33:51
Speaker 1: fake that I'm awesome, Like I would make it. What
33:54
Speaker 1: do you think we're doing right now? Well exactly, I
33:58
Speaker 1: would be like the Walter minist Aisle. I would just
34:00
Speaker 1: make up these awesome stories about myself. But I mean,
34:03
Speaker 1: this is a real mental disorder, it's not I'm not
34:05
Speaker 1: making that you guys should just choose to be awesome
34:08
Speaker 1: instead of sick. Yeah no, no, I'm not saying no,
34:11
Speaker 1: I don't think that. I sincerely hope no one took
34:14
Speaker 1: you like that. May you'd be surprised with these emails.
34:17
Speaker 1: And then lastly, there I ran across the case of
34:19
Speaker 1: a double munch housing case, Munchausen and Munchausen by proxy
34:24
Speaker 1: and the same mother daughter duo. The mother used to
34:27
Speaker 1: inject her daughter with her daughter's knowledge with bacteria and
34:31
Speaker 1: had been doing it for so long. The daughter had
34:33
Speaker 1: both kidneys removed and was on full dialysis, so she
34:37
Speaker 1: was in on it too. Basically, Yeah, she the mother
34:39
Speaker 1: had Munchausen by proxy and she just had and the
34:43
Speaker 1: daughter was both a Munchausen by proxy victim and Munchausen. Yes,
34:49
Speaker 1: all right, well before you send an emails about the
34:52
Speaker 1: X files, Yeah, and E R and M and M
34:58
Speaker 1: sorry mama, three of them here, do your eminem. I'm sorry, mama.
35:05
Speaker 1: Eminem had a lyric that said, uh, going through public
35:09
Speaker 1: housing systems, victim of Munchausen syndrome. My whole life, I
35:13
Speaker 1: was made to believe I was sick when I wasn't.
35:15
Speaker 1: And it was on the X files they investigated Mounkhausen
35:19
Speaker 1: by proxy. Yeah, I don't remember that, do you. I
35:22
Speaker 1: don't remember that either. I was always into the like
35:25
Speaker 1: the real plot line arc of the whole series was
35:28
Speaker 1: okay with a smoking man and all that and the
35:31
Speaker 1: you know, molder sister. I liked how they mixed it
35:33
Speaker 1: up though, but I liked the just stand alone like
35:36
Speaker 1: there's a shape shifter in the forest right or um
35:41
Speaker 1: uh pontsa da Leon's men are still living in Florida
35:44
Speaker 1: because they discovered the fund because they turned in a
35:46
Speaker 1: little invisible weirdos. I didn't watch that show at the time,
35:49
Speaker 1: but the stand alone ones were like Scooby Dooce hint hint.
35:54
Speaker 1: But I didn't watch that show when it was on
35:55
Speaker 1: for real at all, and then when it went into
35:57
Speaker 1: reruns Monday through Friday, I watched it the whole series. Yeah, yeah,
36:02
Speaker 1: I love those those two. Those movies were pretty good too.
36:07
Speaker 1: What's it for? Um? This episode on the X Files?
36:10
Speaker 1: If you want to learn more about it? Type X files?
36:12
Speaker 1: Where we what's it X files? Munchausen? Yeah, type Munchausen.
36:19
Speaker 1: You want to spell it for him? Yeah, it's h
36:21
Speaker 1: m U n c h A U s U s
36:23
Speaker 1: e n. You want to do it again m U
36:25
Speaker 1: n c h A U s E N. Yes, And
36:30
Speaker 1: I would. I would. I should have done a bell
36:32
Speaker 1: at the first one. Mm hm oh because I missed it. Okay,
36:38
Speaker 1: you can type that into the search bar at how
36:39
Speaker 1: stuff works dot com to learn more about this mysterious
36:42
Speaker 1: and extremely fascinating disease. Um. And until then, let's do
36:48
Speaker 1: some listener mail. Josh, this is a maybe a weird
36:54
Speaker 1: listener mail to put at the end of this one.
36:56
Speaker 1: What are we doing it on this one? This is
36:57
Speaker 1: a very very special listener and everyone should listen to
37:01
Speaker 1: this one because it's pretty pretty cool. Dude, are we
37:05
Speaker 1: going to put a drum rolling at all? I think
37:07
Speaker 1: we should at some point. Doug lives in North Idaho.
37:11
Speaker 1: Doug and I were riding back and forth last week
37:13
Speaker 1: about fishing trout fishing, Okay. I don't remember how it started,
37:18
Speaker 1: but it started, okay, and I fish for trout here
37:21
Speaker 1: and there in North Georgia. It's sort of fun. I'm
37:23
Speaker 1: not like the hugest fisherman, and Doug is an avid
37:26
Speaker 1: I think fly fisherman. So we're just kinda chit chatting.
37:29
Speaker 1: And he said that he and his girlfriend Kena, she's
37:34
Speaker 1: now gotten him or he got her hooked on the show.
37:36
Speaker 1: And he said, I know you'll never read this, and
37:38
Speaker 1: Keena's just making fun of me. Right now, And I said,
37:41
Speaker 1: you tell Kena to shut it. That's not very nice.
37:43
Speaker 1: And he wrote back and said she's laughing that we're emailing,
37:46
Speaker 1: and he said shut it. And this is the best
37:47
Speaker 1: thing ever. And he said, but guys, her birthday is
37:51
Speaker 1: February two, and uh, I got a plan that I
37:55
Speaker 1: want to hatch. So right now as you people are listening,
38:00
Speaker 1: I don't know about right this second, but over the
38:02
Speaker 1: next day on February two, at some point, Doug is
38:05
Speaker 1: in his car. He's he's with Kena right now, and
38:09
Speaker 1: she's probably going, what's going on here? This is weird.
38:12
Speaker 1: She's she's laughing nervously. She's laughing here, maybe like trying
38:16
Speaker 1: the door handle to see if it's flocked. But Doug
38:18
Speaker 1: is actually the one who is nervous, because Doug has
38:22
Speaker 1: something very important to say, and that is Keena. He
38:30
Speaker 1: would like you to be his wife. He's asking you
38:35
Speaker 1: to marry him. Right now. We sort of are, but
38:39
Speaker 1: we're not marrying you. It's actually Doug and this is uh,
38:42
Speaker 1: this is the first for us. There's a marriage proposal
38:47
Speaker 1: right here on the show. Somewhere in Idaho. Keina should
38:51
Speaker 1: hopefully have a ring on her finger at this point,
38:54
Speaker 1: don't you think, what do we do if with the
38:56
Speaker 1: answer is no? I guess we'll hear from Doug. We
38:59
Speaker 1: won't break the people, though. I think we should go
39:01
Speaker 1: ahead on the premise that she says yes, all right,
39:03
Speaker 1: so I mean, what else can we say? I can't
39:06
Speaker 1: believe we just said that. Yeah, Doug the trout fisherman
39:09
Speaker 1: is marrying Keena, and congratulations mozeltof again. Right, yeah, it's funny.
39:15
Speaker 1: Where do we go from here? I don't know. It's
39:17
Speaker 1: like we should probably just like fade out with us wondering.
39:20
Speaker 1: I guess, so send us an email, right yeah. Stuff
39:23
Speaker 1: podcast how stuff works dot com holy Cow. For more
39:31
Speaker 1: on this and thousands of other topics, visit how stuff
39:34
Speaker 1: works dot com. To learn more about the podcast, click
39:36
Speaker 1: on the podcast icon in the upper right corner of
39:39
Speaker 1: our homepage. The how Stuff Works iPhone app has arrived.
39:42
Speaker 1: Download it today on iTunes.