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How Munchausen Syndrome Works · Stuff You Should Know

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