My opinion from the start was that the baby murdering nurse, Lucy Letby was in the same vein as muchausen. She seemed to love being The Unfortunate One dealing with the baby deaths and would enjoy "predicting" collapses. She was also an emotional vampire fed on the sorrow of the parents. So many people are still strongly in denial about her guilt because she didn't at all fit a "profile" of a serial murderer and I think this is partially why. People would not necessarily understand the motivations of someone who's whole life is bout monopolising sympathy for themselves in a medical setting. It's hard to fully explain my instincts on it.
I checked to see if there was any discussion of the Maya Kowalski case, but the only thread I found was on A&H. While some of the comments are interesting, most of the thread is of questionable quality.
I honestly don’t know much about the case because I haven’t watched the Netflix doc or really kept track of it, but I’ve noticed people commenting on it on various social media platforms who are casting doubt on Munchausen’s even being real, which…idk, just look at Gypsy Rose. The Munchies in this thread go to beyond extreme lengths to make themselves ill and not only do their family members believe they are sick and victims of medical abuse, it seems to me like most of the Munchies themselves are convinced of it as well. All I can say is that a lot of the red flags that are seen in typical munchie cases show up in Maya’s case — vague and inconsistent symptoms, doctor shopping, extreme treatments, miraculous recoveries.
Does anyone else here have any opinions on this case?
Did you read the article, too? I'll be honest: that's all I read, so feel free to take me with a heap of salt.
Anyway, the article heavily discussed Sally Smith, who was in charge of protecting children in that medical system, and who was apparently extremely zealous about making accusations of child abuse and believed that she had never made a mistake, ever, in her life. She was also the one to order a separation test between Maya and her parents; i.e. remove the supposed Munchie and see if symptoms improve. But they didn't, so they reasonably concluded that Munchausen's by Proxy was not the cause of Maya's symptoms.... instead it must be that Maya herself has Munchausen's! But also her parents are still evil abusers and must still be kept separated from her! For, uh... some reason!
While the mother's behavior sounded pretty suspicious to me at first, and while I think it's naive to trust a journalist, especially about a matter so dear to the hearts of their audience, I feel fairly confident in taking Sally Smith at her own word and I think her behavior alone is enough to cast doubt on the outcome of this case and probably every case she's managed.
“My job is not to make mistakes,” she said. “To my knowledge, I don’t have any cases where I’ve made an incorrect conclusion.”
She added, “We have children that come to see us that have less serious injuries, where a recommendation is made for a child to be removed for their safety. And the next day, the judge declines that request. Just because they determine they’re not going to proceed with criminal charges doesn’t mean that there wasn’t child abuse or that I quote-unquote made a mistake.”
(in reply to a christmas card she'd received every year from parents she'd accused of abuse, showing their happy family together, and apparently the closest she's ever come to admitting a mistake)
I received your card again this year and just wanted to say I’m sorry you’re still so angry about my part in the investigation regarding your son. As you both know from your work, there are definitely a disturbing number of abused and neglected children in Pinellas County. I understand you feel very strongly that your son wasn’t one of them. I try very hard to be thorough and “get it right,” but perhaps I need to be more careful to consider gray areas.
I checked to see if there was any discussion of the Maya Kowalski case, but the only thread I found was on A&H. While some of the comments are interesting, most of the thread is of questionable quality.
I honestly don’t know much about the case because I haven’t watched the Netflix doc or really kept track of it, but I’ve noticed people commenting on it on various social media platforms who are casting doubt on Munchausen’s even being real, which…idk, just look at Gypsy Rose. The Munchies in this thread go to beyond extreme lengths to make themselves ill and not only do their family members believe they are sick and victims of medical abuse, it seems to me like most of the Munchies themselves are convinced of it as well. All I can say is that a lot of the red flags that are seen in typical munchie cases show up in Maya’s case — vague and inconsistent symptoms, doctor shopping, extreme treatments, miraculous recoveries.
Does anyone else here have any opinions on this case?
I HAVE MANY OPINIONS. I didn't start with the Netflix docu. I read about it in the news a while then I watched some of the trial footage and read some of the commentary that's been posted in skeptical subreddits (not much because FUCK those ladies are annoying), listened to Children's Hospital of Philadelphia's podcast episode about it, and also started to listen to the podcast Nobody Should Believe Me which did a whole season on the case but haven't made it far into that. Maybe a week ago I watched the docu.
Going into it with just some news stories I was pretty sympathetic to the family. My initial read was that Maya had FND and her mother was a genuinely concerned and well-informed parent. She was an infusion nurse for a home health company. I thought because of her cultural stigma she rejected the FND diagnosis and ended up with an "expert" who told her it was CRPS and her daughter would die without treatment. I know from living near Pinellas Co where this all happened that their CPS is privatised and there's a lot of controversy about how willing they are to remove children from families and seek termination of parental rights, so I thought this was another example of them being too gung-ho.
My opinion on that is that while I think they are overreacting in a lot of cases, I understand why they went in this direction in the face of some truly heinous crimes in the state like the murder of Nubia Barahona, a young girl with a real endocrine disorder that required regular medical monitoring and care. Her adoptive family was reported for both abuse and medical neglect over and over but they convinced CPS that her low weight, bruises, and hair loss were just the result of the disorder. Even if that was the case, it would still be their fault as her medical team had reported them for not bringing her to her appointments or doing anything to manage her disorder. She was later murdered and thrown in the bed of a pickup truck, covered in pesticides, acid, and garbage. Her brother was just barely saved from the same fate. The case still hasn't gone to trial 12 years after the fact.
You can read cases from Pinellas where families got split up and accused of medical child abuse only to have their kid diagnosed with an actual rare disease by a legitimate genetics test or something. There's definitely some merit to the accusations that they are too heavy-handed, too willing to see abuse when they should be seeing scared parents who think they're watching their baby die. But we've seen the alternatives. A munchausen mom who thinks CPS is closing in on her might escalate or murder the child. And that's exactly what I think was about to happen here.
Here are just some of the things the documentary and much of the news coverage about the case left out, according to the sources listed above:
-Maya's asthma was diagnosed as a habit cough, but because Beata kept pushing it she got her put on high doses of steroids and nebulizer treatments which made her more prone to real infections and irritated her airways, causing the loop of respiratory diseases she was in.
-Beata heard about CRPS from one of her infusion patients before Maya's pain started.
-The "contractures" Maya showed in her feet and hands are more associated with a functional neurological disorder (so not faked, but caused by anxiety rather than a physiological cause)
-The doctor who diagnosed Maya is a cash-only buy-a-diagnosis clinic. Everyone who goes in there walks out with a CRPS diagnosis. He also skips reasonable measures like pain rehabilitation and PT in favor of high dose ketamine and opiates
-The family was told the ketamine coma she was being placed in had an over 50% chance of killing her and that every subsequent round of it the odds increased.
-Beata fought to get Maya's case listed as terminal in her medical paperwork in an attempt to get higher doses of IV drugs at home and likely to absolve herself of criminal intent if Maya died of an overdose.
-Beata was reported to CPS several times before they went to Hopkins.
-Beata told doctors if they wouldn't do the ketamine coma she would seek hospice and let Maya die of a drug overdose because the level of pain she was in was not a life worth living.
-Hopkins doctors determined much of the pain she complained of was caused by opiate nerve sensitization and withdrawal symptoms.
-Hopkins also did not believe her level of pain was anywhere near what she and Beata reported as she was calm, playing, and behaving normally for most of the time she was hospitalized.
-Hopkins genuinely believed if Maya was released to her mother's care, Beata would overdose her as stated.
-Part of the reconciliation was that Maya cannot ever receive ketamine again and because of this she was put in CBT-based pain rehab which worked.
-Some of Maya's family's testimony about the hospital was demonstrably lies, like saying Maya was not allowed to recieve a christmas dress her family sent her when there are photos of her wearing it
-It is very likely one of the jurors was committing serious misconduct at the behest of someone associated with the family, and he's been pretty much bragging about it now that the trial's over. The trial status has changed to "reopen" recently.
-Maya is now suing the hospital again for another however-many-millions of dollars because she claims she was sexually abused there too.
IMO, everyone involved in this is terrible except Hopkins who thought the kid was going to get murdered.
ETA: I also think there were individual actors at the hospital who didn't follow protocols or forgot that Maya was a scared little girl who likely thought what her mother was saying was true.
My opinion from the start was that the baby murdering nurse, Lucy Letby was in the same vein as muchausen. She seemed to love being The Unfortunate One dealing with the baby deaths and would enjoy "predicting" collapses. She was also an emotional vampire fed on the sorrow of the parents. So many people are still strongly in denial about her guilt because she didn't at all fit a "profile" of a serial murderer and I think this is partially why. People would not necessarily understand the motivations of someone who's whole life is bout monopolising sympathy for themselves in a medical setting. It's hard to fully explain my instincts on it.
(Bolding mine obviously)
I thought about Genene Jones too. I know she was mentioned earlier in the thread but her MO was the same, down to predicting collapses and latching onto the parents of sick babies.
I think they both loved being the “hero” that worked against all odds to save the babies’ lives. Pretty horrific and sad for the poor babies themselves and their families.
Seriously Thomas Eugene Paris, there is not enough people munching or LARP-ing mental and cognitive damage and delays.
I.feel like there was a kid like 12-16 who tried to claim Down's as part of their list of amazeballs diagnoses.... outside of Amanda/Ren's spechulness. They very much had zero physical aspects of Down's... lol
Guess it's not cool enough to fake being a tard. Not even any early onset Alzheimer or *shudder* Huntington's. They're both a bitch and early onset of Huntington before 40 or in Children is just painful to watch.
Or shame your mother, ruin your relationship with her and claim FAS, atleast that might be fun for the entire family to watch shit burn.
My opinion from the start was that the baby murdering nurse, Lucy Letby was in the same vein as muchausen. She seemed to love being The Unfortunate One dealing with the baby deaths and would enjoy "predicting" collapses. She was also an emotional vampire fed on the sorrow of the parents. So many people are still strongly in denial about her guilt because she didn't at all fit a "profile" of a serial murderer and I think this is partially why. People would not necessarily understand the motivations of someone who's whole life is bout monopolising sympathy for themselves in a medical setting. It's hard to fully explain my instincts on it.
Beverley Allitt is the other one that springs to mind. She didn't just have Munchausens, but also by proxy. She started off on herself, causing hassle through childhood. In nursing college she put faeces in the cooker.
Her grades were low, but she still passed, even with self inflicted illness absences. The hospital were that desperate for nurses they took her on. And she started killing babies...
She purposely developed anorexia as she thought people would be more sympathetic to her cos sick, but the psychs saw through it. I believe she's at Rampton, a psych prison, now.
She's eligible for parole but I doubt she'll ever get out.
Reminds me of Patricia Stallings, except with her, she wasn't to blame. Her first son died and they believe it was ethylene glycol poisoning.
In fact, it was methylmalonic acidemia, which can mimic it. She was only cleared after her 2nd son, who was born in prison, was diagnosed with it soon after birth.
Reminds me of Patricia Stallings, except with her, she wasn't to blame. Her first son died and they believe it was ethylene glycol poisoning.
In fact, it was methylmalonic acidemia, which can mimic it. She was only cleared after her 2nd son, who was born in prison, was diagnosed with it soon after birth.
Yeah I remember reading about that one. I think with both the wider awareness of medical child abuse and the wider availability of genetics testing we'll see more cases like that in the future.
With the caveat that I'm just some internet weirdo and no kind of doctor or psychfag, I also think the majority of the time it's because the parents don't understand the situation. For example, anxious parents who have a baby that won't eat, screams in pain, vomits constantly, and can't sleep. They might be told it's just acid reflux and feeding and positioning adjustments are the solution and they'll look into antacids if that doesn't work. To you or I that might be a relief, my baby's going to be fine. To them, their baby is starving to death in front of their face and the doctor just blew their concerns off. And then they get on the facebook groups with the other anxious moms and suddenly they think the baby needs a feeding tube. This parent isn't motivated by attention but by a real fear that if they don't get the "right" treatment their child will die. Unfortunately from what I understand, it's incredibly difficult to reason with them once they get in that mindset and this leads to things that do start to resemble MCA like doctor shopping and demanding one specific treatment/rejecting alternative suggestions. That's what I thought was going on with Maya's case before I looked into it.
Thanks for the great replies about Maya. I hate to say “you can’t trust the media,” but unfortunately, I think it’s apparent that investigative journalism is largely dead and that the media at all levels routinely leaves out important elements of stories. And people watch a single Netflix doc on a quiet weekend and then think they know everything there is to know about the subject. (oh hi Marsha P. Johnson)
Knowing more about the story, I think Beata was classic MBP myself. This may be a case of there being a legitimate but minor medical issue, such as mild asthma and anxiety, that gets munched into extremism. As avid readers of this thread, we’ve seen it loads of times. For me, the real turning point was when Maya was taken to Mexico for ketamine comas — that is an extremely dangerous treatment that is absolutely banned for a reason here. No ethical doctor would recommend that as a treatment for a child. We don’t even do that for children with cancer, as far as I’m aware. (I also thought of the unfortunate Chelsea, whose drug of choice, which very likely killed her, was also ketamine.) To give highly addictive pain medicine and opiates to a child should be a treatment of last resort. I can’t imagine the damage it must have caused Maya.
My opinion that I formed from the doc and portions of the trial on late night CourtTV was definitely that the mom had some MBP tendencies. I think it became the usual sort of vicious codependency spiral once Maya realized that was what it took to get her mom's attention/love. For example, the testimony that Maya would be in so much pain that she'd scream at the top of her lungs if a sheet brushed her leg or a drop of water hit her, which would incite the frantic reaction from the family especially Beata, which would perpetuate Maya's behavior, etc. It seemed pretty obvious to me, but then most of the public hasn't read 867 pages of the KF munchie thread. The whole family seemed sincerely brainwashed by Beata.
Thanks for the great replies about Maya. I hate to say “you can’t trust the media,” but unfortunately, I think it’s apparent that investigative journalism is largely dead and that the media at all levels routinely leaves out important elements of stories. And people watch a single Netflix doc on a quiet weekend and then think they know everything there is to know about the subject. (oh hi Marsha P. Johnson)
Knowing more about the story, I think Beata was classic MBP myself. This may be a case of there being a legitimate but minor medical issue, such as mild asthma and anxiety, that gets munched into extremism. As avid readers of this thread, we’ve seen it loads of times. For me, the real turning point was when Maya was taken to Mexico for ketamine comas — that is an extremely dangerous treatment that is absolutely banned for a reason here. No ethical doctor would recommend that as a treatment for a child. We don’t even do that for children with cancer, as far as I’m aware. (I also thought of the unfortunate Chelsea, whose drug of choice, which very likely killed her, was also ketamine.) To give highly addictive pain medicine and opiates to a child should be a treatment of last resort. I can’t imagine the damage it must have caused Maya.
Wait wait, I'm lost. Is this about the recent case in Florida where the mom commited suicide? I was under the impression the girl had chronic pain stuff going on.
Wait wait, I'm lost. Is this about the recent case in Florida where the mom commited suicide? I was under the impression the girl had chronic pain stuff going on.
Yes. The family recently won a judgement against a hospital in Florida, which was found liable by a jury in excess of $200 million for Maya’s supposed maltreatment while she was in state custody there. While there were certainly some bad actors involved, there were also tons of red flags that Maya’s mother may have actually been a MBP case and that they were absolutely right to investigate aggressively.
She was diagnosed with a dumpster fire condition by Dr. Anthony Kirkpatrick who specializes in diagnosing that condition in anyone who walks in his office then refers them for the most extreme possible treatment, a drug-induced coma that had a 50% chance of killing her that she had to travel out of the country for. His medical background is as an anesthesiologist and all of his research along with all the treatments he offers revolve around ketamine. And he's not board-certified to boot. Beata also lied to Maya's pulmonologist reporting that she'd been diagnosed CRPS before they ever saw Dr Kirkpatrick who diagnosed it. The doctor that re-diagnosed her with CRPS was hired by her family to do so and specializes in confirming CRPS diagnoses in families accused of munchausen-by-proxy. I'm not kidding, he gives parents advice on how to avoid being accused of munchausen-by-proxy and doesn't really believe it exists.
Multiple other doctors who evaluated her before and after Kirkpatrick disagreed with the diagnosis because they found her actual presentation inconsistent with both the disease itself and her and her mother's claims of her symptoms. The doctors at Hopkins found her pain behaviors diminished when her mother was not in the room and if distracted she would stop acting like she was in pain and her "contractures" would relax. The family also reported that she was in constant unrelenting pain in her entire body but the condition she was diagnosed with is complex regional pain syndrome.
Her symptoms started in July of 2015, she saw the first CRPS doctor in September of 2015, she was started on ketamine infusions immediately and within weeks he told them she needed the full coma treatment. Less than six months after symptoms set in, they had tried nothing else for it and went right to a treatment that had the same chances of killing her as a coin has of landing heads-up. This was the treatment she was demanding the hospital in Florida perform. They even offered to transfer Maya to Nemours that has a specialized pediatric pain clinic but the family rejected it because they don't do the ketamine-induced coma treatment there, either.
Even if she was in as much pain as her mother reported (which she almost definitely was not) there is zero justification for the treatment she was given. It's not a fatal condition and there's safe, effective treatments. The hospital reported that the ketamine dose she was getting was many many times higher than any dose they had seen any patient get ever, like 40 times a high dose for a full grown adult in a ten year old underweight little girl. This disease is one of amplified pain perception. The best most successful treatment to date is desensitization through physical, occupational, and cognitive behavioral therapy every day for a period of weeks until the patient can manage their condition without drugs. This is what Nemours wanted to do and why her mother was not interested.
I remember when Maya’s case first came out and continue to believe it was munchie.
I don’t know how anyone can look at the mom’s journals and not see something is seriously wrong in their relationship. That’s ignoring that Maya got better and didn’t display the symptoms when separated from her mom.
If nothing else the Mexican coma ketamine procedures that by their own admission had a 50% chance of killing her warranted the separation. It’s not a fatal disease and they tried literally nothing else.
I’m near certain the Maya case is MBP. I approached the case with some skepticism since (sorry about the PL) clinically I’ve encountered medical child abuse teams that are such zealots that they call CPS if a parent brings a kid in twice in a month. If you only have a hammer etc. But there are so many red flags here and @Kate Farms Shill nailed them.
I also find it really hard to comprehend how there is even a discussion around the validity of the CRPS diagnosis since the criteria are so well defined - CRPS 1 and 2 - and she didn’t meet them. Or if she did, I haven’t seen it documented. She had some dystonia but that might as well have been functional. CRPS isn’t a diagnosis of exclusion- you can actually see it.
I think part of why this became such a shitstorm is that the medical child abuse team did what they often do - they threw abuse allegations around like confetti so when the allegation needed to stick they didn’t have much credibility. Abusive head trauma (formerly shaken baby syndrome) in particular is a very - I hate the word but I think it’s valid here - problematic diagnosis that these specialists overestimate the prevalence of. Not saying child abuse isn’t a thing - I just like it when the diagnostic criteria are sound and not based on circular reasoning.
Sorry, got carried away. Might sperg on AHT some other time if it’s relevant.
I’m near certain the Maya case is MBP. I approached the case with some skepticism since (sorry about the PL) clinically I’ve encountered medical child abuse teams that are such zealots that they call CPS if a parent brings a kid in twice in a month. If you only have a hammer etc. But there are so many red flags here and @Kate Farms Shill nailed them.
I also find it really hard to comprehend how there is even a discussion around the validity of the CRPS diagnosis since the criteria are so well defined - CRPS 1 and 2 - and she didn’t meet them. Or if she did, I haven’t seen it documented. She had some dystonia but that might as well have been functional. CRPS isn’t a diagnosis of exclusion- you can actually see it.
I think part of why this became such a shitstorm is that the medical child abuse team did what they often do - they threw abuse allegations around like confetti so when the allegation needed to stick they didn’t have much credibility. Abusive head trauma (formerly shaken baby syndrome) in particular is a very - I hate the word but I think it’s valid here - problematic diagnosis that these specialists overestimate the prevalence of. Not saying child abuse isn’t a thing - I just like it when the diagnostic criteria are sound and not based on circular reasoning.
Sorry, got carried away. Might sperg on AHT some other time if it’s relevant.
Like a whole lot of other diseases we discuss on this thread, there's the real one you showed a photo of and then there's the made-up fantasy version that somehow these people find doctors willing to diagnose.
Lyme disease: an infection of Borrelia bacteria spread by ticks of the genus Ixodes. Most cases show a hallmark bullseye-pattern rash at the bite site. It is diagnosed by ELISA antibody screening and usually treated with doxycyline. Infection is mostly limited to a few geographic areas in the northern hemisphere.
versus
""Lyme disease"": a lifelong condition that can cause any symptom you can imagine and can also cause entire genetic diseases to spontaneously develop in you. It can be spread by any tick, nah any arachnid, nah fuck it, any bug, anywhere in the entire world, and you might not remember having been bitten. Or like maybe it was 15 years ago when you were 12 at JCC camp and your bunkmate found a tick crawling on you. It always brings a bunch of other bacteria, viruses, and fungi to the party and they're all sentient so you constantly have to rotate between antibiotics and antivirals and antifungals for the rest of your life because as soon as you start to treat one it hides and the rest of them come out in full force. That's also why the ELISA testing is always negative because those darn lyme bugs are just too clever and hide, so you need to be diagnosed by a chiro that reads your anal wrinkling pattern or something. Other treatments include a whole lot of bullshit not supported by any empirical science and never leaving your house for the rest of your life. Oh also you're now allergic to purple and wifi.
