Re: R: Profile of suspected MSBP perpetrators -Reply

["Brian Morgan" <brianmorgan@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Responding to Oddone Virginio with an enquiry - what is the incidence of MSBP
in Italy - is it recognized as a syndrome there?

Brian Morgan

Oddone Virginio wrote:

> Dear Dr. Witherspoon,
>
>                        you wrote:
> >
> >
> > Dear Dr. Ryan,
> >
> > No doubt your medical training leaves you qualified
> > to Dx medical conditions.  However, MSBP, as traditionally
> > conceptualized, is deemed a behavioral consequence of
> > unconscious psychological antecedents.  Any induced
> > medical condition is an outcome, as are the sequalae to a
> > hammer blow to the head.  Judging a head injury was caused
> > by a hammer blow does not let one conclude that the carpenter
> > did it, for example.
>
> Sorry, but it belongs to medicine to decide ALSO if it was the carpenter or
> the man in the grocery nearby. There is even a specialisation (Forensic
> Medicine), which - at least here in Europe - is taught in the Medical
> Schools, it dates quite back in time (at least the XVI century; modern
> forensic medicine is born in the first quarter of the XIX century).
> Motives' analysis is the realm of the psychologist; analysis of medical
> conditions, of their existence, causation, possible links with other
> people's behaviors, belongs to medicine. Applying your reasoning to, for
> example, industrial medicine would imply that medicine should not (and
> never) discuss about the relationships between, e.g., John Doe's pleural
> mesothelioma and his previous working conditions, exposure to asbesto etc..
> (By the way, I am a doctor specialised in forensic medicine).
>
> I agree, however, with your invitation to prudence. I'm also appalled at
> the idea of doctors blackmailing mothers, by using the threat of MSBP:
> beside any other evaluation, it is decidedly against all traditional norms
> of the medical profession, everywhere in the world and at any time in
> history. One thing that doctors (and every person interested in MSBP) ought
> to remember is the fact that there is a large area of "hyperemphasizing"
> children's ills by Moms, as a negotiating instrument against hospital and
> other medical services' red tape, or toward their own pediatrician,
> particularly when thet disagree with the latters diagnosis and decisions
> (italian mothers, here in Italy at least, are very good at that; nobody
> here would call it MSBP)
>
> Virginio
>
> Virginio Oddone MD
> V. Avogadro 6
> 10121 - Torino (Italy)
> e-mail: oddovir@xxxxxxxxx