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Mismanagement: Social and Family Policy
Added: (Sun Aug 07 2005)
Mismanagement: Social and Family Policy
Mr Bruce Clark, DfES: 2000-2005
MISDIRECTION of SOCIAL POLICY
Assessing Ordinary Parents as Abusers
Assessing Ordinary Children as Victims
Re: Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy; fabricated or induced illness; shaken babies; medical evidence; taking into care; adoptions; re-classification of sick children as abused children;
the misdirection of Social Work, Child Protection and of the Family Courts
19 July 2005: Initial hard-copy distribution
Restricted until: 19 September 2005
NOTE ON THE CONSENSUS PROCESS
Documentation:
This document is the third part of a three-piece suite of papers lodged by Consensus with the Permanent Secretary (DfES), five Ministers (DfES and DCA) and the relevant line managers cataloguing the mismanagement of family policy in two sectors:
- private law Family Law cases
- public law Family Law cases
In both sectors, the mismanagement shows common features; - in particular, of internal departmental processes contrived by Government officials (or a Government official) in such a manner that policy-as-envisaged by Ministers was replaced by wholly different policies; with one policy substituted for another whilst it was officially maintained that the original policy continued under development.
Documentation lodged to date consists of:
1. 26 April 2005 – the originating document summarising the case in both the private and public sectors:
(i) Private Law: Section 8 contact disputes / Early Interventions /Child Contact and Adoption Bill
(ii) Public Law: MSbP / Shaken Babies / Social Service interventions / Child Protection / adoptions
2. 20 May 2005 – lodgement of full particulars re the Private Law mismanagement of EI and Section 8
3. 19 July 2005 – lodgement of full particulars re the Public Law mismanagement of MSbP etc (herewith)
Procedure
On 28 April 2005 the DfES Permanent Secretary Sir David Normington responded on behalf of the initial recipients (see Paragraph One above) with the undertaking of a full departmental investigation. A prerequisite, agreed thereafter by Consensus in correspondence with Sir David Normington was the submission by Consensus of full particulars in relation to (i) Private Law (ii) Public Law. Item (i) was lodged on 20 May 2005; Item (ii), on 19 July 2005.
As of 19 July 2005, the DfES was in a position to commence its investigations.
The covering letter from Consensus to Sir David, which accompanied the 19 July 2005 papers, noted that the objective of Consensus was structural change. A timetable of two months from receipt of the MSbP papers was suggested by Consensus as an appropriate span for the Department to respond with the indications of good faith sought by Consensus.
A copy of this letter from Consensus, if not appended to this document, may be available on application from the Permanent Secretary.
Private Law: Confirmation of Mismanagement by Mr Bruce Clark
On 17 May 2005 the DfES, in response to various requests, furnished Consensus with the Minutes of the first DfES Design Team meeting (of 17 March 2004) on the Private Law Section 8 EI reform project. These Minutes confirm, on the Department’s own records, the charge against Mr Clark:
- by the time the Design Team first met, the approved EI project had been buried and was lost without trace
During the period October ‘03-March ‘04, when the EI project underwent its unauthorised disposal, the EI project was under Mr Clark’s control. The Private Law issue is concluded in the Appendices at Endnote ix.
HOW A FLAWED SET OF GUIDELINES DISTORTED SOCIAL and FAMILY POLICY in BRITAIN 2000-2005
A set of flawed Guidelines, which initiated an alert for a hypothetical medical condition known as MSbP, were introduced nationwide as a result of mismanagement by government officials.
These Guidelines, issued in 2002, are indefensible - for medical, legal, social and intellectual failings.
The flawed Guidelines were disseminated through many sectors and many layers of institutional thinking. They have distorted institutional practice.
SUMMARY
The MSbP Guidelines: the Root of a Social Disaster page 5
How the MSbP Guidelines work in Practice page 6
How and Why Things Went Wrong page 8
A Bleak Harvest? page 9
Key Events: An Outline page 10
A Note on ‘Parent-Blame’ Theories page 11
1. MSbP Guidelines: The Root of a Social Disaster
1. Para 3.12 of Britain’s official Guidelines on “MSBP” provides that:
“ When a possible explanation for signs and symptoms is that they may be fabricated or induced by a carer, and as a consequence the child’s health or development is or is likely to be impaired, a referral should be made to Social Services.”
Safeguarding Children in whom Illness is Induced or Fabricated
Department of Health Guidelines, July 2002, para 3.12
2. These MSbP Guidelines initiated a national alert for families:
- who ‘might’ display any one of scores of innocent characteristics
- which ‘might’ - perhaps - account for a child’s medical symptoms
3. Parents falling under this suspicion are, by the thousand, treated as abusive.
4. Parents seeking medical help for their children are common targets.
2(i): How the Guidelines work in Practice
A. THE REFERRAL
The effect of the MSbP Guidelines is that parents can be referred to Social Services for MSbP - at any time, for any reason, by any person:
1. The Guidelines provide lists of ‘non-exhaustive’ factors (under scores of broad categories) which may indicate that parents may be guilty of harming their children.
2. Any of these factors (commonly present in normal parents and non-abused children) is regarded as sufficient to indicate that a child’s symptoms may be likely to have been fabricated or induced by a carer .
3. There is no need for an actual diagnosis.
4. If anyone thinks that the criteria may be satisfied, the Guidelines stipulate that a referral to Social Services should be made under Para 3.12:
. “ When a possible explanation for the signs and symptoms is that they may be fabricated or induced by a carer, and as a consequence the child’s health or development is or is likely to be impaired, a referral should be made to Social Services.”
5. Thereafter, Social Services are enjoined to treat the parents as though a real risk is present; and as though the parents are suspects against whom a case has already been made.
2 (ii): How the Guidelines work in Practice
B. AFTER THE REFERRAL
Once a referral to Social Services has been made, the parents are trapped - whether they deny the accusations or admit them.
1. Once a referral is made under Para 3.12, there is no real provision for this referral to be revisited.
2. As an almost invariable rule, after the referral, there will be no further professional evaluation of the child for an alternative diagnosis to MSbP; there will merely have been an original referral - on the basis of ‘concerns’ about ‘possibilities’. This triggers an investigation into the parents.
3. Subsequent Child Protection proceedings, which are innately damaging, are skewed by an extreme imbalance of power. Everyone knows it is within the power of Social Services to proceed at will to a removal of the child .
4. By virtue of the referral, Social Services proceed on the premise that an illness has been fabricated: medical issues are to the background; psycho-analytic issues, in particular “denial”, are to the fore. An objective is to shift the parent’s “belief” that the child is ill. Parents find they have two options:
(i) to deny the accusations and insist the child has genuine medical problems
- this is interpreted by the Child Protection Committee as presenting a high-risk to the child
- such parents are ‘entrenched’ in wrong thinking and cannot ‘change’ their ‘perceptions’
- proceedings may be initiated for removal (irrespective of medical reports to the contrary)
(ii) to ‘work with’ the Social Services and ‘admit’ the child is well
- parents are coerced, under the threat of removal, into viewing their child ‘more positively’
- re-evaluations are limited to evaluating the change in the parent’s “perceptions”
- the child’s actual medical and educational needs are less likely to be met or considered
5. A consequence of ‘multi-disciplinary working’ is that no one person has authority to remove the allegation of MSbP; it will stay on all records.
3. How and Why Things Went Wrong
A. TAKING THE WRONG TURNING
1. The Guidelines launched the mistake they were intended to prevent.
2. Things were set on the wrong path by a simple and well-documented sleight of hand in the year 2000:
(i) The misadventure began with a commendable professional attempt - the “Griffiths Report” - to head this disaster off
(ii) The commendable impulse behind the Griffiths report was twisted
(iii) The misadventure ended by misuse of the Griffiths Report as a
springboard to construct:
(a) misguided ‘parent-blame’ theories based on MSbP
(b) misguided social machinery to apply the misguided theories
3. These misguided theories, and their attendant social machinery, were promulgated nationwide in 2002 by the DoH Guidelines ‘Safeguarding Children in whom illness is induced or fabricated by carers’
B. PARENT-BLAME THEORIES
1. These official Guidelines furnished a green light for converting surmise and basic misapprehensions - about children with minor ailments or neuro-developmental disorders - into serious accusations against parents.
2. The requisite safeguards, the creation of which was envisaged by the Griffiths Report, were replaced by a gung-ho opposite and applied across the nation.
3. The Griffiths Report was expressly cited by the Guidelines as the originating justification for this inversion of process.
4. A Bleak Harvest?
Adverse consequences of the MSbP misadventure seem to include, each year:
- multiple thousands of needless and damaging investigations
- widespread and wrongful removal of children from their parents
- the potential for (or actuality of) wrongful criminal convictions
- extreme familial disruption and needless personal ruination
- a misallocation of resources deflected from children in real need
5. Outline Chronology of a Disaster
PHASE ONE: PROFESSIONAL CONCERNS 1990s-2000
1990s - professional concerns arose about Dr Southall and the evidence for MSbP etc
2000 - The Griffiths Report commended development of proper MSbP diagnostic criteria
2001 - The Clark Working Party was set up in response to the Griffiths Report
PHASE TWO: DISTORTION - The Working Party on MSbP 2001
The Working Party, consisting of eight members led by Mr Bruce Clark in the DoH, was defective in its composition and in its approach. The Working Party made no attempt at a balanced inquiry; instead, it was turned as a device to promote what it was intended to stop.
The Working Party focussed on the construction of national screening for MSbP - on the unexamined assumption that Dr Southall’s intuitions and the MSbP / FII hypotheses were correct.
PHASE THREE: THE WORKING PARTY’s GUIDELINES 2001/2
The flawed Working Party issued misconceived draft guidelines based on the premise that:
(i) there were no professional concerns over MSbP etc
(ii) MSbP etc was a real and present threat of a widespread nature
(iii) MSbP etc could be inferred from a broad range of nebulous trivia
(iv) social machinery should be set up to take extreme action on these inferences
Mr Clark’s draft Guidelines provided no bar against wholesale misdiagnosis by an extensive range of professionals, including ancillaries and those with no medical qualifications. After a period of supposed consultation, the flawed Guidelines were released with no significant changes.
PHASE FOUR: THE AFTERMATH – Dissemination 2001-2005
In the course of being issued nationwide, the flawed Guidelines underwent further degradation. The unsurprising end-results included an extensive catalogue of miscarriages of justice; wrongful takings into care, wrongful adoptions and fosterings; a plague of unwarranted investigations; and the mis-direction of Social Services and Child Protection.
PHASE FIVE: DAMAGE-LIMITATION 2004-5
In the wake of Cannings, Mr Clark issued a DfES circular which had the effect of ensuring that the anticipated review into the consequences of Professor Meadow’s flawed thinking (and of Mr Clark’s flawed Guidelines) did not take place.
Each of these five aspects is considered separately – see Contents at page 12
A Note on ‘Parent-Blame’ Theories
1. MSbP, itself an extremely loose term, is generally used throughout this document to designate MSbP and its various cousins and aliases, including:
- fabricated or induced illness (‘FII’)
- factitious illness
- parent-blame theories generally
- non-medical ascriptions such as ‘attachment disorders’ or ‘attention-seeking’
2. The ‘FII’ designation used in the Guidelines was adopted as a name-change in the course of preparing the Guidelines. It came to be realised that the concept of MSbP might be medically untenable. The two ascriptions - MSbP and FII - cover exactly the same range of conditions. The change is without significance.
3. The diagnostic criteria in the Guidelines for MSbP are capable of embracing almost anyone. Hence the common pattern - of reckless interventions by Social Services justified on the basis that the Guidelines were not breached.
The ‘shaken baby syndrome’ is an offshoot of MSbP towards the harder end of the spectrum.
The ‘shaken baby’ notion derives from the MSbP concept of parent-blame. Parents are supposed to shake their babies with a view to inducing symptoms which entail hospitalisation and medical investigations.
If the child lives, this is a standard form of MSbP; if the child dies, the ‘shaken baby’ enterprise is regarded as MSbP gone-wrong. This sort of result is supposed to be a validation of the dangerousness of MSbP; it ‘justifies’ the draconian and widespread interventions encouraged by the MSbP guidelines. Variants of the Shaken Baby Syndrome include inferred suffocation and inferred poisoning (frequently with salt).
In fact, the supposed Shaken Baby diagnostic telltale of retinal haemorrhaging can actually arise in many other possible ways, many of them innocent - to the extent that this ‘syndrome’ should be discarded.
Pages 35-37 of this document deals with issue of differential diagnosis.
In essence, not only do the Guidelines omit the concept of diagnosis (i.e. how to tell when the supposed MSbP-type condition is there) - they also omit the concept of ‘differential diagnosis’ (i.e. how to tell when the supposed condition is not there - but something else is).
The scientific and medical evidence for all or most of the MSbP cases is accordingly of a negligible order. Deficiencies in the medical evidence tend to be supplemented by the auxiliary of the equally-deficient MSbP-type “profiling”.
CONTENTS
PHASE ONE: Professional Concerns 1990-2000 …p 13
PHASE TWO: DISTORTION - The Working Party 2001 …p 16
PHASE THREE: The Guidelines 2001/2003 …p 26
PHASE FOUR: Aftermath - Dissemination and Degradation …p 40
A Dark Secret ? …p 56
PHASE FIVE: Damage Limitation 2004-5 …p 61
Appendices …p 66
A general summary of the five phases is set out at page 10, ‘Key Events: An Outline
PHASE ONE: Professional Concerns 1990ish-2000
Summary
1990s - professional concerns arose about the medical evidence for MSbP
2000 - The Griffiths Report commended development of serious diagnostic criteria for MSbP
2000 - The Clark Working Party was set up in response to the Griffiths Report
The Initial Period
In 1977, Dr Roy Meadow published a report of a new form of child abuse called ‘Munchausen syndrome by proxy’ (‘The Hinterland of Child Abuse’, Lancet 1977 Aug 13). Dr Meadow described two patients.
In the early 1990s, Dr David Southall supervised paediatric research studies at North Staffordshire Hospital.
Both Dr Meadow and Dr Southall initially regarded MSbP as a rare complaint requiring sophisticated diagnostic skills. In theory at least, a properly-conducted case involved careful evaluation by two types of specialist: a paediatrician to arrive at a settled view that the child’s symptoms did not add up, and an adult psychiatrist to confirm the carer was actually suffering from MSbP.
MISDIRECTION (1)
Here, in a nutshell, is everything that has gone wrong. The limited, original concept has - via the Guidelines - undergone almost infinite expansion and ‘dumbing down’.
A very rare condition, subject to numerous professional caveats and careful diagnosis, was re-branded as a universal label applicable to all-and-sundry with no diagnostic criteria.
In this process, the medicals who initiated the theories became a victim of their own dubious success. The originating allegation need no longer emanate from a doctor. Doctors are brought in, if at all, long after the Social Services’ “investigative” process has acquired momentum - by which time, a medical opinion is redundant.
Five years down the line, the terms MSbP, and FII, and the companion notion that ‘the parents are making it up’, are distributed like confetti - on evidence of autism, asthma, allergies, Aspergers or pleas for help.
In 2000 an independent report, known as the Griffiths Report , gave formal tongue to various doubts which had accumulated around Dr Southall’s research and methods. These concerns included the controversial and unprecedented frequency with which Dr Southall arrived at a diagnosis of ‘MSbP’.
The thrust of the Griffiths Report, adopted by the Government as a programme for action, was a challenge to Dr Southall and his methodology.
The Problems with MSbP
By the time of the Griffiths Report, the basis of MSbP had long been under fire. The actual focus of legitimate debate was on whether it existed at all .
The problems with MSbP were threefold - and all problems grew from the same root: the signs and symptoms of MSbP are diffuse and all-prevailing.
So, first, the condition was hard to diagnose accurately; and second, it was easy to diagnose inaccurately. And third, by the same tokens, MSbP was a natural candidate for widespread misdiagnosis.
Concerns about MSbP soon made their appearance in the professional press (see Endnote , Appendices). It was clear that the nature of MSbP included an obvious capacity to mutate from a rare and uncertain condition, via unfounded suspicions and allegations, into its wrongful misapplication as a common and certain condition.
It was this mutation that the Griffiths Report and the Government intended to check; and it was this intention that was subverted.
The Griffiths Report
Para 12.4 of the Griffiths report, published on 8 May 2000, made the suggestion that:
“In order to assist in the correct identification of children who have either had illnesses induced or fabricated by their carer, the Review recommends that the DoH should convene an Expert and multidisciplinary panel which reviews methods of identification”
Bold Added
On 10th October 2000 the status of the Griffiths Report was clarified in the House of Lords: “Lord Walton of Detchant asked Her Majesty's Government: ‘Whether they support the findings and conclusions of the Griffiths report of 8th May reviewing the research framework in the North Staffordshire National Health Service Trust in the light of the criticisms set out in the paper by Sir Iain Chalmers and Dr Edmund Hey, published in the British Medical Journal on 22nd September.’
The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department of Health (Lord Hunt) replied:
‘My Lords, the Government accepted all the recommendations made in the Griffiths report, which mainly concern improving research governance and guidance.’
Hansard
Chairmanship of the Expert and multidisciplinary panel envisaged by Professor Griffiths fell to Mr Bruce Clark.
MISDIRECTION (2)
The actual incidence of serious child abuse leading to child deaths has not changed over the last 15 years.
Meanwhile, the focus of Social Work has drifted from its real purpose to secondary digressions – which, as it happens, provide a journey through relatively agreeable terrain:
- the actual job of Social Services is to deal with dangerous and unpleasant people
- it is understandable to prefer dealing with those who are pleasant but who are not dangerous
This inversion of priorities, in part accomplished through the MSbP debacle, creates more convivial working conditions for Social Service staff. It does not meet the Service’s remit.
PHASE TWO: DISTORTION - The Working Party on MSbP 2001
Summary
The Clark Working Party, which consisted of eight members led by Bruce Clark, was defective as to its composition and approach.
No attempt was made at a balanced inquiry into MSbP – for which its members lacked the relevant expertise. The intended issue of “correct identification” was not considered; the “methods of identification” for MSbP were not reviewed. These primary considerations were bypassed.
Instead, the Working Party became a device to promote what it was intended to stop. The Working Party validated, built on and rolled-out Dr Southall’s theories without any or any proper inquiry into the medical or scientific basis of these theories.
The Working Party proceeded straight to the construction of national screening for MSbP on the assumption that Dr Southall’s intuitions and the MSbP / FII hypotheses were correct. Notwithstanding, the Working Party was passed off as a direct linear continuation of the Griffiths Report - which it had buried.
The preparation of the Guidelines on MSbP etc was flawed from the first by two fundamental errors:
1. Adopting the Wrong Remit for the Working Party
2. Setting up a Working Party with Little or No Relevant Knowledge of the Issues
These two sources of error are considered below.
SECTION 1: Adopting the Wrong Remit for the Working Party
The establishment and control of the Working Party appears to have passed to Bruce Clark, who is believed to have been seconded to the Department of Health in 1999 after a career in the NSPCC. Mr Clark does not appear to have a medical training or a legal training.
Mr Clark seems to have been responsible for selecting the members of the Working Party and running the team as an in-house project of which he had effective control :
Intended and Acknowledged Reason for the Working Party:
- an inquiry into the correct diagnosis of MSbP (Griffiths Report, Para 12.4 – see p14)
- a challenge to Dr Southall’s questionable MSbP approach
Purpose for which the Working Party was Actually Used:
- to promote Dr Southall’s questionable MSbP approach
- to roll-out apparatus to apply the questionable approach nationwide
PUTTING THE CART BEFORE THE HORSE
The Working Party omitted to undertake the essential preliminary of diagnostic groundwork.
The key issues - ‘When is MSbP present? How can you tell? Are there reliable indicators? What are the other possible explanations? How can you tell which is which? Does MSbP exist with any frequency? Does it exist at all?’ - were not broached by the Working Party.
Instead, the Clark Working Party proceeded straight to the construction of nationwide machinery based on the premises, which they had not investigated, that:
- MSbP could be reliably identified by ephemeral and ambiguous tell-tales
- MSbP was a real and prevalent condition
- MSbP posed a real and widespread threat to the nation’s children
In this vein, the second paragraph (1.2) of the Clark Guidelines affirm:
“ This supplementary Guidance… is intended to provide a national framework… It is addressed to those who work in the health and education services, the police, social services departments, the probation service, and others whose work brings them into contact with children and families. It is relevant to those working in the statutory, voluntary and independent sectors.” Bold Added
A False Prospectus?
Notwithstanding, the Clark Guidelines were presented as the direct linear descendant of their opposite, the Griffiths Report, which they eschewed. In fact, the Working Party set off in the reverse direction from the original Griffiths remit, which was:
“ to assist in the correct identification of children who have either had illnesses induced or fabricated by their carer, the Review recommends that the DoH should convene an Expert and multidisciplinary panel which reviews methods of identification”
Bold Added
No notice was drawn to the extreme dissonance between the objective claimed for the Clark Guidelines and the objective actually pursued by the Clark guidelines.
Instead, the one was presented as the seamless continuance of the other .
Social policy was, at and from this point, misdirected.
Chalk and Cheese?
The disjoinder between Griffiths and Clark is clearly apparent at Paragraph 1.11 of the Clark Working Party Report. The top paragraph is original Griffiths Agenda; and the lower, the interpolated Clark Agenda.
The two agendas, which in the original text of the Guidelines are presented as a single unbroken paragraph, are separated by an unbridgeable intellectual gulf. Quoting from the Clark Guidelines at para 1.11:
“THE POLICY CONTEXT
1.11 In 2000 the Report of a review of the research framework in North Staffordshire Hospital NHS Trust (Department of Health, 2000b) was published. It (the Griffiths Report) called for a wide range of measures to improve research governance across the NHS. In addition, it recommended the development of guidelines to correctly identify children who have had illnesses fabricated or induced by their carer.
= The Griffiths Agenda
= the prudent development of new and proper diagnostic criteria
The Department of Health responded to this later recommendation with a commitment to produce new guidelines for professional practice and interagency working in responding to concerns that a child may be having illness feigned or induced by a carer. These guidelines will be drawn up within the framework of Working Together to Safeguard Children: A guide to inter-agency working to safeguard and promote the welfare of children (1999)”.
= The Clark Agenda
= the imprudent construction of a national framework to apply non-existent diagnostic criteria
- irrespective of whether these non-existent diagnostic criteria were improper)
When taken in conjunction with Paragraph 1.2 of the Clark Guidelines, which specify that the Clark Guidelines are indeed intended as a ‘national framework’, the scale of the disjoinder becomes apparent.
The cart was put before the horse.
By the end of Para 1.11 of the Guidelines (on the second page of text) national policy has been firmly pointed down the wrong track.
The intended agenda – of competent professional reflection on how to act for the best – had been replaced by action in the absence of prior reflection
Corroboration: An Elementary Gaffe
Confirmation of this defective approach can be found in the Guidelines as early as Para 1.4, i.e., on the first page of text. This paragraph acknowledges that is ‘considerable debate’ amongst professionals about MSbP.
This fundamental stumbling block is, in the same sentence, relegated to a mere matter of ‘terminology’ - and hence, as a thing of no moment.
A clear and basic misrepresentation was involved in putting forward this interpretation:
(i) the “considerable debate” – the existence of which was acknowledged – was not about what “MSbP” should be called.
(ii) the debate was about when and whether the condition (irrespective of what it was called) existed.
It was disingenuous of the Working Group to conflate these issues.
Questions may arise as to how an error of such an elementary nature could have arisen in the absence of intent. In any event, the consideration central to the Guidelines (‘does the condition exist, and if so, how can you tell?’) does not feature again in the ensuing 67 pages of the Guidelines.
Instead, the Clark Guidelines openly affirm it is not their purpose to consider whether the condition which is ascribed to the child and parent is actually present, or whether the condition actually exists; or whether it is likely to exist.
The express point is - apparently - for multiple thousands of professionals and ancillaries, lacking the relevant qualifications, to act on ‘concerns’ irrespective of whether these concerns are substantive, and irrespective of whether there are any grounds for these concerns, and irrespective of whether there is evidence that the condition is present or could be present :
“The use of terminology to describe the fabrication or induction of illness in a child has been the subject of considerable debate between professionals. These differences of opinion may result in a loss of focus on the welfare of the child. In order to keep the child’s safety and welfare as the primary focus of all professional activity, this Guidance refers to the ‘fabrication or induction of illness in a child by a carer’ rather than using a particular term. If, as a result of a carer’s behaviour, there is concern that the child is or is likely to suffer significant harm, this Guidance should be followed.”
Bold Added
The express priority revealed by this enjoinder is not whether there were grounds for concerns; the priority is to act on concerns - irrespective of whether are were groundless or likely to be groundless.
In this process, Social Services and the like were encouraged to be suspicious; and to be suspicious for ambivalent and trivial cause; and to use those suspicions as a platform to initiate drastic pre-emptive interventions liable to involve the child and the child’s family in damage.
If this be doubted as an extreme interpretation, the rebuttal lies in the MSbP Guidelines themselves, not just as to their generality, but as to their specific exhortation on this particular point:
3.12. When a possible explanation for the signs and symptoms is that they may be fabricated or induced by a carer, and as a consequence the child’s health or development is or is likely to be impaired, a referral should be made to Social Services.
Bold Added
In this process, the welfare of children was forfeit on a broad scale.
The Buried Contradiction
Between the two stools of the Griffiths Report and the MSbP Guidelines, a whole tier of essential intellectual activity has vanished. In the vernacular, the appropriate words to designate this omission in the MSbP Guidelines would be:
“We decided not to do that. Instead, we decided to do the opposite.”
It is a question of who was made aware of this shift in policy; and, in particular, whether the change was drawn to the attention of:
(a) Ministers
(b) Members of Mr Clark’s Working Party
SECTION 2: Setting up an Inadequate / Inappropriate Working Party
COMPOSITION OF MR CLARK’S WORKING PARTY
The Working Party was:
(i) unfit to carry forward the remit of the Griffiths Report
(ii) perhaps unfit to carry forward any serious work in this important area
The composition of the Working Party, as relayed to the House of Lords and listed below , has important characteristics considered below under four heads:
DEFECT 1: The Working Party - Medical Qualifications?
Irrespective of whether the Working Party was following the Griffiths remit or the Clark remit, the Working Party should have focused on when and where there might be legitimate “concerns” that a child may have been subjected to MSbP.
This was and is a medical issue.
An appropriate body would, at its heart, have included a number of professionals drawn from a minimum of two key sectors:
- specialised paediatricians (to comment on the child-related aspects)
- adult psychiatrists (to comment on the adults’ involvement)
Other candidates would include psychologists and specialists in the relevant areas of differential diagnosis.
There would be no difficulties in assembling a balanced group of this type. Instead, a nine-person team (including Mr Clark) was assembled of which only two members were medically qualified:
Dr G Adshead - Royal College of Psychiatry
Dr D Sowden - Royal College of General Practitioners
Dr Adshead, who is a named co-worker on published research by Dr Southall, was the only relevant specialist on the Working Party.
Leaving the issue of objectivity to one side, it is not cynical to observe that the possibilities for debate between one individual are limited.
DEFECT 2: Working Party - Bias (Exclusions)
The Working Party:
- excluded all medical authorities who had criticised Dr Southall and his methodologies
- excluded all professionals who had criticised Dr Southall and his methodologies
DEFECT 3: Composition: Bias (Inclusions)
The Working Party:
- included known adherents of Dr Southhall and the MSbP hypothesis
e.g. Dr G Adshead; Detective J Fox; and, presumably, the Chair Bruce Clark
Detective Fox also appears to have a background as a committed and active supporter of the MSbP hypothesis.
Detective Fox’s presence on the Committee raises a further question. The true and stated remit of the committee was to devise a method for the ‘correct identification’ of cases – which is, as stated, a medical issue.
Once an appropriate method of differential diagnosis had been devised, the appropriate working sequence would be to relay these medical criteria to the investigative branch, i.e. the police. In fact, the process was inverted, with the police involved in construction of the medical criteria.
Detective Fox’s presence on the Working Party is a puzzle.
DEFECT 4: Composition: Eminence / relevant knowledge (?)
Two of the institutions represented on the Clark Working Party no longer exist (the English National Board of Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting; the United Kingdom Central Council for Nursing, Midwifery and Health Visiting).
Doubtless Ms Charles-Edwards and Ms Smallman, who represented these organisations on Mr Clark’s Working Party, are of outstanding professional stature; but it is scarcely invidious to observe they are not household names. Nor are the names of Ms S Hensman or Ms D Kinnair, also selected for the Working Party, widely known for their publications or work in this field.
The names of all four seem to be unfamiliar to specialists in this field.
It is easy to see how the Working Party could have become a passive conduit either for the promulgation of untutored MSbP theories, or for the personal views of the Chair Mr Clark; in both cases uninformed by relevant corrective input.
DEFECT 5: A Distorted Reading List ?
The Reading List appended to the Draft Guidelines reveals a further flaw.
The reading list consists of an assiduous trawl of pro-MSbP literature; from which the counterbalance of anti-MSbP literature is notable by its absence.
The draft Guidelines issued by Mr Clark (which went on to traverse the Consultation Process with no significant alterations) listed some 40 source documents:
- three of the first four are co-authored by Professor Meadow
- a further 12 are authored or co-authored by professionals regarded as extreme supporters of MSbP and / or Dr Southall.
Excluding official publications (e.g. the Children Act, the Data Protection Act etc) only a total of 24 works are cited. No work is cited which is critical of the MSbP hypothesis.
DEFECTS IN THE WORKING GROUP: IMPLICATIONS
There was no-one on the Working Party:
- minded to examine the MSbP hypothesis and/or
- qualified to examine the MSbP hypothesis
It may also be – it is, indeed, a likelihood – that no-one on the Working Party was made aware that their remit was to examine the MSbP hypothesis .
By way of summarising the Working Party’s general tenor, a quotation is appended hereunder from the Social Care Consultant Charles Pragnell, who submitted evidence to the Working Group:
“The review as envisaged by Griffiths and concerned professionals was not carried out.
It might have been reasonably expected that a Review of such an important matter as the lives and welfare of children, would have commenced with the commissioning of independent research into FII/MSBP, an invitation for submissions and an oral discussion with the persons who made submissions to clarify and extend their evidence, and thereafter a consultative document circulated of the preliminary findings and inviting further comment. After careful consideration of all of this evidence, it would then have been possible to produce a reasoned and evidence-based document for professionals engaged in child protective work.
However, no statistics have ever been collected on the number of cases of FII/MSBP and there is therefore no data or information concerning its usage or the numbers of false negatives. Such information could have been obtained from local authorities over a given period of time and would have been a vital ingredient of any impartial and objective investigation. This process was not undertaken by Mr Bruce Clark and his Working Group.
There was no independent research carried out, no discussion of submissions, and no attempt was made to obtain statistical data. All that was done by the Working Group was a literature trawl of books and articles which supported this unscientific theory, mainly the works of Sir Roy Meadow and Professor David Southall (the major proponents of FII/MSBP).
I submitted a Paper to the Working Group expressing my concerns regarding FII/MSBP but received no acknowledgement. I was aware that other professionals had also submitted papers expressing their concerns. There was an immense amount of controversy and dispute – which also went unacknowledged - among professionals surrounding the validity and utility of FII/MSBP in the U.K. and in many other countries.”
It is an inevitability that a defective Working Party, working to the wrong brief, would produce the wrong guidelines; as indeed happened. This aspect - the consequential deficiencies in the Guidelines - is considered in the next Section, Phase Three.
PHASE THREE: THE WORKING PARTY’s GUIDELINES 2001/2
Summary
In July 2001, Mr Clark’s defective Working Party issued a set of misconceived draft guidelines based on the premise that:
(i) there were no professional concerns over MSbP etc
(ii) MSbP etc was a real and present threat of a widespread nature
(iii) MSbP etc could be inferred from a broad range of nebulous trivia
(iv) social machinery should be set up to take drastic action on these inferences
Mr Clark’s draft Guidelines provided no bar against wholesale misdiagnosis by an extensive range of professionals, including ancillaries and those with no medical qualifications. All were encouraged to participate in a nationwide screening of the general population. Parents seeking help were treated as suspects.
The Guidelines promoted ambivalent trivia as a sufficient indication on which to initiate the process of taking away.
After a period of supposed consultation, these 68-page draft Clark guidelines were released with no significant changes.
OVERVIEW: Re-classifying Sick Children as Abused Children
The Guidelines allowed the MSbP diagnosis (or related ‘parent-blame’ theories) to be applied against parents who had children with a wide range of organic medical disorders.
It is not necessary for the parents to have done anything.
The main effect of the Guidelines, deliberate or otherwise, has been to re-classify large numbers of children (with conditions requiring special educational and / or health provision):
- as children who do not require these expensive resources
- as children whose problems have occurred as a result of abuse
The Guidelines furnish Local Education Authorities with a reliable means of reducing their expenditure on special educational needs.
This ‘workload’ has, in essence, been redefined as Child Protection, with the expense transferred that budget. Set against the increase in Child Protection’s expenses are two further effects - which may perhaps be regarded as benign by Child Protection advocates:
- an increase in the (apparent) rate of child abuse
- an (apparently) infallible means of detecting abusers
The net result of this administrative change is misery and ruin for thousands of families.
The Core Problem with the Diagnostic Indicators
The central problem is that the MSbP Guidelines are, in diagnostic terms, all but incapable of breach. The diagnostic net is of the finest mesh. It is composed of a mish-mash of diffuse and all-encompassing indicators cast widely over the general population.
It is an express proviso to the Guidelines that these telltales do not actually have to be there.
The nebulous symptoms sought by the Guidelines may, or may not, be present.
Either will do.
The primary focus of the Guidelines is not on how to decide if MSbP is present, but on the procedure to be followed when there is a suspicion that MSbP might be suspected. The Guidelines make it plain that this suspicion can legitimately arise on very slender grounds.
The actual issue (are there reasonable grounds for the suspicion?) is not addressed .
Illusory Safeguards: An Hermetic System
A key point is that the Guidelines provide an hermetic system from which it is very hard to escape. It is very easy to ‘get in’; and very hard to ‘get out’ (See Endnote , A Note on Post-Referral Procedure).
In this vein, Para 1.28 of the Clark Guidelines enjoins “all agencies and professionals” to be alert to:
- “potential” indicators of MSbP
- “potential” MSbP abusers
It is hard to get much more all-encompassing than this. A ‘potential’ abuser, who displays a nebulous ‘potential’ indicator, would and should be caught by the Guidelines - as long as that potential indicator is deemed to have the ‘potential’ for significant harm (as defined) if taken into consideration together with other attributes which did not themselves have the potential for significant harm.
The single word encapsulating this process is ‘caprice’.
The Clark Guidelines: Diagnostic Criteria
The following diagnostic features of the Guidelines are noteworthy:
(i) the lack of a real requirement for ‘significant harm’
(ii) the broad and conditional nature of the Guidelines
- the presence of MSbP can be indicated by nondescript features…
… which may be present
… which may not be present
… which are indeterminate
… which are commonplace
… which are neutral
… which derive from subjective inferences or attributions
… which indicate other conditions
(iii) the range of professionals encouraged to apply the Guidelines is very broad
- the list extends beyond doctors to those with no medical knowledge
(iv) the lack of regard paid by the Guidelines to alternative and more likely explanations
- alternative explanations are all but unmentioned
- the concept of ‘differential diagnosis’ is unremarked
These four strands of the Guidelines are considered subsequently, as is the puzzling question of how the guidelines were authored.
These aspects cover a deeper mystery.
A Non-Existent or Marginal Problem?
On the Guidelines’ own say-so, the evidence is that there is no particular MSbP problem.
Incidence of MSbP is put forward by the Guidelines as statistically negligible (see post).
In cases where it matters, MSbP is a form of physical abuse. Carers harm their children. This has always been a proper priority for Child Protection. There is no new risk, or no new significant risk.
Quite apart from the issue of the nature of the ‘national framework’ created in the Guidelines, there is a question about whether there is a need for a national framework at all.
DEMERIT ONE: ELIMINATING the ‘SIGNIFICANT HARM’ TEST?
The MSbP guidelines advocate a substantial erosion of the ‘significant harm’ test which a case must surmount if state intervention is to be warranted.
Removing the Significant Harm Test
Para 3.7 of the Guidelines entirely bypasses the requirement for ‘significant harm’. The Guidelines state that there is no need for child protection concerns in order to trigger a Child Protection investigation:
“There are several junctures at which a Core Assessment may start, depending on the child’s circumstances, and the existence of child protection concerns (i.e. that the child is at risk of significant harm”) is not a prerequisite.”
Bold Added
Lowering the Threshold of the Significant Harm Test
In the context where the Guidelines affirm that the significant harm test can be omitted, it may be an irrelevance that the significant harm test itself (where applied) has been eroded. Nonetheless, the Guidelines suggest that the ‘significant harm’ test can be met by a wide array of ordinary circumstance. Para 1.16 takes as a starting point:
“There are no absolute criteria on which to rely when judging what constitutes significant harm.”
A couple of dozen variable, interdependent and discretionary criteria are then put forward.
Each of these considerations can be taken into account with another; and these considerations raise other considerations; and all the considerations are subjective. A family’s ‘context’, the ‘cultural’ environment, ‘communication’ difficulties and the child’s ‘reactions’ and ‘perceptions’ are merely part of an initial list to be factored into a general grab-all formula.
The Guidelines make plain that significant harm may reside in a wide array of dispersed features, including future events which, by their nature, have not happened. The Guidelines also embrace the concept of ‘emotional’ harm, which thus extends to a potential for future ‘emotional’ harm - as well as future ‘events’ of a type which it is thought may ‘change’ a child’s ‘social and psychological development’; and to ‘circumstances’ where a child’s development may be ‘neglected’.
In addition:
- events which of themselves do not constitute significant harm may cause significant
harm as part of ‘a compilation’ of significant events
- there is no requirement for significant harm to be present
- the ‘likelihood’ of significant harm (as defined above) will suffice
Para 1.23 concludes, “The way to proceed in the face of uncertainty is through competent professional judgements”. A list of further open-ended subjective attributes is appended by way of example. They too are open to interpretation at will:
‘a sound assessment of the child’s needs, the parents’ capacity to respond to those needs – including their capacity to keep the child safe from significant harm – and the wider family circumstances’
As a result, there is nothing to stop any set of circumstances being construed as meeting the ‘significant harm test’ under the MSbP guidelines.
For instance, MSbP is pre-defined as carrying a risk of emotional harm; and Social Services are required to act as though MSbP is present if they have concerns that MSbP may be present. Hence the mere intuition of MSbP will, by definition, meet the significant harm test.
‘Significant Harm’: an Accidental Inversion
Obviously it is important, when considering the question of ‘significant harm’ to consider a wide spread of components. The MSbP guidelines reverse this process.
The Guidelines consider the wide spread of components - without considering the issue of significant harm. In this process, a ‘happorth of tar’, derived from an imputation, is promoted as sufficient cause to lose a ship.
The potential for actual harm as a result of applying the Clark test can be considered under two heads:
(i) the initiation and pursuit of a wrongful investigation
Whether or not a wrongful investigation ends in the greater wrong of an improper taking away, the process of a wrongful investigation is of itself a malign and damaging event, often of a serious nature with long-term consequences.
(ii) wrongful takings-away
The final safeguard against a wrongful taking away, which is the natural end of an improper investigation, should be provided by the Courts.
The High Court judiciary are rightly respected for their robust approach to reckless applications originating from a Local Authority. There are about a dozen High Court family judges.
Whether the lower judiciary at County Court level (whose numbers run into many hundreds) can be relied upon to take a comparably robust stand is a matter of question.
Rights of appeal are constrained.
DEMERIT TWO: The Broad and Conditional Nature of the Guidelines
The Guidelines on the indicators for MSbP are scattered over many paragraphs. Scores of possible indicators are listed - maybe in excess of hundred. The majority (or perhaps all) of them may or may not be present; and the majority (or all) of them are widespread, subjective and non-determinate.
THE SUPPOSED ATTRIBUTES of MSbP
The diagnostic indicators are many, varied, uncertain and contradictory.
To substantiate a suspicion of MSbP, it will be sufficient to have concerns about either a child or a parent. The Guidelines set out when such concerns are merited according to lists of various tell-tales. They are capable of covering everyone.
The Indicators of an MSbP Child (One Hat fits All)
Any of the following will suffice to initiate a process leading to removal of a child:
- the MSbP child ‘may’ have had ‘ unnecessary’ medical investigations Para 2.5
- the child ‘may’ have had ‘unnecessary’ treatments 2.5
- the child ‘may’ evince ‘passive compliance’ with the unnecessary treatment 2.6
- a ‘significant number’ will be ‘well known to health professionals from birth’ 2.9
- ‘some’ of the children ‘may have been seriously ill’ 2.9
- ‘non-organic failure to thrive’ is a ‘common feature’ 2.10
- the child ‘may’ have ‘organic problems’ 2.11
- the child ‘may’ have ‘alleged allergies and/or feeding problems’ 2.10
- the child’s medical history is ‘likely to have started early’ 2.12
- ‘some’ children may have been thought to have ‘a serious or rare illness’ 2.12
- ‘many’ children may not be ‘fully’ aware of ‘the nature of their abuse’ 2.20
- many children ‘have not been able’ to ‘disclose’ the nature of their abuse 2.20
- some children ‘may’ present ‘a rosy picture to the external world’ 2.20
- some children remain ‘attached to their mothers even after disclosure of the abuse’ 2.20
- ‘some’ children are ‘confused about their state of health’ 2.21
- ‘some’ children can ‘continue to be dependent on their carer’ 2.22
- a child may suffer ‘emotional’ harm from an ‘abnormal’ relationship with the mother’ 2.18
- there may be unexplained absences from school, particularly from PE lessons 4.75
- there may be absences from school to keep a doctor’s appointment 4.75
In addition:
“The age range of children in whom illness is fabricated or induced extends throughout childhood’ (2.23)
The list of potential MSbP victims includes children who have not been born:
“Evidence of illness having been fabricated or induced in an older sibling or another child should be carefully considered during the pregnancy of a woman who is known to have abused a child in this way.”
In these circumstances, children who are unborn should be ‘assessed’ and, if necessary, be removed from their parents at the time of birth :
“Therapeutic work may have been successfully undertaken in relation to the abuse of a previous child, but an assessment of the unborn child should be undertaken. A pregnant woman may have a history of fabricating illness in herself during a previous pregnancy. This could include the fabrication of medical problems while the baby is in the womb.”
Para 3.64
Para 2.18 specifies that ‘harm’ may reside in a future prospect of diffuse emotional upset:
“ Fabrication of illness may not necessarily result in the child experiencing physical harm.
Where children have not suffered physical harm, there may still be a concern about them suffering emotional harm with their mother (if she is responsible for the abuse) and their disturbed family relationships”
And so on; the above is a sample only.
Indicators of an MSbP Parent: One Hat fits All
With parents, any of the following will also suffice to initiate the removal of a child :
- the MSbP carer ‘may’ respond to the child’s sickness with ‘abnormal’ behaviour 2.6
- the carer ‘may’ induce symptoms by giving children medicines or other ‘substances’ 2.7
- the carer ‘may’ induce symptoms by ‘not administering’ medicines 2.7
- the carer ‘may’ exaggerate the child’s symptoms 2.7
- the carer ‘may’ claim the ‘symptoms’ (eg pain) are unverifiable unless observed ‘directly’ 2.7
- the carer ‘may’ allege the child suffers from a ‘psychological illness’ 2.7
- some mothers may induce ‘obstetric complications’ to achieve a ‘premature birth’ 2.9
- a parent ‘may’ interact differently ‘compared with other parents’ 2.13
- some MSbP carers are commonly ‘intensely involved with the care of their child’ 2.13
- some carers appear ‘unusually unconcerned about the results of investigations 2.13
- other MSbP carers ‘are more likely’ to engage with ‘other families’ than their child 2.13
- some parents ‘may’ have histories of childhood abuse or privation 2.28
- this abuse can include ‘all forms of abuse including emotional’ 2.28
- the parents ‘may’ have considerable medical and psychiatric histories 2.29
- the psychiatric histories ‘may or may not’ be able to be verified independently. 2.29
- ‘significant’ numbers are likely to report having ‘genuine medical problems’ 2.30
- these problems ‘may or may not’ be substantiated by medical investigations 2.30
- some MSbP carers may have been diagnosed as having ‘a personality disorder’ 2.30
- others carers may have ‘no diagnosable psychiatric disorder’ 2.30
- some parents may report having suffered ‘a number of significant bereavements’ 2.31
- these bereavements ‘may’ have taken place within a ‘relatively short time span’ 2.31
- many MSbP families have experienced ‘a number of stress factors’ in their lives 1.24
- ‘relationship problems’ between the child’s parents are ‘common’ 2.32
- the carer at fault is ‘usually’ the mother 2.26
- it ‘is not always appropriate’ to consider fathers to be ‘mere bystanders’ 2.26
And so on. Clause 2.7 points out that lists of this type, which are ‘not exhaustive’, serve only to indicate the type of suspect ‘behaviours’ which may (or may not) be present.
GENERAL THRUST OF THE INDICATORS
MSbP and / or its various ‘parent-blame’ cousins can be successfully invoked against ordinary parents and ordinary children in a wide or all-embracing range of circumstances. The typical targets are:
The Type of Parents Commonly Regarded as Potential Abusers
(i) parents who take a child to the doctor with a condition the doctor does not diagnose
- MSbP referrals are actively sought through the medical profession in the event of diagnostic uncertainty
(ii) parents who seek help from Social Services
- Social Services are trained in the MSbP Guidelines as front-line troops
The Type of Children Commonly Regarded as Abused
(i) normal children with moderate behavioural anomalies
(ii) children with behavioural anomalies whose symptoms arise from the illnesses
associated with neuro-developmental conditions
DEMERIT THREE: Professionals Sectors applying the Guidelines
The MSbP Guidelines, and the indicators listed above, are to be vigilantly applied by:
- Doctors
- Nurses
- Health Visitors
- Those who work in the health services
- Teachers
- Those who work in the education services
- The Police
- Probation Officers
- Area Protection Committees
- Those whose work brings them into contact with children and families
- The voluntary sector
- The statutory sector
- The independent sector
The ‘reach’ of these guidelines within these (massive) sectors is total. For instance, in the health sector, the Guidelines are not merely to be applied by doctors:
4.31 All health professionals whether working with children or adults who are parents should be aware of the local ACPC child protection procedures. A range of professionals working in health settings, for example pharmacists, physiotherapists, occupational therapists, speech therapists, nursery nurses and play specialists will have important roles to play in identifying and managing fabricated or induced illness in children. If, in the course of their work, professionals have concerns about illness being fabricated or induced by a carer, they should discuss these with their clinical manager or, if the child has been referred to them, with the referring medical doctor. All health professionals should have access to further advice from the Trust’s named doctor or nurse.
Bold Added
And so on, sector by sector.
It is unlikely that less than 100,000 professionals have been co-opted into an unstinting hunt for a statistically negligible condition.
What started as the exclusive preserve of a careful dual-tier diagnosis by a consultant paediatrician working in concert with a psychiatrist, applicable in a small number of rare cases, ended as universal sticky label - offered as a diagnostic panacea to dentists, vets, psychotherapists, physiotherapists, nurses, relief nurses, nursery school teachers, day-course participants and charity workers.
DEMERIT 4: the lack of regard paid to alternative explanations
The Omission of Caveats
The notion that a child or parent evincing an MSbP indicator may not be an MSbP-case receives scarce mention in the Clark Guidelines.
The possibility is hardly addressed.
The overriding criterion is whether there may be concern based on the universal criteria listed above.
There are no pronounced gateway caveats.
Differential Diagnosis: Occasional Snippets
The concept of possible explanations other than MSbP does occasionally makes a guest-appearance in the detail of the text. But the notion of alternatives and contra-indications is (at best) swamped in a sea of indications .
A closer look at the way the qualification in e.g. Para 3.3 (see Footnote 25) actually works confirms how ineffective these contraindications are (see Footnote 26 below). In any event, there are serious conceptual problems with ‘differentiating’ other conditions from a profile which does not, in fact, exist
In fact, the Guidelines make clear that a proper notion of safeguards should be rejected:
3.12. When a possible explanation for the signs and symptoms is that they may be fabricated or induced by a carer, and as a consequence the child’s health or development is or is likely to be impaired, a referral should be made to Social Services.
In the Guidelines themselves, the whole of this text is picked out in bold .
The Exclusion of Caveats
Paras 2.10 and 4.2 expressly exclude a common range of alternative explanations from being regarded as alternative explanations.
Instead, the Guidelines provide that the presence of alternative explanations, contra-indicating MSbP, is to be treated as an indicator of MSbP:
2.10 Non-organic failure to thrive is a common feature of this group of children who may have been presented to professionals or agencies earlier in their lives with failure to thrive, alleged allergies and/or feeding problems (Bools et al, 1992; Gray and Bentovim, 1996; Rosenberg, 1987).
4.2.2 Children who are having illness fabricated or induced may present to NHS Direct, a Walk in Centre, the primary health care team or to the community or acute paediatrician. Some may be presented with claims of unusual allergies or, for example, smells which cannot be tested for.
The Considerations Omitted (medical)
The following is a brief and incomplete listing of conditions precipitative of symptoms which might fall within the diffuse spectrum of MSbP / FII symptomatogy.
None are mentioned in the Clark Guidelines (save for allergies, which are dismissed):
apnea, reflux, GORD, iatrogenic damage, pre-existing auto-immune disorders, congenital disorders, allergies, Asperger’s Syndrome, autism, ADHD, hyperactivity disorders, ME, CSS, cerebral palsy, dyslexia, neurological problems, post-vaccine adverse reactions, i.e. DPT vaccine including thimerosal; Propulsid (Cisapride) ; vitamin depletion, rickets-type fractures, liver damage, haemorrhages, conditions causing the symptoms of bruising and / or the symptoms of fractures; low levels of certain types of enzymes; congenital disorders, birth injuries; chronic fatigue syndrome
And so on.
An OVERRIDING ENIGMA: MSbP as a negligible or non-existent problem?
The Guidelines concede that MSbP and its various cousins appear, on the best available figures, to be a negligible problem.
Para 2.3 of the Guidelines asserts:
2.3 The fabrication or induction of illness in a child by a carer is considered to be rare. McClure at al (1996) carried out a two-year study to determine the epidemiology of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, non-accidental poisoning and non-accidental suffocation in the UK and the Republic of Ireland. They analysed data from 128 cases notified to the British Paediatric Association Surveillance Unit during the period September 1992 to August 1994. Based on this data, the researchers estimated that the combined annual incidence in the British Isles of these forms of abuse in children under 16 years was at least 0.5 per 100,000 and for children under 1 years at least 2.8 per 100,000.
The authors calculated that “in a hypothetical district of one million inhabitants therefore, the expected incidence would be approximately one child per year”.
Bold Added
On this basis, the Clark Guidelines, and the substantial re-gearing of Social Services, would have been set in train to filter out 50 cases a year, the great majority non-life-threatening and, very probably, evident through existing procedures. It is a possibility that multiple thousands, or multiple tens of thousands, have been wrongfully caught the net.
Although para 2.4 of the Guidelines goes on to suggest that the figure of one-in-a-million may be underreporting , an equal, and perhaps stronger, likelihood is that the one in a million figure is over-reporting:
- The 128 cases cited to support the one-in-a-million figure were not cases established as MSbP cases, but cases ‘notified’ as possible MSbP cases, i.e. referrals
- These referrals would include cases where there were nebulous ‘concerns’
Similarly, the suggestion in the first sentence of the Guidelines’ Para 2.4 (see Footnote 29) is open to a contrary assertion. The large ‘regional variations’ referred to may indicate merely that in the ‘high’ regions an individual practitioner – say, Dr Southall or one of his supporters - skewed the figures by making a high number of MSbP misdiagnoses (see post, page 54, Suggestive Official Figures).
THE GUIDELINES: Composition and Provenance?
As detailed above, the Guidelines suffer from elementary flaws of the first magnitude; it is manifest that their adoption reliably furnishes an engine of social harm.
In this context the manner of their c