Why do people fall for scams so easily? Here's a tragic but interesting example.

[Gasp0deTheW0nderD0g]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-65428918

At the heart of this is a very sad story of a young woman's early death which might have been preventable, preceded by years of 'charity' work which now looks like a scam, at least in part. Lots of unanswered questions about how this happened. The BBC journalists here have done an excellent job pulling things together.

It seems to me to have a number of parallels with high profile support for gender ideology, and probably also with many conspiracy theories. A lot of people are so keen to fall in with a new and fashionable cause and to be in with the 'right' people that when others ask perfectly reasonable questions they find themselves attacked and smeared. The truth doesn't seem to matter much. What an odd species we are - endowed with the most powerful brains of any animal on the planet and in many cases wilfully refusing to use them.

Then there's the Munchausen's by proxy suggestion. I find it incomprehensible that parents can do this kind of harm to their children, but we know it does happen. How is it that people can see it so easily here (eventually) and not in cases where children's health is being put at risk by poorly evidenced medical treatments for gender dysphoria?

So many parallels with parents who enthusiastically affirm their children's reaction to regressive stereotypes with experimental drugs and surgery.

Although in many instances I suppose the parents are also victims because so many trusted organisations have pushed this idea that a child's gravitation towards or away from a particular set of regressive stereotypes = a need for surgery and meds.

This is about Munchausen's by proxy? I am not clear about the link to her actual death? Just that the illnesses she was acting as if she suffered from were fabricated, all her life, and she died of something unrelated.

Sounds like the same parent attempted to induce illness in other siblings too.

Yes a terrible tragedy. Yes, maybe there is a link to parents fashionably medicalising children for non medical issues.

I read this article this morning and had the same thoughts.

The article says Several doctors however listed other worrying details. One had concerns about the validity of Megan's medical history. Another noted Megan's "opiate-seeking" behaviour. There was an attempt to obtain morphine using a forged prescription. Megan repeatedly missed medical appointments and hopped from doctor to doctor. It wasn't a tumour that killed Megan, but an abnormality of the rhythm of the heart - acute cardiac arrhythmia - due to fatty liver disease, likely related to Megan's high body mass index. She and her mother had raised a lot of money for treatment for a brain tumour, and the post mortem showed she didn't have one.

It's not easy to detect factitious illness. 99% of the time, HCPs are reliant on patients or their carers giving an accurate account of what has happened at home, when making a diagnosis. And, as in this article, often the patient is genuinely ill - because they are harming themselves or being harmed by someone else.

Not quite the same scenario, but I once had a patient whom I am absolutely convinced was intentionally killed by her boyfriend forcibly administering the dose of heroin from which she died. I reported my suspicions to the police, who did take them seriously, but they could prove nothing. People get away with murder all the time.

That's very sad. I'm sure it must happen a lot and be extremely difficult to prove.

The mother had the £100,000 transferred
into her own bank account. Why isn’t the police getting involved in this blatant fraud?