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Anonymous's Latest Target: Boston Children's Hospital
Brandon Butler writes: "Supporters of the faceless collective known as Anonymous have taken up the cause of a young girl, after the State of Massachusetts removed her from her parents earlier this year. However, the methods used to show support may have unintended consequences, which could impact patient care. On Thursday, the Boston Children's Hospital confirmed that they were subjected to multiple DDoS attacks over the Easter holiday. Said attacks, which have continued throughout the week, aim to take the hospital's website offline. Similar attacks, including website defacement, have also targeted the Wayside Youth and Family Support Network. Both organizations are at the heart of a sensitive topic, child welfare and the rights of a parent."
Members of Anonymous are now calling for a halt to the attacks.
I would like to see the followup on this story. Did she do better after being removed from her parents? That would be the test, in part, for Munchausen. The whole thing has become very political.
The family's own doctor selected a course of treatment _without_ performing the standard diagnostic test to indicate the condition. Also, this family went forum-shopping for a doctor until they found one that gave the diagnosis they wanted.
On the surface this looks like a classic case of Münchausen syndrome by proxy. Other clues--the hospital said that the girl seemed less tense when her parents weren't around.
I was taken away from my alcoholic mother for a year. I met two other kids (brother and sister) while in foster care whose parents pimped them out.
It's a drastic measure to take kids away from their parents, but the kids will survive, whether it turns out to have been warranted or not. Calm the f* down.
It seems odd that she still hasn't had a muscle biopsy to confirm the diagnosis because of concerns over pain and anesthesia even though she's already had surgery to insert a port into her digestive tract.
I am becoming gerund, destroyer of verbs.
My son is a child with fragile health, and we associate with many other, similar families as a support mechanism. While I am not in the Boston area, we do know families that are there, and who frequent Boston Children's. One of them that we associate with let everyone in one of these support groups know that the patient scheduling system had been affected by the Anonymous operation, and so she was unable to schedule her son's surgery. Boston Children's needs to keep their clinical systems more protected, but the bottom line is that Anonymous is filled with grade-A assholes.