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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've worked in healthcare.
The company I worked for had their services hosted for at a data center. That Data Center also hosted some Banks.
Groups like anonymous think they are performing some social disobedience by DDoS the banks, Also DDoS the actual Data center. While it took a few minutes for the network to switch over there were a few hundred doctors who couldn't access their software, for that time.
XKCD described these attacks like vandalizing a bill board. But it is more like vandalizing a bill board by shooting a gun at it, and not knowing who or what is behind it.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Here is the story:
http://www.slate.com/articles/...
Attacks to a website could impact patient care? If there is any truth at all to this (which I really doubt) then people should be made aware of it immediately. Thanks Anonymous, I really want to know if I'm going to get patient care at a hospital where that care could be compromised just by a problem on their website.
I'm an American. I love this country and the freedoms that we used to have.
We can't know the details, because releasing them would be a violation of patient health information privacy laws. So we only get to hear the story from the side of the parents. We do know the physicians at the hospital have diagnosed the child with medical child abuse. A key point form the Slate article someone else linked is that 1 in 10 children who are abused medically, die. It isn't something that is taken lightly.
I heard about it on the radio a couple of weeks ago. This case is an absolutely appalling abuse of power.
Advocates Fight for Justina Pelletier, Teen Held by State in Psych Ward
One day Justina Pelletier was a seemingly healthy teenager performing jumps and spirals at a skating show and six weeks later, on Feb. 10, 2013, she was in the emergency room at Children's Hospital in Boston after a severe bout with the flu, refusing to eat and barely able to walk.
Her parents, Lou and Linda Pelletier of West Hartford, Conn., say their daughter was diagnosed and being treated at Tufts Medical Center for mitochondrial disease, a rare genetic disorder with physical symptoms that can affect every part of the body. Justina's sister Jessica, 25, is also being treated for the disease.
But three days later, a team of doctors at Boston Children's said her symptoms were psychosomatic, according to the family. The hospital then filed a complaint with the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families, as required by law, because they suspected the parents of child abuse for subjecting their daughter to invasive medical treatments and denying her mental health therapy. ... more
Pelletier Family Files Habeas Corpus Pleading, Points Out Disturbing Facts About Boston Children’s Hospital
... Among other things, the Petition also argues that the requirement to issue detailed written findings of fact and conclusions of law justifying DCF’s intervention has never been met. Never has the juvenile court issued such required findings of fact or conclusions of law.
“This case comes down to the simple fact that new doctors at Boston Children’s Hospital (BCH), who had no experience with Justina, came up with a different diagnosis than her expert treating physicians at Tufts Medical Center,” said Staver. “The state cannot take children from their parents when the parents make reasonable choices for their medical care. This case is outrageous,” said Staver. .... Justina has gone from a competitive figure skater to being confined to a wheelchair,” said Staver.
Fourteen months ago, Justina, now fifteen years old, was seized by Massachusetts DCF after her parents, at the direction of Dr. Mark Korson, took her to Boston Children’s Hospital to see Dr. Alejandro Flores, a gastroenterologist who had previously treated Justina when he worked at Tufts Medical Center before he transferred to BCH. Dr. Korson, Chief of Metabolic Services at Tufts Medical Center, was Justina’s primary physician who was treating her for Mitochondrial disease. Instead of allowing Justina to see Dr. Flores, Justina saw Dr. Jurriaan Peters, a BCH resident only seven months out of medical school. He brought in Dr. Simona Bujoreanu, a psychologist who coauthored an article in which she contends that in up to 50% of children who present with physical complaints, the complaints are not physical but mental. Without consulting with Dr. Korson or Flores, Dr. Bujoreanu rendered a diagnosis of Somatoform disorder. Without a thorough review of her care, she opined that Justina’s physical complaints were mental, not physical. BCH then presented the family with a new treatment plan to discontinue all medical care and medications and which forbade any second opinions. When the parents refused to sign the new treatment plan and requested that Justina be discharged so they could take her back to Tufts Medical Center, BCH called DCF, and DCF prevented the family from discharging Justina
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
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.
The doctor diagnosed her with an actual physical illness without running the tests needed to diagnose her. Boston Children's Hospital did some of those tests, and they indicated that she probably didn't have it.
They said her parents were medically abusing her because they took her to a large number of doctors and appeared to be doing forum-shopping until they found a diagnosis they liked - mitochondrial disease is claimed by roughly 50% of parents who are ultimately found guilty of medical abuse. Her parents also had a port installed in her digestive tract, which was fairly risky (due to the surgery and increased chance of infection until it's removed) and wouldn't have helped with her disease, if it was real.
It's been a year now since Justina was removed from her parents.
It should be painfully obvious if her health issues were as a result of her parents' psychological pressure since she hasn't been under their influence for over a year. So why don't any of the "advocates" fighting for the parents actually show us how Justina's doing now?
If Justina is FINE now, then it would be quite obvious that the Doctors at the Boston Children's Hospital were correct. If she's still suffering from the same symptoms, then the parents have a much stronger case.
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.
I heard about it on the radio a couple of weeks ago. This case is an absolutely appalling abuse of power.
I did some Googling on this case in since I hadn't yet heard about it. Found this article:
http://www.slate.com/articles/...
If it's true that the parents shopped around for doctors to perform surgeries, and had extreme surgeries carried out around mitochondrial disease with no diagnostic based diagnosis that raises a ton of red flags.
If you're going to make your kid get a stomach shunt, you'd at least want to run a few tests first, no? It seems reasonable that the doctors would want to separate the child from her parents if they thought they were unreasonably subjecting their daughter to medical procedures. Worst case: Childrens runs the diagnostics that should have been run in the first place, finds evidence of mitochondrial disease, gives the child back, and there is no harm done. If the doctors are right? Then a child's health may have been destroyed for no reason.
a) Mitochondrial disease is not well understood, and Justina in fact shows symptoms that point to such. As does her sibling.
b) BCH had a similar case, they tried to seize a 5 year old girl. Only thing is when Child Protective Services (CPS) went to the home, they realized it was someone who used to work for them and that they knew were not a danger. So custody was restored.
c) But at this point, their 5 year old daughter had gone without treatment for so long. She died.
d) Their son began to show similar symptoms. This time BCH did do a test. The result showed positive. But they did not inform the parents for three months. And still did not act on it. A second test was done by an independent lab. Which also confirmed evidence of mitochondrial disease. Their son was released.
e) Their son has since gotten treatment at Tufts under the same doctor treating Justina. Who is regarded as one of the premier experts in this field. Oh, guess what. After the restoration of treatment, their son's condition improved. Shame their daughter hadn't been treated by BCH, or she'd probably be alive.
f) BCH killed one child and is now killing another.
I found it interesting that she was taken off the medications used for stroke victims which they say was diagnosed via MRI as a large stroke. MRI is a standard diagnostic for stroke or also a CT scan and that it is related to the original diagnosis as it's a possible side effect of the mitochondrial disease. It's also a physical sign that would rule out somatoform disorder or somatic symptom disorders.
Being that it was characterized as a large stoke tells me that the MRI should have shown it clearly making misdiagnoses unlikely.