Mom Accused Of Injecting Human Waste Into Daughter

[45th Med]

Test Results Show IV Fluid Contained Substance Consistent With Fecal Matter

POSTED: 11:50 AM EST January 16, 2004
UPDATED: 12:59 PM EST January 16, 2004

INDIANAPOLIS -- A 33-year-old mother is accused of repeatedly injecting human waste into her 21-month-old daughter to get attention, according to a report.

Mom Accused of Injecting

[Guaranteed]

1. Possibly the most disgusting thing

I've ever heard.

[45th Med]

2. There are some sick, filthy people in this world......

nt

[BootinUp]

3. I can't even imagine

how someone would conceive of doing that.

[Judi Lynn]

4. I've heard of this once before

There is a name they apply to it, "Munchausen's Syndrome" and there's a lot you can read in a search if you could stand it.

This case got into the headlines from Ft. Lauderdale:

(snip) FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida - With 200 hospitalizations and 40 surgeries in her 8 years, Jennifer Bush became a symbol of out-of-control health care costs, even earning a visit with Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Now, authorities who received a tip say Kathy Bush made her daughter sick by putting feces in her feeding tubes. She also is accused of persuading doctors to perform unneeded surgeries on Jennifer.

"The allegations are that this is a case of 'Munchausen's by proxy,' in which a parent intentionally induces or inflicts injury upon their child to gain attention," says Broward County Assistant State Attorney Dennis Nicewander.

The girl was placed in state custody on Monday. On Tuesday, a circuit judge ruled that she should remain there. Bush, 38, who had sought publicity and donations for Jennifer, will answer charges April 29 of aggravated child abuse and fraud for allegedly obtaining unnecessary medical services. Bush has said Jennifer's medical bills cost $3 million.

Prosecutors say that during the solicitations, the Bushes bought a $19,000 pool, two cars and a $25,000 motorcycle.

Bush and her lawyer vehemently deny that she made the girl sick, categorizing the state's case as a "witch hunt." Her husband, Craig, 44, is not charged.

Jennifer has had her gall bladder, appendix and part of an intestine removed, and prosecutors say doctors took her mother's diagnoses at face value. Once a secretary to Jennifer's former pediatrician, Kathy Bush was fired in 1993 for stealing money, the arrest warrant says.
(snip/...)

http://www.ashermeadow.com/caseacct6.htm

I believe the mother was sentenced to five years in prison. Hideous, isn't it? One article I saw said that the child had been submitted to around 40 surgeries within a couple of years.

Here's an incomplete list of OTHER cases similar to this:
http://www.ashermeadow.com/news2.htm

[Guaranteed]

5. I don't know what I'd do if I was that woman's husband.

Hearing stories like that just creeps me out. I mean...could her husband tell she was this kind of person? Would MY wife do that to my child? How can people be so evil as to systematically poison their own child, and how can they be so deceptive as to be able to hide it?

[Skittles]

9. it is not evil

it is severe mental illness

[Guaranteed]

18. It's

fucking evil. POISONING YOUR KID ON PURPOSE IS FUCKING EVIL. I've worked in the mental health field, and come from a family of psychologists. I'M THE BULLGOOSE LOONY. I understand that people can have simple delusions or see things that aren't there. The mind can play tricks on itself- I know this.

But these women know DAMNED WELL what they're doing. They know that they are poisoning their children, and they know exactly what the consequences of their actions are going to be. Even by your own admission, the women are doing this because of their desire FOR the consequences. They desire their children to be sick, or dead. THAT IS EVIL. Psychology goes WAY too far in excusing people's actions, sometimes. Just because someone has an uncommon motive for their actions it doesn't mean that they're any less criminal. THESE WOMEN KNOW.

[TreasonousBastard]

6. "Munchausen by Proxy" actually...

and any hospital or pediatrician will have stories.

It doesn't often get as horrible as this, but it's more common that we would like to think.

Google on it and see what pops up. One site estimates 625 new cases a year in the US. But, no one knows for sure.

[Mari333]

7. I have an ex friend who did this to her kid with drugs

slowly. She still does IMO...she has 2 Masters Degrees in Psychology..problem is, she diagnosed her own son all his life...and the health system poured drugs down his throat, Ritalin, Prozac, Zoloft...every year she kept coming up with new cures and new remedies for him and they kept buying into it..
Hes 16 now..his brain is like swiss cheese..he has tried to commit suicide...his mother still says "He is seriously damaged by his disease and needs my attention 24 hours a day or he will die and he can never leave me"
I started questioning her when I had her son over when he was a little kid..he was fine when he was here...
Her husband left her..
This is some sick shit, and seems to be theres some MAJOR abandonment issues with these people that they need to hurt their kids to keep attention on themselves.

[TreasonousBastard]

8. Jeez...

maybe if she got the doctorate she could diagnose herself.

Amazing how the things we do to the people we love we don't have the energy to do to those we hate.

Probably just as well, though, or there would be even more misery to go around.

[montana_hazeleyes]

17. One of the things that

caught my eye on this is where the article says she persuaded drs. to perform uneeded surgeries.
Why would drs. do such a thing?

[RedCloud]

10. Is she Pro-Bush?

[RememberTheCoup]

11. Um, not sure what point you're trying to make here.

I despise the BFEE as much as anyone, but I don't see the connection here... unless you are trying to bait DUers into a position that would get them ridiculed.

[Media_Lies_Daily]

12. Who cares what she likes or doesn't like? Don't get your "point".

[FredScuttle]

13. I was just going to say...

this is a awful story, but at least I don't have to hear Newt Gingrich blame this on the liberal influence.

There should not be any politicalization of this horror on either side.

[brainwashed_youth]

14. amen...

this story has no political matter whatsoever. For someone to even ask if she's pro-bush make us all look bad

[gate of the sun]

15. bizarre

what the *ucks wrong with people.....sometimes I am so amazed how far down we humans can be at times...absolutly revolting....someone should well kick her ass.

[markses]

16. A suggestion

Could everyone who's never seen post partum psychosis up close and personal please SHUT THE FUCK UP. The petty moralizing is oh so righteous, but if you've never seen an intelligent woman reduced to gibbering nonsenses and forgetting how to read while the rest of a family tends to a newborn, shut your fucking pieholes. Oh, yes, your precious "freedom of the will." It's a different story when those molecules are racing through a body and exercising their own damn freedom. Why are people so fucking stupid?

[gate of the sun]

19. no one said this woman had post partum blues

I think your getting a bit overeactive...and your post was very impolite......This woman's child was allmost 2 and if we think it's gross that she shot her kid up with shit to get attention and that makes us deserve the response you gave "shut your fucking pieholes."I really have to wonder about you.

[markses]

21. You're right

I was impolite. I apologize. I've seen the effects of post partum psychosis on someone in my own family, and I'm sick to death of the "mother moralizing" that goes on here. You're correct to say that the article doesn't mention any such condition - but that may be part of the problem. It seems to me that the whole "to get attention" line is an interpretation prima facie, and not necessarily an accurate depiction of the situation. That this happened when the child was almost two makes no difference, as the psychosis itself doesn't have an "expiration date." It is, in fact, the scariest and most infuriating and sad thing you've ever seen - when you see it.

And if you saw it, you would never characterize it as "blues," as if one is simply forlorn over some loss or other. it is a devastating accute sickness, and remains outside the realm of the manageable, even for professionals in the field.

But I take your point. I believe my closeness to this subject threw me into a rage, when I saw all the easy moralizing done on these boards on this particular question.

[woo me with science]

23. posted below at the same time you did...

i appreciate your clarification, and i want to clarify that i have great sympathy for people who experience true postpartum psychosis. I guess it's natural to experience revulsion when children get hurt...

[woo me with science]

22. actually

Munchausen's by proxy has absolutely nothing to do with postpartum psychosis. It is classified as a factitious disorder but is most likely to be associated with severe personality problems...most prominently a craving for attention and sympathy.

The mere fact that psychiatry puts a label on a behavior does not automatically equate that behavior with a "disease" a la cancer or diabetes or even biological psychosis. This kind of abuse of a child may warrant psychotherapy, but it also warrants a strong moral and emotional response.

And I agree with the others that politics should have absolutely nothing to do with it.

[creativelcro]

20. If it's true, this mom should get a lethal fecal injection

[TankLV]

24. What - did she replay the last SOTU, Powell's or Condi's rantings

as truth?

At the very least, these acts should be prosecuted!