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NEW YORK (Reuters
Health) — Some people have a rare disorder in
which they deliberately cause illness in others, and
then use the illness to get sympathy and medical
attention. Most cases involve mothers who hurt their
own children, but a new report shows that people with
this illness may also hurt their pets.
In a recent report, a
group of UK researchers suggest that up to 9 of every
448 cases of non-accidental injury in a pet—or
2%—may result from an owner's deliberate actions.
The mental illness
that may be causing owners to hurt their animals is
known as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy. People with Munchausen
Syndrome repeatedly play the patient role
to gain sympathy and medical attention by feigning
illness or by hurting themselves, while those who use
a proxy seek attention by making others ill.
The recent study
suggests that, in some cases, the proxy is a pet. In
one instance described in the report, a man visited a
veterinarian and said a neighbor had poisoned his dog.
However, the owner was later convicted of trying to
poison his child, and during the court proceedings,
officials discovered that he had tried to poison two
previous pets—suggesting that the owner himself had
made his pet sick.
 During the study, the
investigators sent questionnaires to 1,000 veterinary
surgeons, asking them about their experiences with
non-accidental injuries in animals. The veterinarians
submitted information about 448 cases, 6 of which they
said they believed were instances of Munchausen Syndrome by
Proxy.
After reviewing the
information, the researchers, led by H.S. Tucker of
the Royal United Hospital in Bath, UK, noted that 3
other cases may have also resulted from owners
deliberately hurting their pets.
In the report,
published as a letter in the Archives of Disease
in Childhood, Tucker and colleagues also note
that many suspicious cases had certain features in
common—notably, owners would often change
veterinarians, or request frequent appointments. In
one case, an owner reportedly asked for four
appointments in one day.
To help identify
cases of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, Tucker and
colleagues recommend communication between the
agencies that deal with child and animal abuse.
"Communication
between child protection agencies, veterinary
surgeons, and the RSPCA (Royal Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to Animals) is beginning to
occur in different parts of the country," the
authors write. "Such liaison should be welcomed
by pediatricians."
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