1312: Andrea Dunlop | How Social Media Fuels Medical Child Abuse
About this episode
Andrea Dunlop discusses how social media exacerbates Munchausen by proxy abuse, turning it into a competitive sport.
Social media turned child abuse into a competitive sport. Munchausen by proxy expert Andrea Dunlop is here to explain how it works and why it's growing. Full show notes and resources can be found here: jordanharbinger.com/1312 What We Discuss with Andrea Dunlop: Munchausen by proxy abuse is when a caregiver — usually a mother — fabricates, exaggerates, or induces illness in a child for emotional gratification, attention, and control. It's not a delusion or a bad parenting moment — it's calculated, premeditated, and persistent abuse that can include unnecessary surgeries, poisoning, and starvation. Social media has supercharged this abuse by giving perpetrators an unlimited audience for sympathy, an online playbook for faking illnesses, and access to rare disease communities they can infiltrate. Support groups, GoFundMe campaigns, and medical blogs become tools for manipulation — turning the attention economy into a weapon against children. The system meant to protect kids often fails them — there's no official designation for Munchausen by proxy in most states, CPS may miscategorize it as "medical neglect," and perpetrators routinely cross state lines to dodge investigations…
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