We failed her. Big time. Boston Children’s was experimenting on Justina Pelletier,

[pnwmom]

268. It is. Imagine that you are very sick, painfully sick, with intense abdominal pain,

headaches and weakness.

And you are being rewarded for suppressing your symptoms and punished for having them.

And they did this to her for more than a year.

http://www.diagnosticrights.org/the-coalitions-letter-on-behalf-of-justina-pelletier/

10. Bader 5’s approach of aggressive behavior modification therapy for children with somatoform diagnosis is an atrocity, and it is one the Court has sufficient evidence to recognize.

No somatoform diagnosis can be decisively confirmed because there simply is no science to support a direct correlation between the absence of medical explanations for symptoms and the presence of mental health disorders. As a result, somatoform diagnosis is notoriously inaccurate, and dangerously so.

It is unconscionable for those who treat somatoform disorder not to take stock of the great potential for diagnostic error in their field. If aggressive behavioral modification techniques are employed, severe emotional harm will certainly result for those diagnosed in error – that is, for those whose genuine physical suffering and disabilities are repeatedly met with punishment designed to encourage impossible control. Aggressive behavior modification therapy for the physical symptoms of children who are actually medically ill is heinous. Because error in somatoform diagnosis can never be ruled out, it cannot be ethical for those techniques to be employed in the treatment of somatoform disorder in children.

The Court is aware that Bader 5 does routinely employ aggressive behavior modification techniques for children with somatoform disorder. Because the Court cannot be certain whether Justina Pelletier does or does not have somatoform disorder, or which of her symptoms are medical and which are somatoform, it is unconscionable to allow further treatment by BCH or any other facility where these techniques will be employed.

I acknowledge that the case of Justina Pelletier brings to the Court a range of considerations about which there has been little specific discussion in the medical field or in the field of bioethics, but nevertheless insist that this in no way relieves the Court of its obligation to overtly discern and respect standard patients’ rights.

I respectfully request a systematic review of the Court’s decisions based on concern to acknowledge and respect these ten fundamental confusions about the rights of Justina Pelletier and her parents, Lou and Linda Pelletier.



Sincerely,

Diane O’Leary, PhD