Nobody Should Believe Me - Season 7 Mailbag Part 2

Episode Date: June 19, 2026

Andrea and Myrriah are back for part two of our season seven mailbag, revisiting some of the conversations that generated the most discussion this season. As they reflect on some of the biggest themes of season seven, they unpack ongoing debates around child abuse investigations, public perceptions of child welfare, and the stories we tell about families, medicine, and harm. Along the way, they discuss what they've learned from survivors, experts, and listeners alike, while considering how systems meant to protect children can be both challenged and improved. *** Try out Andrea’s Podcaster Coaching App: https://studio.com/apps/andrea/podcaster Order Andrea’s book The Mother Next Door: Medicine, Deception, and Munchausen by Proxy: https://read.macmillan.com/lp/the-mother-next-door-9781250284273/ View our sponsors: https://www.nobodyshouldbelieveme.com/sponsors/ Remember that using our codes helps advertisers know you’re listening and helps us keep making the show!   Subscribe on YouTube where we have bonus content: https://www.youtube.com/@NobodyShouldBelieveMePod Follow Andrea on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andreadunlop/ Buy Andrea's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Andrea-Dunlop/author/B005VFWJPI For more information and resources on Munchausen by Proxy, please visit: https://www.munchausensupport.com/ The American Professional Society on the Abuse of Children’s MBP Practice Guidelines: https://apsac.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Munchausen-by-Proxy-Clinical-and-Case-Management-Guidance-.pdf Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

True Story Media. Hello, it's Andrea, and surprise, we have more to say about season seven. So today you are getting part two of our Milbank episode. I always look forward to recording these because you all send in such smart, thoughtful feedback and questions, and it reminds me that I am not, in fact, podcasting into the void. As I mentioned in this episode, there were many questions about the Dr. John Cox and Melissa Bright cases, both part of Mike Hicks and Bods do No Harm series, so we are going to have some follow-up reporting

on both of those coming up on the main feed. We love a deep dive, and we know you do too. If twice the Nobody Should Believe Me this week is not enough, there is always more for you over on our subscriber-exclusive show. Nobody Should Believe Me After Hours, which you can find by subscribing on Apple or Patreon, and if two extra episodes a month is still not enough, with our highest year on Patreon, you get three.

We have a lot to say over here, and we are so grateful that you are listening. There is no show without you. We'll be right back with part two of our season seven mailback. So a couple of comments. So we obviously did take another round of media debunkery in this season. Some stories that we've touched down on before. It likely will touch down on again. So I really dug into my Kixenbaugh's reporting in a way that I had not.

previously done. We have some more coverage coming, specifically of the Dr. John Cox case. We are going to be talking to Matthew Torbenson about that one in more detail because that was such a big media story. And I think a lot of people had questions about that case. And so we thought, well, we have an excellent source on that. Let's just go ahead and dig into that. I will always make time in my schedule for Mike Hicks and Bog, my friend. So, yeah, there was a couple of comments on Mike Hicksonbach opens his reporting with this injury that his child had when he was swinging her around. And so someone had commented, my kicks in a child sounds like she had nursemaid's elbow. You are exactly right. I ran this story that he told on the show by a couple of caps to just get

there away in because I was like, does this sound at all suspicious? I don't think so. But let me have in there like, oh, no, absolutely this is something we see all the time. So it says most reasonably trained pediatricians in caps know this is common, benign accidental injury. And this person said, I have been consulted by police and CPS to weigh in on these cases when some non-knowing, poorly trained doctor calls in child abuse. Sorry, this is editorializing from a commenter, not my words. The part of the podcast where he talks about this shows me what an idiot he is. Yeah, just to sort of contextualize this piece, so, you know, he sort of talks about this benign industry. And then we had another comment that said, Hicksenbach is like, well, I reflect on the system working in my personal

case. I can imagine a hypothetical situation where it didn't work. And that's concerning. And that is kind of the vibe of that whole thing, right? It's like he had, what is a very straightforward experience where he had injury that was not concerning for abuse. They took them in and nobody said it was a child abuse. They said, don't beat yourself up. This happens all the time. And I think he felt terrible about injuring his child in that way, as would we all, right? Like, that is, of course. You step on your child's toe or whatever and it's like you feel like the worst parent in the world for a few minutes. So I think like his extrapolating to this going awry and interestingly, there's an interesting irony there from this commenter who's saying, like, who is going to call an injury that is well known to be like a common injury and benign? Who is going to call that in for abuse? Is it going to be a child abuse pediatrician who's done a three-year fellowship? Or is it going to be a much less well-trained physician that makes an assumption based on less knowledge? Oh, how shocking. Yeah. Yeah. And like we always talk about like the caveats, right? Like we've talked a lot about bad doctors on this show. And like,

you know, not every doctor is perfect and not every doctor is going to make the right call every day. Their own personal biases are going to come in, except all of my asterix of everything. I was like, I can't turn the journalism right off. But it's like, it's such a point of privilege to be able like, I can only imagine how horrific this would be when in fact there are families who get like, you know, we talk to Roxanna and we talk to Alan about families who are actually impacted by an incredible amount of family separation due to biases either in the medical system and CPS, you know, like we're living in a time when ICE agents are ripping families apart, right? This is the realities we actually live in right now,

and those thoughts are terrifying to think of your friends and your neighbors being forcibly removed from their lives and their families, right? Versus I'm a white guy going to the doctor with a very common injury that happens to children. And it's worth saying there is no evidence that there are some large number of family separations happening due to misdiagnosis of abusive injuries. Correct. Other separations happen. I mean, the ICE thing, I think you mentioned, you know, it's like there are reasons that we separate children or like things take much longer to resolve because people don't have resources, right, where it's like maybe that it wasn't, maybe there was a suspicious injury, but that's not like, I think it's also like part of the gray area that people

don't want to live in is that sometimes a parent can have a bad moment. or whatever, and it's not the right thing to just remove that kid from the custody. It's like, these decisions are very measured for a reason. And I think this idea and then sort of where Mike goes with it that he's like, and look at this other family who is also white intact family, which we know statistically less likely to have their children removed. And they really didn't for very, you know, they had their kids taken away for like 48 hours. And we'll talk up a little bit about the bright case later, who are also a white middle class family that can afford really good lawyers. That's not a good analogy for what could have happened if I wasn't me. It's like, well, that person is like,

I mean, they're not exactly the same, but it's a strange place to go with it. And I think it's a lefty smoke screen. I think it's a I'm going to sound like I'm making a social justice argument when I'm not. Right. And like everyone who's consuming stories is always inserting themselves. Yes. Right. That's part of the part, right, that's the part of the magic and the power of storytelling is that you are then inserted into somebody else's life. You're experiencing something from a different perspective or point of view or you're having your own perspective and point of you, reflected back to you in a slightly different way. And storytelling is innately powerful. It's a powerful tool for changing hearts and minds around many different issues. Right. We use the same

mechanisms on the show, obviously. Yeah, it's not critical of those mechanisms. Obviously, those are the things we are thinking about and we're thinking about how our listeners are consuming these things. But I think it's like to insert yourself in this way should come with, you know, I'm here talking in all of these caveats. Right. Here's my asterisk, my asterisk. It's like, but we don't get that in that story of like him acknowledging. here's all the privileges I hold and this thought still creeps into my mind. Let's explore why that creeps into my mind, right? Like that to me is the more interesting story and what I would have wanted to explore, but I didn't produce that show and nor would I have come to the conclusions that that show did.

So. But it is if you did produce any of these shows, our inbox is open. Hello and Nobesoplymee. It's open. If you have any recorded audio. We love listening to your raw tape. We love getting raw tape. Like if you or anyone you know has been interviewed me, by Serial Podcast. If you're one of the 165 experts they talked to and didn't use any of, let us know. And that takes us to the next comment, which was, my jaw was on the floor when you played the recording of the interview between Serial and the DA, that's Matthew Torbenson, isn't serial affiliated with the New York Times? Yes, it is. scares me that there was no real attempt to provide both sides of the argument. Yes, scares us too, but New York Times seems to be

in that business these days. You know, and I always take a grain of salt because I am always like, If someone had to listen to all of my raw tape, I'm sure there's going to be things that I'm embarrassed about, right? Like, there's things where you're like working through thoughts, trying to get to the bottom of something. Of course, we all come in with our own assumptions. But I think, like, to point back to, like, our conversation with John Stewart or any other suspected perpetrator we've ever had on, we are very open to just asking them open-ended questions, having them tell us what happened. We don't sit down and be accusatory for moment one because we are in our collection of information space. Right. And I think if you can't live in that collection of information space in a more genuine way, I don't know. It's it's something I think about all the time as someone who's worked in audio for so long because like I have read like this American Life School of reporting and like I've sat through all that stuff. And there's something I always thought of it as like kind of an innocent thing. And now I'm like, oh, what if this is bad. It's like at one point like Ira Glass has talked about sometimes you ask someone essentially the same question a couple of different ways because you're trying to get a slightly different response. Because Maybe you're like, oh, I like this response, but I need it structured a different way.

Or I like this response, but I want something a little bit different. And that's a pretty general tactic used by journalists is like, I'm going to ask you essentially the same question, a couple of different ways to see if I can get the response that I quote unquote want. Well, and sometimes you don't get a straight answer. I mean, that's also like we've certainly had cases where we're talking to someone and you're like, they just tell you something that doesn't make any sense. Many times. I was like we just did one where we're just trying to give you an opportunity.

to say this in a way that will actually sound coherent. And if we can't pull it off, then we can't pull it off. And we're left with what we're left with. But we're never out here trying to make anyone look bad. No. And like, yeah, it's like you come in with the data that you've already had. But you're, it's like, I don't know, every time I sit down for an interview, I think of it as an opportunity to change my mind about something. And so if, if I can't come in with that opportunity, I don't know why you would be in a, in a field where the whole job is being a curious person. Yeah, it's just, I mean, the, the serial thing, it's, I mean, I have all my other, I have many qualms with the New York. times. They've been called out by the American pediatrics, like, multiple times for their coverage specifically around, like, trans health care. And, like, how inaccurate they are with that. And it's garbage. And it's a lot of garbage about abusive head trauma. A lot of garb. I mean, there's so many pieces of garbage. And it's really unfortunate that such a legacy institution has fallen by the wayside in this manner. But, I mean, serial's been called out before and even, like, their very first season, like, now on reflection. And so, and here's my thing, too, is like, when we're reporting, we report with what we have with what we have and when we have it, right? And so are there opportunities to reflect

back on your reporting and say, hey, you know what? Things have changed. And here's how they've changed. And like that is an opportunity. But I think to just like brush off like we did two years of work and interviewed all of these people. And then this is the conclusion we came to because these were the three people we could talk to you to give us the conclusion we wanted is doesn't seem very genuine to me. And I think it, yeah, I think with this, it's sort of like when I found out about this podcast and when I listened to it before aired widely, you know, I wrote some strongly worded emails to the producers and did have some back and forth with the producers. And to give them credit, they're the only people who've ever answered any of my request for comment. None of these other

people will speak up on their methods, but said all this stuff to get them about. Did we have our fact checkers go through their entire transcript, maybe? Which we sure did. But like, yeah, and obviously that's why we made like seven episodes about what, you know, what was going on in that case, but, like, there's so much evidence of that being a bad faith effort. And, like, when I first sent to this was sort of, like, here's all the reasons, like, the way you portray much has in my proxy abuse is harmful. And here's, like, the stuff about sort of abusive head trauma and all this stuff. And, like, they just, I mean, their answers were, were weak. And when we asked them about this, when we told them we had this recording, that was when they told us,

they spoke to over 160 people. And I was like, and yet, somehow you end up with, like, episode too is like, yeah, Deborah Jensen, I just thought she was wrong about some things. So, whoa, what a smoking gun. It's just like, like, audio that we would never use in a million years, you know, and like it just like, yeah, we talk to lots of people and we don't use all their tape or any of their tape too. People do a lot of like, I mean, it's like the idea that you're using audio from someone who was a social worker who thought that she was wrong about a munchausen by proxy case that he couldn't remember any of the details of. And his, in his opinion, it wasn't munchausen by proxy because this.

mom took her kid to the doctor all the time. So she was taking really good care of him. And I was like, well, that is something that someone who has not even the faintest idea of my much husband my proxy abuse would say. It's like, why are you platforming that person's opinion? And yet you're suppressing experienced child abuse, doctors who've talked to you and prosecutors who have all this experience. And it's just like, he said all the things that I said to them in my strongly worded email. And I was like, oh, silly me. Like, of course they know this. Of course they know. They know exactly what they're doing. And I think that is on a level that is different than I do think that there are some journalists, especially like local journalists who do not have serial time and budget

that are picking up these stories and kind of running with them that just don't, that actually just don't know. Yeah. But I struggle to believe that serial, the New York Times, NBC, ProPublica, these are not places that lack the resource or knowledge to be able to properly report on these issues. And so for whatever reasons, they are choosing not to. And that, to me, has moral and ethical implications that go far beyond just getting a story wrong. I'm not saying we've never got anything wrong. In fact, the whole reason that I was willing to engage with John Stewart was because, like, I had only looked at his case a little bit. And I didn't come to any broad conclusions about it, except that it didn't look like it was a false accusation of abuse on behalf

of Sally Smith. And that is the opinion I still hold today. But I was like, yeah, if a person's telling me I got something wrong and that's the person who is involved in that case, I'm going to listen to that. And I'm going to revisit what I previously said. So like, I am always willing to be wrong. And I think any journalist should be. Yeah. I mean, in all of the cases that we report, we do sit and stew on like, who else could it have been or what else could it have been? What are the other options here? How do we like get those options either off the table or out of the potential formula of possibilities? It's like, sometimes I feel like we've looked at cases and we're like, well, obviously it's this, but we're going to go dig in, right? And I'm always like, and I genuinely would love one day to hit a wall and say, oh my God, it was totally, totally wrong. We found the one. We found the one false accusation of my child. It's happened so bad. I want us to find just the overzealous mom who was like my child has a mystery illness and we finally found the mystery illness and this is what it was and this is why we went through all of this, you know? And like, And I know those people exist, but they're also not people who are then getting investigated by the police. So it's, you know, it's tough.

I mean, I guess it's true. We did. It's like technically Dr. Glick told us a story of parents who went through the process of law enforcement doing an investigation, getting to the court. But it's like then a child abuse pediatrician was brought in to give a second opinion. Yeah. So the idea that we're pushing back on is not that the police never make any mistakes. It's not that prosecutors never make errors. It's not that it's not even that caps never make errors.

It's that caps are not a problem of this system. They are not a piece to go after and dismantle regardless of where you fall on this. And that is where we found some agreement with the abolitionists, even if I don't agree with them on everything. So, yeah, I mean, it is nuanced and we take a lot of time with this. And yeah, and we do. It's like I'm always interested to know if I'm wrong. I like being thorough. That's one of the things I like about my job.

Okay, so comments from about fractured families. And a couple of these are about Eller Stanlo's, which we are going to be talking about more on the show. We have an excellent expert that we're going to bring in to talk about that one. This is a very sort of complex ecosystem. But this person said, not only has Ellerstandlos been hijacked by abuse denialists, it's also been hijacked by online illness fakers, munchies, malingerers. Yes, Eller Stamlose comes up a lot as a alleged differential.

Yeah, alleged differential diagnosis for abuse on both sides. This is from someone who actually has it. So currently around 30 minutes in, just wanted to say that it took me over 16 years after my initial injury and many orthopedists and specialists to get a diagnosis of EDS. Getting a diagnosis over the phone is wild. This is in reference to Dr. Michael Hollick, an extremely notorious abuse denialist who just really hands out those Eller Stanlo's syndrome diagnoses from shaken hands, from just the look of someone, which he self-reported to a journalist from profanielist. Publica and the New Yorker. Yes. So the conspiracy that regular Joe doctors are out to get you and steal your kids and take your money with Big Pharma will never cease to amaze me. Yet they also believe that the fringe doctors that charge ridiculous amounts of money and don't accept insurance

and will say whatever you want to hear are the good guys who are spreading the truth and totally not taking advantage of you for personal gain upside down smiley face. And yes, I think like there was part of me honestly that even as I do not think that most of the people who are in fractured family, based on what we've seen are likely false accusations of abuse. You also realize they are being, I do feel like they're being exploited by these doctors, right? It's like these doctors, they're just cash cows for these doctors who are like, yeah, there's a market, right? So it's like they charge, you know, $5,000 for a report or they charge, you know, tens of thousands of dollars to come show up on the stand. It's like if you're looking to make money out of child abuse cases, it's not going to be

is a child abuse pediatrician. Being a child, that's the lowest sub-specialty in pediatrics. So it's like, if you want to follow the money, that's where it is. Somebody also said, I could listen to an entire season debunking the fringe experts. Well, we have good news for you. We have a big list. We're going to make our way down it as we go. It said some dark humor, but the ADA, that was Matthew Torbenson, interviewed reading the paid experts for filth while remaining Midwestern Nice kept cracking me up. He is a very nice person. He's a very nice person. He's a very, lovely person and we love a politely delivered strong opinion. And that is what that is what we mostly get from the people we talked to on this show. It's a delight. It's a delight. You can be both.

You don't have to start calling people's names. You don't have to start trotting out the B word and the C word just because you have strong feelings. I know. I was think of Dr. Glick when she was just like, I would hope that, you know, when she's like calling for people to have morals and and like empathy and integrity and you're just like, this is a Dr. Glick readdown. Yeah, you're like, oh, God, watch out for that. I guess again, Midwestern. Yeah, Midwestern nice. I mean, but to be honest, I would not want to be on the other side of the courtroom from Dr. Glick. She knows her stuff. So this is a question about, was fractured families trying to be ironic with the name of their group, like really fractured? I know they're going for the alliteration, but come on. Great question. Yeah. Point, point well taken.

That, quote, second opinion hero song is some white people nonsense. again, have to agree. The way my jaw dropped at the second opinion, heroes, first time commenter, long-time listener, and oh my God, the song. We had a lot of comments on the song. I will say one of our Patreon listeners rewrote some of the lyrics for the song in one of the comments. That was like a lively back and forth. So we appreciate you.

We do cling to those moments of dark humor on the show because that is what helps us all cope. So whenever something is just accidentally funny, we, we do we do enjoy that. And shout out to our incredible engineer Robin who gave it just the correct twinge creepy fade out at the night. Just like just be like here I am injecting this into your nightmares. Yeah really really made it feel like it sound like how it feels. Yes and if you're wondering yes there is a creepy AI music video that goes along with that song and it is like three minutes long. So if you would like to do that to your brain, we can't stop you.

you. So here's some questions on caps. So some people say caps should collaborate with other experts like geneticists and genetic counselors' thoughts. So for the people that say they should, I have really good news. They do. So I asked specifically, I asked some of my cats specifically about the idea of genetic testing because that's something that comes up a lot and people say, well, I want to have my child genetically tested for X, Y, and Z. So number one, a couple of things to note here. One of the logical fallacies that operates in a lot of these stories is the idea that child abuse cannot be a positive diagnosis that is only a diagnosis of exclusion. So like that basically like you sort of have to prove that it's nothing else. That's not true. There are symptoms

that are very recognizable as pattern for abusive head trauma. We talked earlier about those sort of shearing injuries and the and the bilateral hemorrhages and that kind of thing. That again, not just those injuries, but the specific pattern that shows up in abusive cases, certain kind of fractures, spiral fractures, posterior rib fractures. There are specific kinds of injuries that are diagnostic of abuse. And then on top of that, obviously, one of the biggest things is, does this match what the parent is saying? Does this story make sense? Is this parent coming in and saying that they, nothing at all happened, which is very common? You know, it's a whole thing. So they are at least, you know, the second person to evaluate when there's already a suspicion of abuse.

And then they are also talking to, I just want to make it clear, like their process for ruling in abuse specifically is incredibly rigorous. They are talking to the other subspecialists, so whether that's the orthopedist or the radiologist or whomever it is, the ER physicians. They're consulting with the other doctors at the hospital that you would want them to talk to, right? So hematologist, bleeding disorders or something that come up, they regularly test for some of these things. If there's any indications of like osteogenesis imperfecta, which is a true condition where children can have fractures due to normal care and handling. There's a bunch of other ones that people say can cause fractures in infants with norm care and handling. Osteogenesis imperfecta is one of the real ones. So they are talking to all of those specialists that you would want them to be talking to.

They frequently get second opinions. They'll sometimes get another opinion from another cap. it's a multidisciplinary team. So with the question about genetic testing specifically, there's a little bit of a rubric to this. So what my caps tell me is that they will do genetic testing that there's a pretty low threshold for it. So there is a lot of genetic testing that happens. So if there's any reason at all to suspect that that child has any symptoms of having a bleeding or a clotting disorder, of having some kind of genetic condition that would cause any of these things, of having OI,

that they will go ahead and order those follow-up tests just to be safe. There are situations, but of course, like a doctor, a geneticist has to say you should order this test, right? So it sort of goes through that thing like any other area of medicine where a genetic counselor says, yes, this person or geneticist says yes, or the hematologist said, yes, this could be a bleeding disorder. There could be some evidence of it. Let's order those tests just to be safe, right? So they don't do it in every single case of abuse because sometimes there's no need to do that. And they still have to deal with insurance and everything else that we have to deal with in everything of medicine. Those tests can be very expensive. From what I understand,

those tests are pretty liberally ordered. So I think, you know, one of the biggest things to debunk here is just this idea that it's just this strange idea that ER treating physicians and all these other doctors there are seeing these children in these big children's hospitals where many of these cases come out, just like know absolutely nothing about children or the conditions that they have. I mean, These are places that see falls all the time, that see various head injuries that happen for benign accidental reasons, just all the time. They're familiar with things like benign enlargement of the subarachnoid space. They're familiar with osteogenesis imperfecta and bleeding disorders and like all of these things, right? And so they are looking for other reasons. But I think like the

idea that we should push back on is the idea that you need to sort of like subject a child to 80-11 tests that they don't need for things that they don't have just because you can find some quack expert to say, well, I shook the mother's hand and the mother clearly has Eller-Stand-Lose syndrome, which you can't test babies for anyway. So a lot of this just goes into this sort of like doom scroll circle. But I think like people would feel much better, I think, and hopefully they do listening to this show, that like child abuse pediatricians are extremely thorough and they are the most knowledgeable about anything that would be termed a mimic for abuse or like a condition that could possibly show up in a way that would make children look, would look like a suspicious

injury. Yeah. Like if anything, if I was like someone who went to a hospital and if there's a child in my life who it's like they're like, oh, this could be abuse. If there wasn't a cap at the hospital I was at, the second opinion I'd be asking for is from a cap. Yeah. And to your point, Like another cap told us a story about, again, and I don't even want to call this necessarily a false accusation, but just a suspicion that didn't turn out to be abuse or like a parent that was getting called in and investigated. This was a mom who was living with her baby in a homeless shelter and didn't have good access to medical care. And her child had a condition that caused bruising really easily that had just not been caught. So her child did have a blood disorder and she kept getting called in for abuse. And again, who ruled it out?

A cap. Okay. So this is just another comment. I bet a child abuse pediatrician who is a man would never be called shrill or be criticized for not introducing himself or not being friendly. He'd be called no nonsense and praised for the behavior a woman is criticized for. Yeah. This was also a reflection from Dr. Randy Alexander, who is very experienced child abuse pediatrician and the former boss of both Deborah Jensen from The Preventionist and Sally Smith from Take Care of My Our Show and many other. much of their media coverage. I think this is a fair point. I also think I would be very skeptical of the anecdotal reports of the parents who are saying what their interactions with these child abuse pediatricians were. We hear these same stories all the time. They didn't introduce themselves. They didn't say who they were. They yelled in my face. Ashley Finnegan describes Sally Smith getting in her face and yelling at her. What we find from talking Sally Smith is like that was the opposite and that they don't tell them who they are, that they're sneaky. Like, caps have no

reason to do any of that. It would be, I'm not saying that there's never been a cap with a bad bedside manner. I'm sure there have. But I think, again, what was interesting about hearing Nicole's story from our final episode is that the other doctors were much more judgmental and did not have a good bedside manner and did not really treat and that that was sort of an area of improvement. And I think caps are just way less rattled in abuse situations than other doctors, which makes sense. I mean, they're made of tough stuff. I don't know. This is such a little sidebar, but there's this person on social media who does this series that are about men who have yet to be canceled instead of women who just don't smile enough. He's done like, oh, everyone critiques Britney Spears in

this way and XYZ or like Miley Cyrus or all this stuff. And then they're like, and then here's like Brad Pitt who is taken to court for like literally abusing his children and his kids don't talk to him. And like he has two Oscar, you know, and like goes down like all of the ways that like still exists in society and everyone has. And everyone's like, isn't it amazing how great? He looks. Yeah. Let's stay focused on that. Yeah. Let's not talk about the abuse allegations. Yeah. Yeah. So, certainly double standard. Summer is upon us. Finally, and if you're looking to refresh your wardrobe with the change in seasons, Quince has got you covered. Cruise on over to Quince and check out their summer edit for a high-quality expertly curated selection of warm weather essentials.

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Elevate your summer wardrobe. Go to quince.com slash believe for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q-U-I-N-C-E dot com slash believe for free shipping and 365-day returns. Quince.com slash believe. And remember the shopping our sponsors, help support the show. We got a very interesting email from someone who was recounting a personal experience. They are an attorney and had encountered some of these media stories. They talk about reading a profile on Dr. Wadey Squire, who is someone will probably talk a little bit more about with Matthew Torbenson in our interview about that case because I believe she was involved. She is a pretty well-known abuse denialist from the UK. And this person said they were really sort of convinced about this idea that there was all of these false allegations of abuse of head trauma and munchausen by proxy and that they were especially nervous because they had diagnoses themselves of pots and hypermobile elder Stanlos, which we've obviously talked about on the show. And they had heard this pretty widespread idea that if you have one of these conditions, you're very

likely to sort of be accused of Munchausen or Munchaus my proxy. So this is what she says. Then in 2024, my worst fear materialized. Following a grueling separation from my then husband, he took our two-year-old son to an urgent care clinic reporting lethargy and a seizure. Doctors found a bruise on my son's ear, which I now know is a significant red flag. And combined with my ex-husband's narrative of our divorce, the situation was flagged as suspicious for abuse. My son was referred to the local children's hospital to be evaluated by the child abuse pediatrics team. I was terrified that they would misinterpret his MRI or reflexively accuse me of abusive head trauma. However, the Caps immediately focused on a rigorous differential diagnosis, screening him for rare bleeding disorders and

conducting a thorough imaging review. Within 24 hours, the Caps definitively ruled out abuse. While the experience was as harrowing as anything described in Coachola's book, which is a book about a use of head trauma, I truly believe that without a specialized child abuse team, our family would have been at a much higher risk for separation. Their investigative work ultimately cleared my name. They determined that my son had suffered a fall at school that explained his symptoms and that he had no evidence of prior trauma. I am so thankful they were there. I hope it encourages your work to know there are many stories like mine where diligent caps teams perform high quality work that protects families from actual false allegations. Yep. Yep. Yep. No notes.

Yeah, just really striking, I think, because it's like the same setup as all these stories, right? Which I think was like when we were talking to Nicole in our 10th episode, it was that same thing, right? She's telling the same story that we've heard in all these abuse denials, except then you get an answer. So very appreciative of that person. And they signed their letter, a fan and a convert. We love a convert. We love nothing more than someone who is willing to change their mind around here. So this is our section about medical kidnapping and parents' rights.

So still early in, but as a person who thinks a lot about adultism, which is a term I had not previously heard, and children's complete lack of rights, really appreciating this convoy, imagine if child abuse was reframed as hate crimes against children. And I think that's really a salient point. Another commenter weighed in and said exactly, if an adult does this shit to another adult, it's rightfully considered a crime. the victim has the right to legal recourse and their resources available. Children don't have any of that unless an adult advocates for them. Yeah, it's really sad. I mean, I've read and know friends who emancipated themselves from their abusive households once they hit the age of 16, but it's really sad to think about how much of a life

they had to lead before they were able to do anything about it because how many people were willing to believe them. Yeah, and I think, you know, we got an incredible email from someone actually in Brazil, who we're going to have a follow-up conversation with, who works in this area of, like, human rights and sort of talking about this, just this concept. I think we've been noodling a lot on the show, right, of like, what if we thought of people having a duty towards children rather than rights over them because you should not be able to have rights over another human being? And I think that's a really interesting idea. And I also think that, like, and no, we're not advocating that children

should just like be able to make all their legal decisions at two. But, you know, there are obviously specific things about children and their development. But like the idea really resonated with me of like, because I think that is what comes through in a lot of these conversations about medical kidnapping, et cetera, et cetera, is like the children are property in that equation. And the idea of having rights over another person is fundamentally to my mind unsound. And it isn't inequitable, yeah. Yeah, and it isn't sort of how I see myself as a bit.

Like, what if we thought of ourselves as sort of their stewards and their caretakers and, like, our job was to advocate for them. And I think most people do see their role as parents like that. But I think there is also this concept of, like, you have ownership of them. And I think there are plenty of people in this country who really do see things that way of, like, no, that is apparent parents right to do what they like to their child, to discipline them how they want, to treat them how they want to medicalize them how they want, and that that's just not something that should be interfered with. And obviously, I strongly disagree with that. Yes, and we just had another

comments about why do we think that the medical kidnapping stuff resonates with people on the left, which this writer considers themselves the leftist. And I think it said it's in the large part because of the mistrust of child welfare system due to punitive outcomes for people of color. However, the more I look into the medical kidnapping and falsely accused people like in the medical child abuse and this season's guy, the more I noticed it's mostly white people doing this. Yeah. I mean, I think that was a conversation we had at one point, you know, in our dark humors, as we said, oh, it was white supremacy all along, which is so often the case of just like, oh, people don't like child abuse pediatricians because it adds equity into the system. It adds an expert into

the system who notwithstanding, again, me and my asterisk, of course there are people with biases. But even, you know, we talked to Dr. Booz, who talked about they do. studies and seminars and things within child abuse pediatrics about what are the biases they're still holding on to what is the percentage of biases like they are i think as many medical establishments are kind of having an internal reckoning right because obviously so much medical science was advanced at the unfortunate and depraved use of uh from formerly enslaved people enslaved people like there was so much done i mean the entire history of gynecology is like, yeah, yeah. Horrific things were done. Tuskegee, you know, experiments. Like, yes, yes.

There's long dark history. You know, to ski, there's so many ways where I have so much more empathy for populations who have a mistrust of the medical system because I'm like, rightfully so, you know, like, rightfully so. So it's like I look and watch and continue to hope for that like to align itself into the corrective direction of history, right, for the future. But what has been so interesting is the piece. of these reports of medical kidnapping, these instances, the big news reports, it's all kind of come as the surge of having access to caps has increased, right? So more hospital systems have caps, which means that diagnosing abuse has become more exact science and less about a CPS workers' vibes on a family. Yeah, yeah. And I mean, then this really tracks with what the abolitionists we spoke to Alendella sent us, you know, this paper that was written by Cap and then abolitionists were on this paper together and they were talking about how child abuse pediatricians can be a step towards equity and that they reduce some of these disparities. But yeah, so that's always something I'm

kind of thinking about is that often when equity is actually happening, it can then feel like oppression to those who've never had to deal with consequences before. Yeah, I think there's probably a couple other places we could point out that that's happening. You know, in America, who's to know? Yeah. And we got a lot of comments about episode nine, which was where we spoke to, you know, Alan Dudleff and Elizabeth Pertilead and Roxanne Ascarian and really kind of dug into this conversation about what is falling in the parents' rights camp, what is falling in the abolitionist camp, what is falling in the children's rights camp. And it's not, the lines are not as

as distinct as you would imagine. And I also say that recognizing that the more people I meet in the child welfare space, I think there is the feeling that on the extremes of both the right and the left, there is not a lot of support for additional protections of abused children. And I think from a policy standpoint, I can see that. I think the arguments are different and that does matter, I will say, and I wonder where you fell on this, because we had, I feel like, so many conversations behind the scenes at the team and really just like sort of, you know, I felt like a lot of like, I will not say dread, but like existential push pull, right? Where I was like, who do I like agree with more in this, in this debate? Because I do think people like Elizabeth

Bartlett and Alendell left do see themselves as absolutely like opposing sides. And I think to me, I think the historical context, I think it would be insane to discount the entorial, like to just be like this historical context around who we've considered a family, who we think has rights to their children, who has rights to stay together, who has rights to do process, like all of that, like given how recent this history is, I think it would be insane to not factor that in. And I think that's where in particular the book that we were talking to about by Allendeleft was really helpful in contextualizing. And as he said himself, He doesn't necessarily have a good policy prescription for what we should do about child abuse. I think academically, I think he has some really interesting ideas. I think also talking to Roxana Ascarian was very helpful. She is a survivor. I think asking survivors, you can never go wrong with that. I think we should do way more of that.

Asking them for the outcomes and they're not going to be a monolith. They're not going to have the same answers. And what I appreciate about the abolitionist's perspective is the idea of imagining something better. and I know that that resonated with a lot of listeners, whereas I don't think the parents' rights folks are not sort of putting that out there and they're not talking about community care and some of these other things I just think are generally beneficial. But I will say like, and this may be my own failure of imagination. I think where where I get a little like off a cliff. And I think this came through right in my conversation with Alan where what he was saying was, well, if we had the resources, you know, and the relationship between resources and abuse is not is not straight. forward. This data is very complex and I think we should be very cautious not to assume that people are

more likely to abuse their children because they're poor because that's not true. We don't have data that says that. We say they have more interactions with the system and then neglect. You get a little more complicated. But when we're talking about these cases, cases where children are ended up hospitalized because of their injuries, there is not a meaningful difference in the data from a socioeconomic standpoint. how they are dealt with in the system who is likely to get, you know, longer time separated, like all that stuff, there's disparities. But in terms of, like, is there a big difference? Like, are poor people abusing their children more?

Like, no, we do not have that data. And I think that's a dangerous idea and, like, very unfair to the many people who are struggling with poverty who do not abuse their children. Right. But I think, yeah, I mean, I'm curious kind of where you landed on all of this. And I just, I landed on this was, I very appreciated these conversations because they gave me so much to think about. I do not pretend to have all the answers here. No. Yeah. Honestly, it really gave me, it gave me like the most to think about was really the conversations we had in

episode nine because I think I'm definitely someone who's in that camp of like, I think the more resources we can give to community, the less we're going to need systems like law enforcement, right? Like if you are providing free education, free health care, if you get rid of these barriers to seek assistance and like people aren't struggling every day, like you were saying, drastically reduces cases of neglect that are just piling upon CPS, right, like that are taking away resources from then having the ability to perhaps dream of better ways to deal with abuse. And like, there is no country that seems to have a great answer for this. There's no like, well, what are the Nordic countries? Like every developed country, underdeveloped country, however you want to frame it,

there are systems that we're all struggling with because we're all people. Yeah. It's a human problem. It's a human problem. You know. Human. Interpersonal violence is a human problem. And I remember even like I was reading, I was like, what was like pre-colonization? Like what was going on in the America? Like I was doing like all this deep diving. I was like, okay, if we if we get rid of colonization and like that route of violence, like what was happening. And this is anecdotal. I'd have to do some more research. But it was like I read one example of like some indigenous tribes would just banish people. They're like you can't exist in our community. So you're banished from community. Like I think that is to like a part of what Alan was maybe trying to. to say, but not in like, obviously we can't just like do that to people because people are people. But it's, um, it was an interesting thought process of just like, oh, right, because if you have an entire community who is watching and willing to take care of children, you then have way more options of who's taking care of the child. Right. So if it's like dreaming bigger, it is about community care in that if a parent is no longer a person who can be trusted to be around children,

look at all these other people who can be around and help make sure that this child thrives. and it's not abused by other people. Because I think that is like that slope of unfortunate, like, the data is also complicated. We looked into, you know, rates of abuse and foster care. And like, you know, often I'm like, well, what if we were giving the money that goes to foster families to just the family that got charged with neglect and not being able to feed their kids? You know, there's so much wrong with the system that I totally agree we have to be dreaming of what can be better. And if we don't dream, then we've really lost ourselves as a society and lost what we should be doing for kids. there's the idiom of it takes a village. Like, and I think we've lost that in many ways. Like,

I, I am someone who is child free by choice, but I am not without children in my life and children as a part of my duty as a human being. Right. Like, I have friends with kids. I have family members with kids. And I think about how I have a responsibility to be a safe adult in all of those child's lives. And like, we should all be thinking about that more, I think, because if you, like, you, My mom was a teacher for many, many years and talks a lot about how just being an adult that kids knew they could talk to can help them get out of a lot of systems in a lot less complicated ways of just like, oh, you don't like going home after school because of X, Y or Z reason. We're going to sign you up for a bunch of clubs. Like there's so many ways you don't have to have these giant intervening, sweeping things of just like, oh, you have a parent who maybe is not. not the kindest when they get off of work because they've had a 12-hour shift. How do we make it so

that you can spend more time at school so that you get home and maybe that situation has gotten less intense, right? Yeah, and this is, I think, where the Nordic countries do have. And I just, there's somebody I want to have come on talk about this, but like where they have, like, and it doesn't necessarily show up in this like hard data about abuse specifically, but you just, I think, thinking about it holistically, and in talking to survivors, right, that just even like having other safe adults, having another place to be maybe like decreasing the stress on that parent could make it all just not as bad. And that those things are worth pursuing too. It's not very applicable to something like a muchhousin by proxy case. But I always think about like early

intervention could prevent so much of what we talk about on this show. And it is like, I think that's part of what I find to be important about the work we do is that education of what are the signs. What are the red flags you should be looking for? Because then if you see that as a person in a child's community, you can be like, hey, I see you have to go to the doctor all the time. I'm happy to come with you. Like, how are ways you can start inserting yourself into the community around you to help prevent these things from happening or like escalating to points of extremism? And I realize like, yes, of course, this is all like dreaming and it's beautiful and everyone has all the time in the world. And like, that's the world I'd like to live in.

But yeah, it is tough when you talk about the extreme parts of this case and of these cases. And some of the things I found, like, really illuminating was, like, talking to Elizabeth about, like, very few developed countries that signed, like, the... Oh, it does not sign the human rights convention or human... For the rights of the child. Yeah. We're the only. I mean, yeah. We're the only.

And I do some work for the ACLU. And right now we're digging into some, like, Supreme Court cases. around like rights of like kids at school and stuff. Anyway, it's fascinating, like how frequently legislation and laws are passed that continue to diminish the rights of a child. And I don't think people are paying attention to that. No, I agree with you. And I think like where I see a big divergence between the abolitionist argument and the parents' rights argument, even while there is some crossover in like the critique of these systems and sometimes they use the same language and sometimes they sort of show up in the same way. But I think like the emphasis,

on community, I do think that that is a way to, if not completely stop abuse or, you know, is a way to make children's lives better and give them a better shot. And I think that's worth doing regardless. And it's something that benefits just all children. And whereas the parents' rights extremists, when you're talking about people that are like very into like, they do not want their child, like part of the anxiety that drives that is they don't want their child. It's the isolation. They don't want their children going to school. They don't want them. introduced to other ideologies or other, you know, sort of ways of being in the world and people that are different than them and they're sort of isolated within these church communities or

homeschool communities. And that all is very entangled with abuse. And so I think like that to me is a meaningful difference. But yeah, it is, it is really complex. And I also kind of just fully recognize that I'm at the beginning stages of learning about all of this. And there's like a lot of people that have been at this longer, you know, on the policy standpoint. And it's so interesting to like, you know, I worked on Empire City, which was like a series from Wondery, which went into like the history of the NYPD. And like, I think it is really hard to, for some people to imagine what the unraveling would be because the systems have been in place for so long. But it's like if the systems were only meant to protect very specific people and very specific properties for so long, it's like we have to dismantle in many ways to rebuild it in a completely different way. Right. And like that dismantling doesn't mean like, stop your fingers. There's no police tomorrow. But it's like, what if we slowly got rid of the need for X or Y? Like, I don't know. I worked in nonprofits for a long time. And like the ideal version of a nonprofit is that you work your way out of a job because you've solved the problem.

And so to me, which most nonprofits don't function that way, by the way, they are mostly just looking to fundraise. And that's why I left. So I went, okay, I guess I'll just for people's, rich people's weird causes. Plenty of places that do good work. But the main point I'm trying to make here is like, so then I said, okay, well, like, let me go tell people's stories of like things that are happening and hopefully change their mind in a way to get them to care about how to be actually change and solve the problem.

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BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. In Toronto, every arrival is a statement, and nothing says it better than this. Cadillac Optic was the number one selling luxury EV in Canada for 2025. Find your rhythm across a seamless 33-inch display and an immersive 19-speaker AKG surround audio system. This city demands agility and optic delivers with precision to make every drive extraordinary. Let's take the Cadillac. Find out more at Cadillac canada.ca. Luxury sales claim based on S&P Global Mobility, Canadian New Vehicle Total Registrations for calendar year 2025 for the Cadillac definition of luxury. Yeah, so one of the questions was, it said, Andrea, when you said children who are medically abused get sent back to their abuser, which they never recover from, how does life look for them once they reach adulthood?

So this is obviously a pretty broad question, and I would never endeavor to answer on behalf of all survivors. I've met a lot of survivors. I've talked to a lot of survivors. There are some survivors working on some academic literature right now about their experiences, and I will be very excited to. I've been helping with a review process for that. I'm very excited to share that with everybody. And obviously, I think what we've seen is just that there's a massive range in terms of how well people do,

how able they are to sort of just live in the world and have solid relationships with other people. But I think it is, it never escapes me how profound this specific type of abuse is just because of the psychological factors and the way that it disconnects a person from their own body and disconnects them from reality. I just think it's a situation where, and it differs from physical abuse in this way because I think there are, you know, what we saw is we're digging into this other form. of abuse. And there are certainly cases where I think you could make a very strong argument that the perpetrators were just never going to be safe around a child and shouldn't be given another chance. You know, like I think in cases like Jeremy Graham or, you know, where they've like, they have this long history of violence. It's just like, I just don't, I think that's too risky to put a child back in that situation once they've already been harmed. But I think there

is a range, right, with physical abuse. And there is, I don't think family separation is the right, or like separating that perpetrator is all permanently is like always the right situation. I think in Munchausen by proxy cases, I do not, I have never encountered a case where I thought reunification should be the goal where I thought, oh, that child's going to be okay. Now that there's been this intervention, this child's going to be okay. I just don't think that's ever the case. And so that's kind of where I fall on that. Yeah, I mean, especially the cases we cover on the show that are so extreme.

and like we've had some of our experts tell us about cases where there was like early intervention of the behaviors right and like we're able to get the right amount of counseling it's like about there's the medical anxiety there's the maligning behavior you know like there's like all of the things that are getting set up for this to become the snowball effect right like it's just going to get bigger and bigger bigger but like you know those aren't the cases we cover on the show because luckily those are hopefully parents that got the help that they needed or got the support they needed or maybe like they no longer take care of the medical care for their child. As we were saying, like there is like such a spectrum to all of this and so it can never be like a

completely satisfying answer in many ways. But I do think from like Kyle who we talked to for the finale, like he obviously has done really well for himself in his life as an adult, but like was so vulnerable in sharing the many ways that his life has also still been a struggle. Right. So I think it's complicated, complicated for every survivor. Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, with that said, like, you know, I think another place, the sort of abolitionist argument resonated with me. And when I was talking to Alan and when I get these questions, and we had some comments where like, well, doesn't what he's saying sort of disprove your point? And I don't think it does, actually. And also, like, I, just to be clear,

I'm not, like, advocating for the system that we have. The system that we have is failing. the system that we have failed my family egregiously on more than one occasion. And that is not to place blame on any individual within that. It's just that the system is not well suited for this type of abuse in particular. And I think as we have widened the lens, I'm like, I don't think it's doing a great job with other forms of abuse either, quite frankly. So this is not a system I'm advocating for despite that I know there are many good people and, you know, whose efforts I really admire within the system. But I think about, like, where other solutions could lie just beyond, like, you know, I think the big question is like, do we try to improve the system that we have or do we just

just think of other solutions? And I think with medical child abuse and much house my proxy abuse, I think the medical system has a lot to answer for and solutions could lie within that system. Like, what if there were a way to just say like, okay, there's been evidence of much house and my proxy abuse. We're not going to pursue a criminal conviction. Because for me personally, I don't particularly care if people get punished by going to jail. I care about the safety of the child. And like whether people are not getting long prison sentences, your opinion can differ. Like, it is a mechanism to keep people away from children. I don't know it's the one we need in every case. But what if we had a situation where it's just like, okay, that person has shown evidence of medical child abuse. This child is being harmed.

We don't need a psychiatric diagnosis for this person or whatever. Like that's kind of beside, begun to feel that That's like a little bit beside the point because it's not very treatable. But if you just say, okay, this parent is no longer allowed to make any medical decisions for this child. And any doctor's visit needs to be a different parent. Like this person is not allowed to utilize the medical system anymore to harm their child. It would not completely eliminate the risk, especially with the cases we talk about where there's like poisoning and stuff like that. But for some of these cases where it's over medicalization, it would certainly prevent some of the escalation. And so it's like what else do we look at to mitigate the harm coming to children?

Kind of what you were talking about with like if we had amazing aftercare that was covered, you know, and you just have children less exposed to parents that are not ideal parents. That's also something to pursue. I don't think it has to be this binary. Yeah. I mean, I think there's things like, I mean, there's like this sounds little, but it would be major. It's just like, what if all hospitals had the same chart system and it could pull charts from any hospital system? like so many of the cases we've talked about is because things are parent reports, parent reports,

they go to a different. Lack of access. Lack of access. It's like they can't access previous records to be like, oh, another doctor did not give you this diagnosis. And like the amount of information that would be so much more helpful if like everyone could access it, all of your doctors. There's also things like I think about like, you know, when we talk about how like children don't have the same rights as adults, I'm like, you know, as an adult, I can get a patient advocate for myself. But what if a child had a third party patient advocate that was just like in doctor's appointments with them? That's just like also there.

Not even, doesn't even have to give opinion just to observe. Like, yeah, just to monitor. Someone who's like, I follow the, I, I'm assigned to this kid and I go with this kid everywhere. This kid has a doctor's appointment. Like, I don't know. To me, that's, there's like ways that. Yeah. And like if you are found taking your child to the doctor outside of that, then you are in trouble. for that. Yeah, I mean, yeah. Like, like, I'm not looking for more barriers to health care, good God, but like if we were in a system where it was easier to access health care and like, yeah, what if they're just- Well, kind of the same way you have a CASA that goes, or a gal that goes to court with you. Yeah, exactly. It's like, who are additional safe people we can put in children's communities?

Yeah. Okay, so I wanted to address this question. So it says, Andrea, why do you never discuss the case of the Brights? So that's Melissa and Dylan Bright, who were the subject of the main story that Hicks and talks about in the podcast, You Know Harm. And the comment was, that is every parent's worst nightmare, do you actually think the brights abuse their child? You seem to go out of your way not to dive into their case. So I wanted to address this. I don't know if the brights abused their child or not. We did not intentionally suppress anything that we know about this case. It was very hard to get any records on this case because this case was not investigated by the police. And so I would say almost exclusively if we're able to get records, other than if we're,

if a source shares them with us, we're able to get them by freedom of information request from the police department. And because there was no police investigation into the Brights, it all happened in CPS and family court. Those records are not accessible and we do not have the child's medical records. So I will say this about the case. And then we are actually going to dig into it a little bit more because as I was looking, as I was doing a little meta analysis of my kicks and boss article, he actually does link to some of the documentation. And I'm going to speak to, you know, my caps about that and have them give me their take on. sort of what those injuries were and what that might have meant and how things lined up in that case. So I will say, yes, with a huge caveat that I do not know what happened in that case and do

not know enough to sort of opine on it, the thing I will call everyone's attention to is that Mike Hicks and boss is saying, this family is innocent. This family was falsely accused by doctors. This was a case of a medical misdiagnosis. So I think there are all of these other things going in this case where, you know, this was the family that won a lawsuit against CPS. So, like, did CPS mishandle the case? Seems like there's evidence that they did. Does CPS frequently mishandle cases? Yes. That's not where Mike Kixenbaugh lands the plane. My Kixenbaugh lands the plane at these injuries were not abusive. And the evidence that he offers that these injuries were not abusive is a report from Dr. Julie Mack, who is one of the most notorious abuse denial.

has been sued, was not feeling guilty, but has been sued for failing to report abusive injuries in a child that later died. This is a person that has a very well-known reputation within the medical community. And the abuse diagnosis was confirmed by Texas Children's Hospital. And was they ended up hiring a doctor because of all the questions from reporters. They hired an outside cap to evaluate the case who confirmed those abusive injuries. So if you are going to say, all of those people are wrong. For my purposes, I need better evidence than Dr. Julie Mack. And my kicks and boss estimation that there is new science that show shortfalls can be fatal because guess which new science he's talking about? You're right. It's John Jay Blunkett.

The ghost is here. The ghost is here. But there is a lot more to dig into the bright case. The Butler case, there was, which is the other family that he talks about, which is the black family that's featured in that show, but featured much more minorly than the Bright case, where he says, also again, it's pointing to a misdiagnosis. I believe there was a police investigation in that I could get records into that if people are interested. Again, I will always make time to dig more into my kicks and boss work as it is a personal hobby of mine. But I think if you are the journalist that is saying this doctor is wrong, that's on you to prove it. It's not a court of law. In a court of law, you have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt, et cetera, et cetera, or if it's CPS preponderance of the evidence or what have you, right?

But that's not what we're doing here. He's saying these doctors are wrong and there is a problem with these doctors. And I think what is really galling about my Kiximba when you are on a close read of his work is like what he is saying the solution is. He's saying that CPS should have more latitude to not listen to these doctors. And I would ask you if you want CPS workers making medical decisions because I don't. CPS workers have their own area of expertise and that's what they should stick to. I want doctors making medical decision. And so I think that is where it is firmly kind of an anti-science argument.

But again, not withholding anything about the bright case, just was not able to research it the way that I would like to to my satisfaction. But we will talk a little bit more about it from based on what we know because I was able to find a little bit more information about that. So thanks for asking that question. More to come. So yeah, and then just to just close out lots of nice, lots of love for everyone who is in episode 10, Nicole for sharing her story, Kyle for sharing his story, and lots of love for listening to Kyle and Dr. Sally Smith talk to each other. And Sally getting to see him at the theater, which was like a really nice moment. for all of us. And that was like a nice little highlight for me of this season for sure. So,

Marie, I will just ask you, what was your highlight of the season and or something that just really stuck with you? You know, I think Kyle's story and Nicole's story were, um, it felt like a place to land the plane after, I think, the devastation of Nolan's story and to hear two sides of like the importance of caps at the end there felt. really important to me. And then, I mean, all of the experts we talk to, I find all of our expert interviews to always be so illuminating and interesting. And like, you know, there are so many people who talk to us both like on background and off the record. And like, you know, I'm also deeply, deeply thankful to the many people who spoke to us on background, who for their own safety,

we could not mention. And I appreciate them being vulnerable with us and providing the information that they did and and I hope that they are doing well. And I'm just always like so thankful to the, to the scientists and the doctors who put their trust in us to communicate the information as accurately as we can. Yeah, I second that. I think one of the most heartbreaking things about looking at a lot of these cases is grappling with the fact that there are, unfortunately, no small number of people that witness a child being harmed and don't do anything about it. Stay silent, don't act, even when they know, even when they know what they're seeing and not for lack of information. There are a lot of people, especially in Munchausen by proxy cases,

that just don't understand what they're seeing. You know, if you're being told something, I'm very, like, very attuned to the fact that perpetrators, which is another sort of crossover between the perpetrators that we talk about in this show can be very manipulative and that it can be very hard to believe. To my mind, once you have witnessed a child being harmed and you know what you're seeing, if you do nothing, and that doesn't weigh on your soul, then I don't know sort of what to say to you. And encountering that, I think it's one of the, you know, in addition to sort of seeing the harms done to children, and seeing how many adults sort of stood by in many of these cases is really, really hard to stomach. And I always find a counter to that that like we do get to talk to so many people who are brave, who take risks to protect children, who take risks to talk to us and tell us what they know and help shine a light on the situation. And who really will go to the mat for a child. And I think like the moral clarity of that and the moral clarity of, frankly, of Sally Smith is something that just, you know, this is a person I've talked to about.

many of her cases about many other things, you know, just like that is a through line that is something that I hold on to. And I think we should all hope to have that kind of moral clarity that we are not thinking about what will happen to me or how uncomfortable will I be if I do something about this. I think we should always think about what's going to happen to that child. Agreed. Agreed. Maybe all be as brave as a cap. May we all be as brave as a cap. All right. Well, thank you all for listening. Thank you for supporting the show. Thank you for tuning in. We are going to be back as soon as we can with season eight. It's well in the works. And it's happening. It's a full steam ahead. And we'll be back with you every week in the meantime. And Maria, thank you for hopping on the mic with me today. Of course. Happy to be here. Nobody should believe me is produced and hosted by me, Andrea Dunlop. editor is Greta Stromquist, and our senior producer is Mariah Gossett.

Administrative support from Nola Karmouche.