The Atlantic: "The Internet Has a Cancer-Faking Problem"

Esther12

Esther12

Senior Member (Voting Rights)
Excerpt:

This was not the first time many of the group’s members had felt this way. As harrowing as the experience can be for those involved, people in online cancer support groups are routinely outed as healthy. It’s difficult to speculate exactly how common this phenomenon is: There have been no large-scale scientific investigations into the internet’s cancer fakers, and the evidence is limited to only those who have actually been suspected or caught. But among the internet’s cancer communities, it’s an often acknowledged problem, albeit still a shocking one. Among 10 people from three groups I spoke with recently, every person recalled someone being outed for faking in their communities at least once, if not more.
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https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2019/05/faking-cancer-online/588334/

I thought that this article was a bit interesting in relation to some of the controversies around ME/CFS.

eg an indication someone somewhere has been faking/exaggerating CFS symptoms can be presented as challenging the legitimacy of other patients' symptoms in a way that it obviously wouldn't be re cancer.

Also, while I think that it's a bit pointless trying to engage critically with other peoples' internet anecdotes, and can often be counter-productive, it does seem unfair to present any patient scepticism about someone who is trying to make money from LP and claiming that it led to them recovering as abusive opposition to psychological treatments.

My general instinct is to not trust anything I read unless I can verify it with a range of independent sources.
 
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Peter Trewhitt said:
I suppose it depends whether they have a mental health issue, though I remain sceptical that such as Munchausens exists, or if they are rather playing silly games on line where they are just 'sick' in a general sense.
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I agree. I have known a couple of people over the years in our community who have at times falsely claimed to have ME. They have obviously had some mental health issues. One of them had been given a provisional cfs diagnosis at one point and had latched into it despite it being clear that it was inappropriate and that there was a lot of other things going on that could account for some physical symptoms. She was incredibly energetic. I don’t think it needs to be as extreme as Munchausens, people can be a bit deluded and needy.
 
Though there are people out there who enjoy becoming another person, like acting or writing a novel. Some will enjoy getting attention and caring while others will feel a sense of power of the ones they are fooling.

Manipulators are common in real life so they must really enjoy the anonymity of internet groups.

When I had a bit more energy I was a member of an art forum and I enjoyed being a "well" person.
 
The article is very dodgy on the number of people doing this, but I suppose it's going to become a thing we all have to talk about. I think ME groups are pretty safe from this (I suspect) very rare behaviour ...

She posted pictures of herself bald from chemotherapy and wearing an IV drip. She quickly became close to many women in the group, and received an outpouring of sympathy, money, and gifts—including expensive wigs—to help defray the costs of medical care and raising her family.
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I can't imagine any self-respecting illness faker hanging around the ME community for long once they find out what sickness-role benefits are available to us - they'll work out that they'll do far better faking cancer, or any other illness really. I suppose we might get the occasional MMBI (Masochistic Munchausen By Internet) faker. There's probably an article/paper about that in somebody's pipeline somewhere.
 
I had a bad experience on another ME forum. We had someone who rejoined under a pseudonym and kept asking questions, demanding to know why he shouldn't have psychological treatments and criticising researchers on our side. Like others I assumed he was newly diagnosed and used precious energy to help him. When he was outed he said it was all just a joke.
 
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