93-3-3-WMR, audio on demand, presents the Preston and Steve show podcast.

And now, Preston and Steve's news update with Kathy Romano.

Today is August 24th, Thursday morning. Good morning, Kathy.

Good morning in the news this morning. An elected official in Lehigh County is calling for action after he says he discovered an unusually high number of rare medical diagnosis. He says that they led to multiple parents losing custody of their children. The parents were diagnosed with Munchausen syndrome by proxy, a form of child abuse where the caretaker of a child either makes up fake syndromes or makes a child appear sick or causes them to actually be sick.

The financial watchdog in Lehigh County is running for re-election.

He became concerned after he said he found a remarkably high concentration of cases in the region.

Mark Pinsley, the Lehigh County controller, is calling for an investigation now.

He's concerned the county could get sued for millions of dollars.

Pinsley says that he found Lehigh and Northampton counties had one third of all Munchausen syndrome by proxy cases reported in Pennsylvania from 2017 to 2021 with eight.

That's insane. Yeah, it's pretty crazy. I mean, the stories are not simple. They're pretty complex.

I mean, the parents are one. I heard one. The parents, you know, went to an emergency room with their son. The son said that he was being abused. And, you know, so, and it all led to this. And they did eventually, I believe, get custody back of their children. but, you know, they're saying that this and these

cases being, you know, the parents being diagnosed with this. And they said, the one couple that

spoke to 6 ABC said that nobody even talked to them. Like they were just diagnosed with this.

Without even being consulted. Right. And then after an investigation and after being, you know, I guess looked at themselves,

they found that they didn't have it.

It's a weird, it's a weird thing. I saw a documentary HBO had it years ago about a woman

who just was, every one of her kids developed some sort of bizarre, quote unquote, condition.

And I mean, she was an extreme case, but it's the psychology behind it is really disturbing.

Yeah, it's very disturbing.

Lehigh County children and youth had no comment on any of the cases where children were taken

away from their parents because of this diagnosis.

There is no word on which doctors and hospital networks may be responsible.

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