News story - "Police look into report of woman faking cancer"

[CanuckSARTech]

Check this news story out, from Toronto, Ontario, Canada. It's making huge waves here in North America:

http://www.cbc.ca/canada/toronto/story/201...er.html?ref=rss

I also read some comments that her father made, as quoted on a blog:

http://visitingbedlam.wordpress.com/2010/0...ention-seeking/

Sad and twisted sense of self that this girl has. A complete shame.

[matt14]

What a scumbag, she should be hung drawn and quartered,

[Warren]

Just great.

Is there nothing they wont fake.

[MIKA27]

It is indeed a disgrace.

This possibly tarnishes the legitimate organizations out there trying to help raise funds for those who really do have cancer.

I've lost 5 people in my family to cancer, this really shits me to hear of such scams.

[Professor Twain]

This kind of feigning of a medical condition has been around for a long time, and is utterly shocking when discovered. In some cases it is much more than a scam to gain obvious benefits like money and sympathy. For some of these people, their goal is truly to be a patient, to be admitted to a hospital, to get treatment, and even to get unnecessary surgeries. Besides doing cosmetic things to appear sick, they may inject themselves with toxins or take other steps to screw up their lab values and appear ill.

It's known as "Factitious Disorder", and can even occur with a "Factitious Disorder by Proxy" when a PARENT does these things to make their child appear sick.

I have worked with a few of these people. They aren't just evil manipulative people, they are truly disturbed. It's just mind boggling that someone could want this kind of attention. Here is a brief article that says a bit about this:

http://my.clevelandclinic.org/disorders/fa..._disorders.aspx

[samb]

No excuse for what this ***** did. She made a mockery out of cancer.

[Cubanface]

So, she doesn't have cancer. She has a mental illness. How sad.

[CanuckSARTech]

An update...

Cancer faker gets new charge