Paediatricians meet to tackle child abuse in former Soviet bloc

At the risk of being so politically incorrect as to criticize my
Kazakh physician colleagues as a group, I would submit that a large,
perhaps the largest, form of child abuse in Kazakhstan, is that which is
called here "hyperdiagnosis" of children. I am not referring to the
commonplace overdiagnosis and overtreated of conditions such as
respiratory infections, but to the much more crippling effect of such
findings as "intracranial hypertension." This is a frequent "diagnosis"
assigned to children, even infants, who exhibit such characteristics as
crying too much, hyperactivity, or other undesirable behaviors. It is
often "confirmed" by CT of the brain. These children, and there are many,
many of them in my city alone, grow up labelled by their family and
community as abnormal, their activities restricted, often subjected to
years of anticonvulsant or other therapies.

As physicians, we are challenged to look for signs of abuse even by
those that children trust. Sadly, at least where I live and work, this
includes our own profession. I hope that it is not widespread in the rest
of the former Soviet bloc, and I welcome reports and suggestions from
others.