I'm curious what you see as the harm of the study itself--as opposed to the harm of the approach it embodies. What do you see as direct harm from his paper--again, as opposed to the harm done by the approach, regardless of the presence or absence of this paper?
Good question.
As direct harm I see this study being used to put fuel to the fire of those believing they are helping and saving children by treating the parents with suspicion when symptoms are not immediately explained with certainty by a blood test or clear biomarker. This already on top of a very strong culture of suspicion of mothers in general, not only with children with PAIS. See for example this tv feature from 2017 in which Dr. Worm is also featured: (sorry it doesn't have English subtitles, I will see if I can do smth. about that, but maybe with AI):
I expect Dr. Worm will be invited to speak to many medical practitioners - maybe even schools - on how this study proves that a faster intervention and detection of PCF (encouraging immediate reporting as soon as there are any red flags at all - and we know diagnosis for PAIS takes long and the red flags overlap the symptoms) helps to save children from harm and even to 'cure' them (as they were not really ill). After all, she claims in the study that: "62,7 % of the PCF-victims became completely healthy after separation from the abusive parent and had no diagnosis at all after CACRC investigation. Children showed significant improvements in daily functioning: many returned full-time to school after frequentabsenteeism, transitioned from special to regular education, phased out classroom rest periods, and participated in gymnastics again. Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) diagnoses were reassessed and rejected for five children due to doubts. Initially, 21 children were ontube feeding: 18 experienced complete resolution of gastrointestinal complaints after separation from the abusive parent. Of these, 17 developed excellently. Tube feeding was stopped for 11 children, with 10 resuming normal eating, and intestinal irrigation was discontinued for one child."
There could be a new wave of suspicion and persecution of parents (mothers), bolstered by this study and by Dr. Worm using it for the 'campaign trail' she seems to be on again. There was already a recent (2024) 'revival' of this approach after it was discovered that one of the mothers in a documentary in 2017 with criticism of the CACRC for persecuting parents (a different one, but it helped put a halt to Dr Worm's research back in 2017) was found guilty of PCF or MbP after all. There were a few articles in one of the main Dutch newspapers that feature Dr Worm prominently in her field of expertise:
https://archive.ph/86caW and
https://archive.ph/9pVWD (sorry again in Dutch) So the timing of this study is 'opportune' (even if the data used are from 2008 - 2013 and she has already been sitting on these data since 2017).
So in short: i think it will increase the problems we have reported on in our survey on 'forced' (CBT & GET) treatment (using CACRC reporting as one of the threats to force compliance or going through with it) - the one that triggered Sander Zurhake to do his investigation and reporting back in May.
