So I guess the lesson here is: if you want to poison your spouse, make sure you live in Sweden. If you succeed, then great! No one's the wiser, and you can keep everything. If you fail, it's not that bad: you sit in jail for a short time, and then are released without a criminal record and just have to deal with a divorce, which you would have eventually had anyway without the poisoning.
I’m Swedish. I have a rather grim view of the Swedish justice system. But this surprises even me. Personally, if this happened to me and the public prosecutor dropped the case I would strongly consider “private prosecution” (“enskilt åtal”).
The one piece of evidence I’m missing in the blog post though is the analysis of the contents of the small brown bottle, and the actual receipt for it.
EDIT: Actually, when I think about it, it sounds improbable that the prosecutor has already decided not to press charges. In Sweden we don’t have a bail system. Most people are just released as soon as they can no longer interfere with the investigation (or continue committing crimes or flee). So it doesn’t mean much that a suspect has been released.
> Despite strong circumstantial evidence including my medical journal and video/audio evidence of suspicious activities, the prosecution decided not to pursue charges, citing insufficient evidence to directly link my condition to the actions of my wife
>In Sweden we don’t have a bail system. Most people are just released as soon as they can no longer interfere with the investigation (or continue committing crimes or flee).
I see, this helps with understanding the situation a lot actually. Hopefully she'll be tried and imprisoned for this terrible crime then. Still, it's hard to imagine what it's like for the husband; I can't imagine having a spouse trying to poison me, and I've been through a divorce too. It's really hard to imagine someone being this evil to their spouse. (To someone else who actually wronged them in a horrible way, sure, it's understandable to have that feeling, but spouses are something altogether different in my mind: if you hate them that much, why are you married to them, and why don't you just divorce?)
I don't know if hate is the motivation here. Munchausen by proxy (now apparently called FDIA) is a recognized mental illness, and it's usually motivated by other things than hate. Consider the possibility that divorce is the opposite of the goal: a sick and dependent spouse can't leave you.
How long do such cases normally take? The police records posted are dated 2022-11-29, the author should at least know if charges are being pressed. In their blog post from July, they don't seem to know of any charges: https://rattvisan.blog/2024/07/20/where-is-justice/
I don't agree. If the prosecutor isn't going after this, there must be a lack of conclusive evidence.
As I remarked elsewhere, if the pill bottle was in fact KCl, there is no certain evidence pinning the vitamin D on the wife. It's obvious that it's her, but it's not proven.
Consequently a private prosecution would be useless. Also, private prosecutions for these kinds of things are unheard of, just as they are in the US.
If things are as I believe, it is not going to be possible to secure a conviction. There's reason for the very strongest suspicions, but still a step away from what's required for a conviction.
This is incorrect. Far from unheard of, the civil justice system in the US is, in fact, frequently used as a secondary route of recourse by private persons, regardless of the existence or outcome of a criminal prosecution. The legal test used to determine liability (in civil justice) is different from the legal test used to determine culpability (in criminal justice), and therefore, you can also have mixed outcomes. Furthermore, civil law in the US focuses on "making the plaintiff whole", vs criminal law which focuses on sanctioning the defendent. As a result, civil cases might be the only way in which a victim of a crime could get any form of compensation from the perpetrator.
One extremely high-profile case in the US was, of course, that of OJ Simpson [1], who was found not guilty of murder in a criminal case, but liable in a civil one, for the exact same action.
Yes, but private prosecutions in Sweden are not civil cases. Civil cases we have, just as you do, and they were very accessible, but private prosecutions are something different.
I'm not familiar with the Swedish justice system, so it's still a little unclear exactly what you're referring to. But if you mean a true private prosecution [1], these aren't so much "unheard of" in the US as just outright forbidden federally (and in most states). This gets very complicated very quickly though, because each state in the US has its own set of rules, procedures, statutes, constitutions, and court systems for handling justice re: state crimes.
At any rate, sorry for the misinterpretation. To be completely honest, I wasn't even aware that private prosecution was an actual thing, I assumed it was just a mistranslation or colloquialism for a civil tort case.
Right. A prosecution is about whether somebody committed a crime, the standard required is "Beyond Reasonable Doubt" and the consequence is punishment, for example a fine, prison time or, if you're barbarians, physical punishment such as whipping or execution.
O J wasn't send to jail as a result of the civil lawsuit, he went to jail because he's a crook.
In the US they're called private criminal complaints. For more serious crimes, they usually require the prosecutor's office to approve then handle them. They almost always decline though.
> I don't agree. If the prosecutor isn't going after this, there must be a lack of conclusive evidence.
If the prosecutor has done their job properly, then yes.
> It's obvious that it's her, but it's not proven.
I think in most countries this would be a contradiction in terms. But sure, in Sweden this can happen and could well be a fair description of the situation.
Largely this happens because we don't have the jury system. So, at least on appeal, a few career judges hear the case and one of them has to write a judgement detailing why they think it's proven beyond a reasonable doubt that the defendant is guilty. When it becomes difficult to do that (without the judge in question "making a fool of themselves" in the eyes of other career judges) people tend to be acquitted. Many of them probably would have been convicted by a jury.
People in this thread keep talking about "reasonable doubt", which is the standard of proof in the US criminal justice system (vs "preponderence of the evidence" in the civil system), but that standard only applies to a conviction, *not* to the decision by the prosecutor to bring charges.
Assuming we take the OP's story at face value (obviously something you wouldn't do in a courtroom!), surely there's enough evidence here for a case, even if the defendant isn't, at the end of the day, convicted? Or is Sweden more averse to questionable cases than the US? At least according to this thesis [1], the difference in conviction rate between Sweden and the US doesn't seem to be large enough to support that idea.
> Or is Sweden more averse to questionable cases than the US?
Formally I think it is. A Swedish public prosecutor should not prosecute unless they “can look forward to a conviction”. So formally, they should not try a case where they are not relatively confident that the court will convict.
Also, Sweden doesn’t have a jury system. There are “amateur judges” (“nämndemän”). In the first court (“tingsrätten”) the case is typically heard by one magistrate and two “amateur judges”. But on appeal it’s typically three magistrates and two “amateur judges”. Finally, the court has to explain its reasoning in a written verdict. In combination this makes it harder to get convictions in complicated cases with circumstantial evidence.
That sounds very similar to the German system (I'm a US-born German permanent resident, hence familiarity with both systems).
I'd be curious to see some kind of sociological studies about risk aversion amongst criminal prosecutors. Clearly an acquittal (and the associated trial) is still a huge burden to a person, so a strong motivation to only take cases you're confident you'll win makes sense to me. But especially in situations where the circumstantial evidence is so strong, I think most people in the US would consider it unjust not to pursue a trial at all.
To be completely honest, the first thing that crosses my mind is that the prosecutor might be a racist, since the story is (it seems) about an immigrant family. To be clear: I have absolutely no reason to suspect that. But something about the situation sounds off to me, and that's definitely one of the first questions that start lurking in the back of my mind.
Long story long: the optics here definitely aren't good.
> To be completely honest, the first thing that crosses my mind is that the prosecutor might be a racist, since the story is (it seems) about an immigrant family.
My mind too. But maybe only half: The names are only mentioned once or twice, but the author's name seems to be Tang, which sounds definitely foreign in a Swedish context. The wife's name, Kim, may not be very common in Sweden, but definitely not unheard of, so she could well be native.
So perhaps only a half-immigrant family. With the victim a foreigner from far away[1] and the not-prosecuted perpetrator a Swede... Which makes it look even more racist.
___
[1]: Maybe this wouldn't have happened to a Dane or Norwegian. And Finns hardly count as immigrants at all.
But there is still reasonable doubt. It is in fact possible, if unlikely, that she didn't do. I think it's very unlikely, and it's unfortunate that we can't convict, but we have not proven that she poisoned him with vitamin D, and there is no direct evidence that she did.
I don't agree. On appeal there are only two "jurors" ("nämndemän"), and they can be outvoted by the three career judges. Also, a real jury doesn't have to explain their reasoning in writing.
The difference is huge in this kind of case.
> But there is still reasonable doubt. It is in fact possible, if unlikely, that she didn't do. I think it's very unlikely, and it's unfortunate that we can't convict, but we have not proven that she poisoned him with vitamin D, and there is no direct evidence that she did.
Hard to say without knowing the contents of that small brown bottle and how it was procured. One reason I would consider private prosecution is to find out.
It must have been tested. If it weren't KCl, then why would there be no prosecution?
If it were vitamin D, it'd be a very short hearing.
>I don't agree. On appeal there are only two "jurors" ("nämndemän"), and they can be outvoted by the three career judges. Also, a real jury doesn't have to explain their reasoning in writing.
Yes, but is that actually good? Isn't it better to have reasoned judgements? That people explain carefully, why they've determined things as they have, so that their reasoning can be questioned?
If there's an unaccountable jury which doesn't have to justify itself, then I can't trust the judgements of the courts. They need to justify themselves, because we have set them there as representatives for ourselves.
But surely the prosecutor has tried to figure out how the brown bottle was obtained? Surely questions about this were asked during interviews.
Also, do you really think it's good for people to come to these kinds of unjustified conclusions, and convict people for things for which there is in fact no evidence?
> It must have been tested. If it weren't KCl, then why would there be no prosecution?
The KCl story sounds so weird to me that it’s hard to reason about. Why would the spouse of someone with a serious medical condition be medicating their husband without his or his doctor’s knowledge?
It also doesn’t explain the elevated vitamin D. So you’d have to conclude the investigation with two unsolved mysteries so to speak.
Yes, and that is presumably a crime in itself, even though it isn't the 'big' crime of poisoning somebody.
My guess is that the wife poisoned him with vitamin D and then started dosing with KCl for some reason, then the KCl dosing was discovered, and we still can't be sure she did the vitamin D dosing. Of course, she probably did. It's very plausible, since the behaviour is so similar to the poisoning behaviour, but we don't have actual evidence of her poisoning him with vitamin D. We have evidence of some lesser, similar crime.
The article says that the doctors found high concentrations of Vitamin D in the water bottle he brought in. The video in which she apparently doses this bottle is dated July 23, 2021. According to the article, she was arrested later that same evening. So not a lot of time for her to change strategies from Vitamin D to KCl. Either the bottle contained Vitamin D, the author is incorrect, or else the police seized the wrong bottle.
I think the pivotal point is not what was being put into the water but the fact that it was sneaked in. That is, it was not an act done openly and innocently, but done with subterfuge and intent to deceive. The person doing this knew it was wrong.
> Also, private prosecutions for these kinds of things are unheard of, just as they are in the US.
They are uncommon, but not unheard of. For example, the parents of Johan Asplund privately prosecuted a man for his murder [1]. But sure, if you think the only useful outcome is a conviction for attempted murder, then I agree that seems unlikely. In any case the first step should be to appeal the prosecutor's decision to drop the case.
The right to private prosecution in US federal cases was removed following the 1981 Supreme Court decision in Leeke v. Timmerman.
If it works anything like it does in the US "private criminal complaints", then good luck. For less serious crimes you act ad the prosecutor in front of a magistrate. Any serious crimes need approval from the real prosecutor office before they can proceed. They virtually always decline those.
The prosecutor actually has a duty to prosecute these kinds of crimes if they believe that there's enough evidence. That the wife was released from jail doesn't mean that there won't be a prosecution.
I can maybe understand the prosecutor if the small bottle was KCl, because then there's no way to prove that the wife was the one who also introduced the vitamin D. It's obvious that it was, but I don't see how one could prove it to the level required by a court.
It actually blows my mind how long this went on without any medical practitioners suspecting poisoning. The inexplicable vitamin D coming out of apparently nowhere? He had amounts in him that are basically impossible to have by any diet. I'm glad the culprit was "caught", but wow.
They suspected that he was taking the Vitamin D himself, as though he had Munchausen Syndrome. Hence the note about "the dramatic course of care."
Poisoning with VD3 is objectively weird. It's not very effective. If she had used tetrahydrozoline eyedrops, he'd be a goner after one dose -- and, with his heart and electrolyte balance troubles, odds are that nobody would be the wiser. We therefore have to surmise that she didn't want to kill him, but wanted to keep him sick, reliant, and compliant.
> Poisoning with VD3 is objectively weird. It's not very effective
But they have small children, which are supposed to take vitamin D supplement that comes in this kind of bottle. So it's both easy for her and probably easier to explain, however vitamin D comes in an oil suspension, not water, so it seems to me that it wouldn't mix well in water.
She could have put potassium in his water and vitamin D in oil and food. That seems more likely to me.
Edit come to think of it, they did find elevated vitamin D levels in the water so I guess it was somehow a water-soluble formula. Not sure why she mentioned potassium then.
In another post, he states that the 960 mg/l of calcium was found in his water. That would be enough to cause hypercalcemia if drinking 3 l per day, let alone 6 l.
It's because he was diagnosed before with sarcoidosis. It can have an impact on both vitamin D and calcium.
Which is plausibly why she tried using those agents to poison him: instead of being suspicious it was seen as a very complicated medical case.
Here's what I asked sonnet for a friend:
---
Here's an ASCII diagram illustrating the relationship:
Sarcoidosis
|
v
Granulomas
|
v
1-alpha-hydroxylase ↑
|
v
25(OH)D ---------> 1,25(OH)2D ↑
^ |
| v
Vitamin D3 <-------- Calcium absorption ↑
|
v
Serum Calcium ↑
|
v
Hypercalcemia
Explanation for a 3rd-year medical student:
- Sarcoidosis is a granulomatous disease characterized by the formation of granulomas in various organs, particularly the lungs.
- These granulomas contain activated macrophages that express high levels of 1-alpha-hydroxylase, the enzyme responsible for converting 25-hydroxyvitamin D (25(OH)D) to its active form, 1,25-dihydroxyvitamin D (1,25(OH)2D).
- The increased 1-alpha-hydroxylase activity leads to excessive production of 1,25(OH)2D, which is not regulated by the normal feedback mechanisms.
- 1,25(OH)2D enhances intestinal calcium absorption and bone resorption, leading to increased serum calcium levels.
- This process can result in hypercalcemia, a common complication in sarcoidosis patients.
- The excess 1,25(OH)2D also suppresses parathyroid hormone (PTH) production, which normally regulates calcium homeostasis.
- Importantly, the increased 1,25(OH)2D levels are not dependent on vitamin D intake or sun exposure, as the conversion occurs independently of the body's vitamin D status.
- This dysregulation can lead to a paradoxical situation where patients with sarcoidosis may have high 1,25(OH)2D levels but low or normal 25(OH)D levels.
Key points to remember:
- Granulomas in sarcoidosis are the source of increased 1-alpha-hydroxylase activity.
- This leads to excessive 1,25(OH)2D production, independent of normal regulatory mechanisms.
- The result is increased calcium absorption and potential hypercalcemia.
- Management often involves limiting calcium and vitamin D intake, and in some cases, using corticosteroids to suppress granuloma activity.
Me : I’ve given you a chance before, I hoped we could discuss this privately, resolve this matter, and keep this family going. Now it seems like I’ve overestimated you.
Sad story, but this guy really needs someone around him to give him a reality check and say this behavior by his wife isn’t acceptable and something you “discuss privately to keep your family together.”
I read this as just fishing for an admission to help his case. By this point he has recordings and he realised the family is over. He already went to police. I don't think he was trying to make any amends. She clearly thought the same thing I did. Your reading of this seems a bit too shallow or you think is he more naive than he is.
I guess that’s possible, but I didn’t get the impression from reading the post that the author was being deceptive in that exchange. He just seems a bit shocked and still cares about someone that is/was obviously important in his life. That seems like a more normal reaction to me than assuming he had a deeper ulterior motive of trying to get her to reveal something via text (which was already in the video evidence.) To me the tone of the post is more shock and disappointment, not legal scheming.
Kind of a common attitude in Asian / Chinese relationships, business, friends, love. Where it's better to save face and not let the entire world know about your issue, in this context the authors reaction starts to make sense. He is interested in saving face and his family - and doing so requires keeping everything behind closed doors.
Both were pretending to be acting civilized. He send an amicable offer to explain and save time but that could support him in the divorce process later. She was on full oyster defense mode. All her answers can be resumed to "See? police will be unable to prove anything","It was a good faith mistake". But no remorse shown by all the pain inflicted. Pretending it was nothing; bitter about the divorce, and in denial, dissociating herself from the case all the time an living in her parallel version of the reality.
Unfortunately some passive aggressive people acts like this. This man should run away as fast as he can.
There are other comments, dead, that talk about the wife having a "female body part" pass because she is not sitting in jail. Those comments are just hypothesizing but add nothing to the conversation.
Is not hypothesizing when you say it is "clear this guy is an abusive relationship. Your wife doesn’t up and poison you one day."
You are accusing the guy of committing a serious crime because he was poisoned, unless you have some additional information that was not in the article I am not sure how you can reach that conclusion.
There are many reasons someone's wife could poison them, aside from abuse; insurance money, having a boyfriend that you wish to elope with but fear the cultural stigma of divorce, psychosis.
My only agenda is to drive exploration of ideas rather than just making blanket statements where we have no evidence to make a determination.
> You are accusing the guy of committing a serious crime because he was poisoned
Yeah, that proves you read the comment you replied to further up the wrong way around. There was no "victim blaming" in saying "this guy is [in] an abusive relationship"; they obviously meant it was the wife who'd been abusing him for years. The only serious crime anyone had been talking about was her poisoning him, which was just another step in the abuse.
> My only agenda is to drive exploration of ideas...
Maybe you should begin with the basics, like learning to read better, before going on to the more advanced stuff.
I think it was a mix of the typo and also the passive voice rather than the active voice eg. He is in an abusive relationship vs. He is being abused or She is abusing him.
As somebody who dreads relationships, commitments and marriages and who is being wooed by somebody with Kim's profile, I find this story double-disturbing.
Criminal angle aside, I wonder what kind of personal fuck-ups end with a partner hating the other so much as to want to kill them, but yet end in a situation where that's preferable to a divorce.
Maybe home loans and living space? Those last two are a serious concern in Sweden, where a well-paid professional often can't afford more than a few square meters of living space.... Joint debts or properties? Kids? Anything else you can think of that it's best to avoid?
Life insurance? Retirement funds? Perhaps she wanted to be able to take their child back to China?
As a more general point I would strongly advise against forming a permanent union with someone you cannot trust implicitly, or who does not share your values and goals. Such relationships are doomed to fail eventually, and the time wasted would be better spent trying to find a better partner. Also, when you do find the better partner, it will be obvious and you will be grateful for it.
In my case, I had some trouble trusting a previous relationship with my finances. I hid the size of my life insurance and retirement plans, didn't want to combine bank accounts, was doubtful that they would take care of my parents if something happened to me, etc. In retrospect there were reasons I didn't feel comfortable, and that was predictive of the outcome of the relationship.
My current partner and spouse is much more obviously trustworthy and has my best interest at heart. I don't feel uncomfortable that my they know everything or could spend all my money, because I know their personality and values and know that they won't. Hell, they even told me to not keep them on life support because they wouldn't want to burden me. (I would anyway as long as there was a chance, because I really value someone like that.)
To summarize, if you think you have to preemptively defend yourself against malicious behavior by your partner, you obviously have the wrong partner. I wish you the best of luck in finding a better one.
> I wonder what kind of personal fuck-ups end with a partner hating the other so much as to want to kill them, but yet end in a situation where that's preferable to a divorce.
> Maybe home loans and living space? Those last two are a serious concern in Sweden, where a well-paid professional often can't afford more than a few square meters of living space.... Joint debts or properties? Kids?
At a guess, that last lies closest to hand. The usual toxic "Gotta stay together for the kids!" mindset, and if that's not possible, culminating in it somehow being "better" (or "more honourable", perhaps?) to be a single widowed mother than a single divorced mother.
I’m sorry to hear the writer married an actual psychopath. There’s more of them around than one would imagine.
I’m confused about the lack of charges though - in the UK this seems like it could come under Actual Bodily Harm or even attempted murder. Certainly a crime of that kind has been committed and the intent is there, even if the method wasn’t particularly effective. I realise the system of public law in Nordic countries is quite different to the UK though - there was enough evidence for it to go to court so it shouldn’t be up to the public prosecutor to decide. Putting this to a judge and jury would be sufficient for the jury to join the dots and pass a guilty verdict. Circumstantial evidence isn’t worthless if there’s enough of it.
You'd charge administering a poison, s23 or s24 of the Offences Against The Person Act 1861, if there is a realistic prospect of conviction, and the prosecution will need to prove beyond reasonable doubt that a) the wife administered it and b) intended to cause harm or did cause harm.
Thanks for the info. What if the poison was exactly a poison like in this case? I realise “the dose maketh the poison” but it wasn’t exactly strychnine or cyanide.
Looking back on a spell of weird time which was due to illness, it seems strange what one is able to do and what not. The best way to fit
it into words is that it’s like parts of you are often offline, but they aren’t always offline. It’s more a fragmented existence than a constant universal everything-turned-down-by-95% factor.
And it’s often the uncountable infinities of actions to take that are the most difficult. When you see something that stands out as a clear course of action, there will usually follow the capacity to act on it. (If this sort of action fails again and again, then a deep deep burnout can occur. Core systems.)
> The police informed me that they wouldn’t take any immediate action and advised me to return home and carry on as if nothing had happened while taking precautions to protect myself.
I wouldn't have come 100 metres from her after I saw the video. And the video is much more than enough evidence of attempted murder to me.
It's an attitude that's sadly been brow beaten into mainland Chinese. Combine that and the little emperor phenomenon and I'm surprised this doesn't happen more often. What I'm really shocked by is the apathy the Swedish government has taken to this case.
Just as an addition I have heard of stories like this coming out of China, although the government likes to portray an image of unity and that society is running well. So these stories are almost never from Chinese media, instead shared in WeChat groups, and the credibility of these is dubious - and not to mention it can be censored at a later point.
Due to being paranoid (not clinically. Probably.) I think it would have guessed something was up earlier, but most people aren't like that. Inside view vs outside view problem. "I know too much about my wife, she'd never do something like that!"
Sociopaths and narcissists are in my opinion especially dangerous precisely because they will fly so low. It becomes unexpected because it’s so senseless, such a waste of time, no advantage to the malicious actor. Just pathetic and pitiful waste. It’s hard to look low enough
to see it, think small enough.
When I was in my teens, I lived in a foster home and had, what I suppose you might say, a foster sibling. This sibling, who despite doing some wicked things, I still reserve some admiration and affection for, though their status beyond some very serious legal troubles has remained unknown to me for many years.
I was, at some point, poisoned. With what, I never discovered. But I do remember the effects, which were extremely difficult. Extreme fatigue, disorientation and a very persistent, strange metallic essence present in the mouth and sinuses for weeks or months.
If it were only these symptoms alone, I'd have never suspected anything, despite the 'sibling's' known and well exhibited tendencies for cruelty.
At the age of, perhaps 17, I asked for help shaving my head, which was abundant with hair. We were both surprised to see that an inch of the growth, closest to the scalp, was solid gray. This is quite freakish for a teenager, and none of those who witnessed it failed to be astonished. I still remember the reaction as we made the observation during the haircut, which gave a slight impression of 'oh shit... Did I go too far? Oh well...' <Smirk>.
I've been through too much since to know why or what ails me presently, and I'm sure there are many factors, but my health is pretty damn complicated.
In the video clip (2021-07-23), it looks like a powder is added to the water, and the small bottle is emptied. It seems the small bottle is just used for keeping in her pocket, and she might refill it during the day.
He might have received a cocktail of things through various foods and drinks. Vitamin D through cooking/chili oils seems worth investigating? Though it might be impossible to prove she did it.
Can I voice some doubts without being browbeaten into silence, please?
First, it seems the main health complaints of the husband, excess vitamin D and hypercalcemia (excess Ca, calcium) are both unrelated to the wife's spiking of his drinking water with potassium (according to their conversation towards the end) which instead can cause hyperkalemia (excess K, potassium). Wikipedia tells me that hypercalcemia is a symptom of sarcoidosis, which the husband suffered from in 2018, early in the events described in the post so it can be explained without recourse to poisoning, certainly not with potassium. Excess vitamin D is hard to explain, especially in Sweden (!) but it's hard to see how it could be caused by taking potassium.
Hyperkalemia is a dangerous condition that could be fatal for a man with heart and kidney problems, like the author, but I can't find it mentioned anywhere in the post, or in the images of clinical notes. This suggests to me that whatever substance the wife was spiking the husband's water with (e.g. KCl, potassium chloride, a table salt alternative that can very easily be bought on and offline) it was not enough to cause any detectable change in blood tests etc. Consequently it doesn't seem like it could have anything to do with the husband's health complaints.
Which were many and varied and described in minute detail, complete with a plethora of images of medical devices and material. This is the second reason that I'm doubtful about the husband's account. On the one hand it's written as if by an aspiring writer of crime novels, with a dramatic inversion of real time events, starting from the arrest of the wife and not making it quite clear what is going on until the very end and the discussion between the pair. On the other hand, most of the medical conditions described seem to have nothing to do with the spiking of the husband's water with potassium, so why are they given so much space? The husband seems to be blaming the wife for everything that is going wrong with his health, but how many of those medical issues are symptoms of sarcoidosis, which he suffers from?
The style of writing makes it very hard for me to trust the author is giving a straight and honest account of events from his point of view. If the purpose of the post is to give a clear account of what the husband believes happened then it falls far short of the clarity that would be achieved by a straightforward telling of events in the order in which they happened and without details of no obvious relevance. There can be many reasons for publishing that kind of text on the internet, such as plain bad taste, but among the many explanations is, indeed, "Factitious disorder imposed on self" (a.k.a. Munchausen Syndrome) or in any case a very strong desire to present oneself as a victim of nefarious actions, for psychological reasons.
In any case what I have just read is a dramatic telling of a story from the point of view of a person that is clearly in ill health. I have no idea what happened, to whom, and for what reasons, let alone whether this was really an instance of deliberate poisoning. The dialogue between the pair towards the end makes both spouses look a bit unhinged. The situation is far from normal and drawing any conclusion is very hard.
The doctor in the story reported that the water bottle he brought in "had a high concentration of vitamin D," not KCl.
Obviously in this case we are entirely reliant on reporting by one side, and anything in the story could be inaccurate or totally false. But within the context of what's reported, nothing in the story really seems inconsistent with Vitamin D poisoning. And certainly not enough to motivate a weird six-paragraph medical rant like yours.
that the water bottle he brought in "had a high concentration of vitamin D," not KCl
That's very strange right there. Vitamin D is a hydrocarbon, it is completely insoluble in water. Vitamin D poisoning requires taking doses way in excess of 10K units for months on end, you aren't doing to slip a person that much through drinking water.
The only way to interpret the statement is that things are not as they are made out to be.
He devotes a big section of the post to talk about water-soluble vitamin D, and decides upon investigation that there are such products. In his narrative, he also explains how he thought his water and food tasted weird.
i have 10,000IU vitamin D (they contain K, too, though) pills. they're very small. The same size as the 600-800IU ones - although instead of having an amber liquid inside, they're almost solid yellowish white. The medium is coconut oil, which explains both the solid and the color. Anyhow my point is, 10,000IU isn't a significantly "large" amount of the active ingredient. they're oval-ish, so hard to measure, but i think they're under 1/4" in all directions.
> excess vitamin D and hypercalcemia (excess Ca, calcium) are both unrelated to the wife's spiking of his drinking water with potassium
The wife's -alleged- spiking with potassium. When noticing this apparent contradiction, it could lead to two conclusions: A. the wife is not telling the truth or B. the husband is not telling the truth.
For some reason you're following only lead B.
In one of the Chinese-language posts, the author says the police found calcium in the water at 9x the max drinking water concentrations (960 mg/l), and posts water test results and receipts for calcium. According to the author, they were drinking 6 l of water per day to try to fix their hypercalcemia, so they were consuming 5760 mg of calcium per day. The recommended dose of calcium is 1000 to 1200 mg per day and the tolerable upper intake is 2500 mg per day, so the author was consuming more than double the maximum tolerable upper intake. When calcium is taken in excess it causes hypercalcimia.
Also, calcium has a metallic taste, which is what the author was complaining of. So it all checks out, if one assumes the wife lied about the potassium and it was actually calcium.
(Also, the video allows us to pretty much rule out that the author is poisoning themself.)
I didn't read that post. I was going by what was claimed by the wife in the dialogue in the end of the post above. In that post the husband doesn't seem to challenge the claim made by the wife that the substance put in his water bottles was potassium, so I assumed that the claim was probably true. If it wasn't, then obviously what I say above is irrelevant since it's all premised on the substance being potassium.
Yes, the wife could be trying to set herself up to claim that she was mislead/mistaken about the substance she was "supplementing" her husband's diet with.
To be clera, the wife sounds creepy as all hell and spiking the water of someone with heart and kidney trouble with potassium could be considered a murder attempt. e.g. kidney patients are advised to avoid KCl as a salt substitute because of the danger of hyperkalemia that can lead to fatal heart attack.
All I took from the story was mostly that the wife claimed to be adding potassium to his water, while actually (or also) adding massive amounts of vitamin D. The potassium and calcium could come from anywhere (including supplemnents taken by him or given to him). But the vitamin D doesn't just appear. And explains the potassium.
But yes, there is definitely many holes in the story. Makes me curious to hear whether there was any public investigation.
> First, it seems the main health complaints of the husband, excess vitamin D and hypercalcemia (excess Ca, calcium) are both unrelated to the wife's spiking of his drinking water with potassium (according to their conversation towards the end) which instead can cause hyperkalemia (excess K, potassium).
You seem to be taking for granted that she's telling the truth there, that it was actually potassium she was spiking his water with. Why would you do that? Her attempt to deflect is the first time potassium was mentioned anywhere.
> Consequently it doesn't seem like it could have anything to do with the husband's health complaints.
Yeah, and the simplest explanation for that is that this was never about potassium at all. (Until she tried to make it so. I haven't seen her succeed with anyone besides you.)
> This is the second reason that I'm doubtful about the husband's account.
William of Ockham suggests it isn't his account you should be doubtful about, but hers. Like, her claim that it was a potassium supplement in the first place. That's all that needs to change for all the rest to make sense. So why take her word for it?
> The style of writing makes it very hard for me to trust the author ... falls far short of the clarity that would be achieved by a straightforward telling of events in the order in which they happened
Oh, wow. He pulls out one event, the most dramatic one, to start with. Unheard of! Who ever did that to spice up a story?!? (Oh, pretty much everyone who wants to spice up a story? Eh...) Then he starts from the beginning, mentions when he comes to that pull-out, and continues in chronological order. Really not all that hard to follow. (And this is one of the last posts on his blog, the "sum up the whole story" one. Reading through the whole blog would presumably give you your yearned-for chronological order.)
> I have no idea what happened, to whom, and for what reasons
And I have no idea how you can have no idea about that.
> The doctor wrote in the my medical journal: “During his hospitalization, he took medication on time, and even without IV fluid therapy, his blood calcium levels were normal. However, once he returned home, his blood calcium levels became elevated. It is evident that he did not adhere to the medication schedule at home as instructed.”
This is so typical of Swedish doctors. If something doesn't work, it's ALWAYS the patient's fault. If they don't know what a problem, it's ALWAYS psychosomatic. This guy is just lucky the latter is literally impossible in this case.
Also, for all the people assuming the case was dropped just because she was released, that may not be the case. People are often (most of the time?) released before trial here. It seems like OP hasn't updated enough for us to know whether it's prosecuted or not. It definitely seems like something that would be.
It’s not just Swedish doctors. I was put on psychiatric medication for what turned out to be as simple as allergies and lactose intolerance.
In my experience unless you’re paying through the nose, you have to be pitiable/attractive enough for the average doctor to buy into your case enough to make a complex (or even simple with unusual symptoms) diagnosis. No different to any other profession ultimately we just put them on a pedestal because the studies are so intense.
> It is evident that he did not adhere to the medication schedule at home as instructed.
Isn't that statement totally correct? It doesn't blame anyone. It merely concludes that he either didn't take the medication, or took (or was given) something else in addition to the medication schedule - because the doctor could tell by the numbers that something must have been taken, his body could not have produced it.
The statement doesn't exclude him being poisoned, or given the wrong medicine at the pharmacy, or taking the wrong medicine by mistake. Just that the body hadn't gotten the medication specified, and only the medication specified.
Thats’s what I’m saying: “adhere to” in this context doesn’t mean “do your best”. It just means the medicine taken was incorrect, regardless of how that happened.
If you accidentally get the wrong medication at the pharmacy or is poisoned then you didn’t get exactly and only the prescribed medicine.
It’s not a sentence blaming anyone. It doesn’t matter whose fault it is. What matters to the doctor is whether the medicines and doses are correct or not. If there are bad side effects when the medicine schedule is followed then it may need to be revised. If the doctor concludes the schedule wasn’t followed then the side effects don’t necessarily mean the medicines or doses must be changed.
That’s all it is. It’s a note from the doctor to himself and other medical staff. The important bit is that another doctor shouldn’t rush to conclude e.g that the dosing must change.
> Thats’s what I’m saying: “adhere to” in this context doesn’t mean “do your best”. It just means the medicine taken was incorrect, regardless of how that happened.
Yes. And the wife (presumably) ruined that. The journal note isn’t about whether the patient did their best to follow the schedule but whether they ingested the medicine in the schedule and nothing else. In this case the doctor concluded they had not. So they hadn’t adhered to the schedule. Whose fault that was isn’t relevant to the journal note (nor implied by it)
No, it's the fact that she spiked his drink with a calcium compound. Just use your common sense. It's allowed, even when it comes to women. Especially when it comes to women.
> > The doctor wrote in the my medical journal: “During his hospitalization, he took medication on time, and even without IV fluid therapy, his blood calcium levels were normal. However, once he returned home, his blood calcium levels became elevated. It is evident that he did not adhere to the medication schedule at home as instructed.”
> This is so typical of Swedish doctors. If something doesn't work, it's ALWAYS the patient's fault. If they don't know what a problem, it's ALWAYS psychosomatic. This guy is just lucky the latter is literally impossible in this case.
Eh, what are the options in this situation, at that point?
1) Some undiscovered underlying issue and not adhering to medication schedule
2) Self-poisoning
3) Poisoning
#1 is probably thousands of times more likely than #2 or #3 - it's not unreasonable that a doctor initially goes with the far more likely assumption.
Honestly, I was pretty impressed that his doctors didn't lose patience with him given the many repeated issues he faced - irrespective of what they might have thought, his care appeared to be very good indeed.
The problem existed the whole time; the proof came at the end. Do you see any sensible reason to assume that the problem wasn't the same the whole time?
> Eh, what are the options in this situation, at that point?
How about not lying. If you don't know, just say you don't know instead of making shit up.
> Honestly, I was pretty impressed that his doctors didn't lose patience with him given the many repeated issues he faced - irrespective of what they might have thought, his care appeared to be very good indeed.
This is the law here. It has nothing to do with the doctor.
> How about not lying. If you don't know, just say you don't know instead of making shit up.
I think you’re missing the ‘human’ angle here.
‘I don’t know’ is rarely an acceptable position for an expert, especially a doctor. And yes, many experts, doctors included, are trained to expect that common things happen commonly. Most people aren’t given to believing conspiracy theories until shown strong supportive evidence.
> This is the law here. It has nothing to do with the doctor.
Again, missing the human angle.
Healthcare professionals can deliver vastly different levels of care, while ostensibly remaining ‘legal’ and beyond reproach.
—
(You sound like you’ve got a personal axe to grind with doctors?)
Apologies - I wasn't intending to be "dismissive", and no "personal attack" was intended. I'm simply reflecting on the tone of the several comments you've written, which seem angry, IME beyond the norm for someone simply discussing on a story on the internet.
> "This is so typical of Swedish doctors. If something doesn't work, it's ALWAYS the patient's fault. If they don't know what a problem, it's ALWAYS psychosomatic."
Re-reading this, I think I can be forgiven for the suspicion you've some history with the Swedish medical establishment? :) But of course, apologies if this is not the case.
> It is never acceptable for experts to lie.
You're wrong to call the doctor's note about an assumption they were making "a lie". A "lie" is a deliberate untruth in order to deceive, and that doesn't appear to be the case. Of course, hindsight proved them wrong, but at the time they were merely making an assumption as to the possible cause, presumably based on education, experience, and probability.
Medication errors are common, communication issues between patients and doctors are common, a patient lying to their doctor is quite common, Munchausen syndrome and poisoning are very uncommon.
They could have written "Of course there other unlikely explanations, but my current prevailing hypothesis based on the balance of probabilities is...", but... no-one's perfect.
OK, it's the potassium chloride - "Lethal intravenous injection of potassium chloride (KCl) is one of the common methods used either for suicide or homicide by the healthcare professionals."
Perhaps she thought it was something else, but whoever was supplying her had an idea of what she was doing and instead gave her the most harmless thing they could think of.
Are you a doctor? Did you sleep late on the day they discussed vitamin D toxicity? [1]
The dose maketh the poison.
> It's hard to understand the game plan.
Munchausen by proxy [2], maybe she could become a permanent resident as a widow, maybe greed/money, maybe he got the wrong flowers on her birthday and she's a psychopath.
I think the most charitable explanation is that parent poster has confused Vitamin D (fat-soluble, can accumulate) with Vitamin C (water-soluble, excess easily flushed)... although that is still a rather serious error in this context.
his blood serum levels of vitamin D were four times the level that is considered "the absolute upper bound of safety" - he had 600ng/ml, the number i speak of is 150ng/ml.
Science (from 2011 on) is pointing at ~100ng/ml to be "effective buffer / margin for hypercalcemia" - he was six times that much. and as i mentioned in a different unrelated thread, if any doctor suspected Vitamin D overdose, they would have prescribed vitamin K, which offsets the calcium "deposits".
> I really couldn’t connect the “elite” who graduated from a prestigious university in China and worked for one of the top three companies in the world with “criminals”.
What is this doing on HN? It might be ramblings of a mentally ill person too. I'm sure there's more than meets the eye, as it usually is in these situations. The wife was adding potassium to the water, and he was on potassium medication. Somethings rotten in the state of Sweden.
>it sure looks like a crime and smells like a crime
yes, exactly!
and charges were not pursued.
you'd expect the documents surrounding that to be shared in that case too. but alas...
the specialist doctor says it's highly unlikely anything was added to the IV.
i'm obviously not saying "there's no crime", i'm saying that it makes sense to treat it with suspicion even though I got really hooked on the writing. as such, what's it doing on HN? I'm not sure it gratifies one's intellectual curiosity, it's gossip and emotions.
Indeed it does seem strange that it was dropped (missed that in the wall of text). It doesn't mean it's concluded completely. It does also suggest even more that perhaps there is more to the story than we can see here.
