MEDICAL KIDNAPPINGS ON THE INCREASE published in Lebanon Daily Record January 3, 2015

My column from today's Lebanon Daily Record:

Medical Kidnappings on the Increase

Arianna and Dominick, 9 month old twins, should have been enjoying all
the sights and sounds of their first Christmas at home with their
parents, Cassaundra and Warnell, but they were not allowed to do so.
Five months ago, the Child Protective Services of Illinois removed
them from the family home and put them in foster care. They are now
in their fourth foster home in five months, and although the parents
are supposed to be able to see them for a weekly two-hour visit, that
visit was cancelled because the foster parents had taken them out of
state for Christmas.

Eight year old Jaxon Adams was removed from his parents’ custody by
CPS working with Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City upon the
insistence of a nurse practitioner working with Beacon Clinic at
Children’s Mercy. That nurse told him if she had her way, he would
“never see his mother or father again”.

Four month old Kathryn Hughes was literally pulled from her mother’s
arms by CPS and taken to the UMC Children’s Hospital in Lubbock, TX
under protective care.

The Rengo family in Bellingham, WA had all three of their children
taken away by CPS after giving birth to twins at home.

The year 2014 showed a major increase in stories such as this, causing
a whole new category to be opened up in the news world, known as
medical kidnappings.

I first wrote about this last year in one of my first columns for this
newspaper regarding the case of Justina Pelletier, which is the most
well known of the medical kidnappings, mostly because it garnered the
attention of many journalists and reputable bloggers who were able to
get her story out, and donations of legal aid came pouring in to help
her parents, who went on national TV to try to get their daughter
back.

It was one of the most disturbing stories I’ve ever written to date,
but after following up on her case and doing more research this past
week. I find that it was just the tip of the iceberg and the number of
reported cases has grown exponentially in recent months.

The children I have mentioned above, plus many others, fall into this
category of medical kidnappings. These happen even when children have
no medical problems at all or when they have rare medical conditions
for which they have already sought and received medical treatment from
trusted physicians.

But then a flare-up in their condition, or a secondary infection sets
in, and other medical people become involved and decide to charge the
parents with medical neglect and then they call in Child Protective
Services who almost immediately remove the children from parental
custody and make them wards of the state. The parents have no
recourse, and it is almost impossible to get their children back as we
saw in the Pelletier case.

Each one of these children, including Justina Pelletier, has a story
to tell, and they are being told by concerned advocacy groups and
investigative journalists. You can find their stories all over the
internet on reputable web sites.

I don’t have time nor space to go into each story, just suffice it to
say that none of these parents have been charged with a crime or abuse
or neglect that would justify their children being removed from the
home.

My purpose in writing this column is just to give you some facts and
statistics for you to think about and hopefully do your own research.

It is all about money. Tax payers pay $12 billion a year on child
protectiive services. States try to make up their financial
shortfalls by raiding the Medicaid system to pay for treatment
allegedly needed by these children who have been made wards of the
state.

The State of Arizona is the worst. It has increased the percentage of
kids in out-of-home placement by almost 50% between 9/30/2007 and
9/30/2012. The Federal Government, through an array of laws and
grants, provides billions of dollars in incentives to states to take
children from their parents. Arizona takes more percentage wise than
any other state.

One child was billed for over one million dollars a year. Do you
think there was any way a hospital or doctor would return that child
to the parents and lose a windfall like that?

When a child is taken by CPS and becomes a ward of the state, that
state is given a blank check. All they need to do is find a doctor
who will say the child has a “medical need”. And there are apparently
plenty of such doctors or nurses who probably get a kick-back for
their participation.

Current laws allow them to conduct medical trials on the children and
bill Medicaid for the medical costs. One website I found said there
are currently over 100,000 drug trials nationwide for new pediatric
drugs.

Just recently in Charlotte NC, WSOCTV reported on a Medicare fraud
scheme within the Dept of Social Services where an employee was
collecting names of children and selling them to a non-profit
organization to use for kidnapping purposes which paid her $10,000 in
exchange for the names of 25 children.

There are so many children being taken away from parents that there
are not enough foster homes, and children and babies are being put
into group homes and crisis shelters.

One target group we have noticed this year has been parents who home
school their children. Senior Counsel James R. Mason is a member of
the Home School Legal Defense Association’s litigation team which
helps homeschool families facing legal challenges. He just recently
filed a lawsuit on behalf of the HSLDA against an even more outrageous
abuse of power inflicted on a homeschooling mom, Vanessa Wilson, whose
two children were removed from her home.