Judge Orders Children Returned to Parents Who Did not Take Child with Fever to Emergency Room

In a story out of Arizona that has received national attention, Judge Timothy J. Ryan ordered the children of a Chandler, Arizona couple returned home more than two months after police broke down their door at 1 a.m. to remove the children simply because the mother did not take one of them to an emergency room to check on a fever. In a turn of events that might be due to the public outrage over this case, Judge Ryan reportedly went against the recommendation of the assistant attorney general representing the Arizona Department of Child Safety who wanted the children to remain in state custody. While the children are all home for now by court order, the State of Arizona still retains custody of the children, and the legal battle continues for the children, even though there are no charges against the parents due to a lack of evidence.

Proposed New Bill Would Double Federal Funding for Foster Care – More Opportunities for Child Sex Trafficking?

Attorney Michael Dolce, who represents children in foster care, has referred to U.S. foster care as a system set up to sex traffic American Children at the taxpayer's expense. A new proposed bill would double the funding for the U.S. foster care system. Richard Wexler, writing for Youth Today, states: "The bill would more than double the amount of money the federal government forks over to states for foster care reimbursement each year. Even worse, this bill would remove the only small brake from what is less a runaway train than a lumbering foster care steamroller that crushes better alternatives for children." As we have stated numerous times here at Health Impact News, we agree with the late Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer that the current system of Child "Protection" Services and foster care is too corrupt to be reformed, and needs to be abolished. Allowing states to collect more federal funds for foster care is moving in the wrong direction, and could lead to an increase in child sex trafficking.

Multiple Studies Show Children Better Off Left in Troubled Homes than Put Into Foster Care

A new study conducted by Martin Guggenheim, from the NYU School of Law School, shows that children seized by Child Protection Services spend much less time in Foster Care if the parents are provided with high-quality legal representation, with no compromise in child safety. This means that many children in Foster Care today would not even need to be there if their parents had proper legal representation to fight the massive billion dollar foster care and adoption system, which for the most part has nothing to do with child safety. Richard Wexler, writing for the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform blog, notes that this is one of several studies showing that most children do far better when left with their biological families, even troubled families, than those children taken out of troubled homes and put into foster care. Taking the truth of what these studies conclude, that children are better off left in homes even when those homes are not perfect, with the fact that the child welfare system is so corrupt that some state legislatures have had to actually pass laws enforcing that child social service agencies stop lying and falsifying records in order to take children away from their families, such as a recently proposed bill in Texas, we come to the same conclusion that the late Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer did, that the system is too corrupt and too powerful to reform.

Shaken Baby Syndrome Hypothesis Has Never Been Scientifically Validated

For years we have known that the diagnosis of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) is flawed. Yet too many innocent parents and caretakers remain wrongfully incarcerated and face wrongful convictions based on this false evidence. In a statement released by the Innocence Network on April 30, the Network explains that although the SBS hypothesis was popularized in the early 2000s, it has never been scientifically validated. In 2016, an independent group of experts appointed by The Swedish Agency for Health Technology Assessment and Assessment of Social Services, one of the oldest medical assessment organizations in the world, published findings that SBS evidence is “insufficient” and unreliable. Still, medical experts continue to erroneously and carelessly assert the validity of SBS accusations in our courts.

Connecticut DCF Punishing Tennessee Parents for Taking Their Story Public? Refuse to Let Parents Visit Baby

We recently published the story of a Tennessee couple who was traveling through Connecticut on their way to a vacation destination in Maine, when the wife, who was pregnant, starting experiencing back pains and decided to check into a hospital in Connecticut for a check up. Her Egyptian Christian husband was allegedly accused of being a Muslim terrorist, and before they knew it, she was being drugged against her will and forced to have cesarean surgery to remove her daughter from her womb, when she had been planning on having a natural birth. Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) then proceeded to take custody of the baby, with no formal charges ever filed against the parents. The parents eventually had to return to their home in Tennessee with their other two children, making the 20-hour one-way trip back to Connecticut each week to have a supervised 2-hour visit with their daughter as they tried to comply with DCF to get their daughter back. After six months, the parents decided to take their story public. Suzy, the mother, has now reported that Connecticut DCF is refusing to allow them to see their baby since they went public with their story. "We have just driven all day yesterday and all night for the past nearly 20 hours straight to get to Connecticut to see our baby and now our case worker David Friend is telling us that he cannot accommodate our visit and we cannot see our child!"

Pregnant Mom Traveling Through Connecticut with Husband Stops at Hospital Where They Forcibly Drug her and Perform Cesarean Surgery to Kidnap Baby

In a story so horrendous that it reads like a Hollywood script to a movie that could only be fiction, Tennessee parents Suzy and Peter Saad have decided to go public with their story of alleged medical abuse and medical kidnapping in Connecticut. Peter and Suzy both have master's degrees and were former medical school students, which is where they met. However, they put their plans for medical school on hold to start their family. After delivering two boys by cesarean birth, mom's dreams were finally realized when she became pregnant for the third time, and this time it was a baby girl in answer to her prayers. Suzy wanted the best for the new daughter growing in her womb, so she sought medical help to try and have a natural birth, uncommon but not impossible when the first pregnancies end in cesarean births. The family was living in Tennessee, and Suzy was not happy with the prenatal care she was receiving. Peter's family is from New Jersey, and after one of his family members died and they traveled to New Jersey to attend the funeral, they found a birthing center there that Suzy felt comfortable with in terms of trying a natural birth. At 38 weeks of pregnancy with her daughter, Suzy was experiencing some anxiety and suffering from bad nights of sleep. Family and friends suggested she take a few days off with her husband, while family members watched the two boys. They knew about a lovely place in Maine they had been wanting to visit, and decided that the 6-hour trip would do them some good. As they drove from New Jersey to Maine, Suzy experienced some pain, and to be on the safe side, they decided to stop at a hospital in Connecticut. This is when the real nightmares began. Her husband's family is originally from Egypt, although Peter grew up in the United States and has been a U.S. citizen since he was a child. His family in Egypt are Coptic Christians, a minority group in a country that is predominately Muslim. Before they fully understood what was happening, Peter was allegedly being accused of being a Muslim terrorist and fleeing the law, and Suzy was being accused of being a drug addict, simply because she had some prescription medications with her to treat her high blood pressure and diabetes. She was allegedly drugged and forced to have cesarean surgery, and hospital staff then allegedly worked together with social service workers to take custody of her baby. After 6 months of trying to comply with everything the Connecticut Department of Children and Families (DCF) was requiring of the parents in order to get their baby daughter back, they have now decided to go public with their story.

The Essence of Evil: Sex with Children Has Become Big Business in America

Children, young girls—some as young as 9 years old—are being bought and sold for sex in America. The average age for a young woman being sold for sex is now 13 years old. This is America’s dirty little secret. Sex trafficking—especially when it comes to the buying and selling of young girls—has become big business in America, the fastest growing business in organized crime and the second most-lucrative commodity traded illegally after drugs and guns. As investigative journalist Amy Fine Collins notes, “It’s become more lucrative and much safer to sell malleable teens than drugs or guns. A pound of heroin or an AK-47 can be retailed once, but a young girl can be sold 10 to 15 times a day—and a ‘righteous’ pimp confiscates 100 percent of her earnings.” Consider this: every two minutes, a child is exploited in the sex industry. According to USA Today, adults purchase children for sex at least 2.5 million times a year in the United States. Who buys a child for sex? Otherwise ordinary men from all walks of life. “They could be your co-worker, doctor, pastor or spouse,” writes journalist Tim Swarens, who spent more than a year investigating the sex trade in America.

Parents Share Their Pain of Being Wrongly Accused of Child Abuse and Losing Their Children

Knowing the date the fractures were discovered will never leave your mind. It will be some brutal anniversary you will always acknowledge, even when your "abused" baby is grown with children of their own. The flashbacks of the hospital. The clamps they put in your baby's eyes to check for retinal bleeding. The sound of the MRI machine. Your baby's wailing as they tried to insert an IV. The one nurse who couldn't make eye contact with you, wouldn't make eye contact with you, because she had already made her mind up about the mother whose child has 5 broken bones. The heavy weight you carry around, knowing CPS could be successful in terminating your parental rights, imprisoning you on false accusations. Your name permanently erased from your children's birth certificates. Wishing you could go back to believing every parent whose rights are terminated deserved it. Wishing every headline you read about an abused baby, you don't question if it was a medical disorder. Wishing you didn't know how many other parents are going through this, have been through this, who haven't made it through it. How will I heal from this?

NY City Council Asks Why Parents are Being Accused of Child Abuse for Simply Using Marijuana

As New York considers legalizing marijuana, attention is also turning to how the drug plays a role in the city’s child welfare system—one that has the power to remove children from their parents and that investigates, almost exclusively, low-income families of color. Parents and advocates have reported that recreational marijuana use can lead to investigations of child maltreatment by the city’s Administration for Children’s Services. Many times these investigations stem from testing pregnant women and their newborns at the city’s public hospitals, according to testimony at a City Council hearing on Wednesday. Queens Councilwoman Adrienne Adams called the practice “the systemic criminalization of women of color,” which comes with the threat of separating children and parents. “We are absolutely tearing families apart, needlessly,” Adams said.

Arizona Judge Orders Lawmaker and Media Out of Courtroom in Case Where Police Kicked Down Door Because Feverish Child was not Taken to Hospital

An Arizona Judge recently ordered state Representative Kelly Townsend and the local media to leave the courtroom during the trial of the Chandler Arizona family who lost all 3 of their children for failing to take one of them to the hospital regarding a fever. Police broke down their door at 1 a.m. in the morning and forcibly removed all three children. According to the Arizona Republic, Judge Timothy J. Ryan ordered one of their reporters and Rep. Townsend to "immediately" leave an April 10 pretrial hearing in the case. The judge was apparently upset over the media coverage this trial was receiving. This is consistent with how Arizona judges have acted in cases involving the State of Arizona removing children from their homes unjustly, as Health Impact News has been ordered several times in the past few years to take down our stories representing the families and victims of such actions. However, Health Impact News has never complied with such orders, as they violate the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States.