Texas Judge Sanctions CPS $127K for Wrongfully Taking Couple’s Children and Lying to the Court

There are elements that are common almost to the point of being universal in cases involving children taken from their families by Child Protective Services, including false allegations, lying by social workers, falsified medical records, failure of social workers to follow their own policies, laws broken by CPS, and the failure to consider evidence that refutes CPS allegations.

However, there is one thing that remains rare in CPS cases – that is, for anyone within the system to be held accountable. Repercussions for social workers, the CPS agency, or doctors involved in taking children from innocent parents are very rare.

On Thursday, November 8, 2018, a judge in Houston, Texas, called CPS on the carpet, issuing what the Houston Chronicle says:

“…may be the largest-ever sanctions against Child Protective Services, forcing the state to come up with new training for its workers and pay more than $127,000 for wrongfully removing a couple’s children and allegedly lying to the court about it.”

This follows a decision that Judge Mike Schneider issued last month involving parents Melissa and Dillon Bright, the same family whose children were medically kidnapped by CPS and Texas Children’s Hospital.

Now, attorneys for parents Melissa and Dillon Bright are calling for the firing of the CPS workers involved and asking for prosecutors to investigate and consider criminal charges.

Chicago Psychiatric Hospital Investigated by Federal and State Authorities for Abuse of Children Under CPS Care

A psychiatric hospital in Chicago is being investigated by federal and state authorities for multiple reports of abuse of children in their care, many of whom are under state custody through the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).

Although the following ProPublica article highlights one particular hospital, investigations by Health Impact News have found that the stories contained within this piece are repeated in psych wards, group homes, and juvenile detention centers all over the country.

Many children who are able to tell their stories have told our reporters of similar horrors to the treatment suffered by the children in this story. Once they are hidden away behind the locked doors of these facilities, in state custody, with little contact with the people who love them, they often become victims of sexual assault, physical abuse, and drugging that they neither consent to nor want.

They become invisible, hidden in the shadows, with their only hope of a voice being the very people with vested financial interests in keeping them silent about the abuse. It is not unlike slavery in many ways.

It seems that every time that we talk to any former foster child that was forced into a psych ward, group home, or juvenile detention center, their stories of widespread sexual and physical abuse are the same. They are the rule, not the exception.

The response is always the same: the children all report that no one listened to them. When anyone of them reported abuse by foster parents or in the facilities, they were told that no one would believe them. They are bullied or shamed into silence, left to suffer, while taxpayers pick up the tab to finance institutionalized abuse.

N.Y. Mother Fights for Medically Kidnapped 13 Year Old Son Being Forced to Receive Chemo Therapy Even Though He is Cancer-free

ABC7 in New York is reporting on the story of a Long Island mother who lost custody of her 13 year old son when she disagreed with doctors over his treatment.

Kristin Thorne reports:

“A mother on Long Island is fighting to have her son removed from chemotherapy treatment after he was given a clean bill of health by doctors.

Candace Gundersen’s son, Nick Gundersen, 13, is receiving court-ordered chemotherapy at NYU Winthrop Hospital in Mineola. He’s now in the custody of Suffolk County Child Protective Services.”

Kristin Thorne also spoke with Nick from his hospital bed:

“They basically took me away from my parents and that’s unnecessary because they’re trying to help me and they’re not trying to kill me. I think that they should focus on other families that actually need help and whose children lives are actually in danger,” he said.

Local Media in Peoria Illinois Exposes Medical Kidnapping of Young Child Due to Child Abuse Specialist

A recent 2-part Special Report by 25 News in Peoria, Illinois, examines the issue of innocent parents, who are falsely accused by doctors, whose children are medically kidnapped.

Reporter Caitlin Knute says that one local hospital, OSF St. Francis, sees about 20 cases a month of child abuse, which also includes “neglect” cases as well.

Reporter Tyler Lopez asks the question that Health Impact News has been asking even before our Medical Kidnap division was established in 2014:

“But what if some of those abuse cases were misdiagnosed or the result of a medical condition?”

When that happens, there is often no liberty or justice for these families.

The 25 News report starts with the story of Baby Chandler, a story that follows the template of dozens of other stories that we have covered here at Health Impact News involving a child with broken bones who actually had a medical condition causing his bone fragility.

Dr. Channing Petrak, Child Abuse Pediatrician, accused the parents of abuse, and he was taken from his mother by Illinois Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS).

Arizona's Double Standards: Requirements Higher for Biological Parents to Keep Their Children at Home than for Foster Parents to Take Other People's Children into Their Home

Arizona and other states have much stricter policies in place for children to stay with their families in their own homes, than standards placed on foster parents to receive children that are not their own into their homes.

It would seem logical that the stricter standard would be placed upon those that taxpayers pay to care for children taken from their families, while some grace would be extended to biological families.

After all, simply being removed from their homes, no matter the family condition, is in itself traumatic to children. Children have the innate biological, psychological, emotional, social, and spiritual need for their own families that doesn’t go away when they are placed with other people.

Even the kindness of a stranger is not as welcome to a child as the love of their own mother, father, and grandparents.

Yet the opposite is true. The looser standard lies with those homes the children are placed into.

Perhaps no story we have covered in the last 4 years illustrates this more clearly than the case of Devani in Arizona, a child taken from her family at the age of 2.

Her mother was never charged with abuse, but the state put her into a foster home where she was raped as part of a pedophile pornographic ring. After her foster parent was arrested, she still did not go home, but was placed into a home where she was scalded so badly by hot water that all of her toes were amputated.

Arizona Attorney General Demands Health Impact News Take Down Story on Medical Kidnapping in Violation of 1st Amendment

In October (2018) we brought you the story of a young couple’s situation in Arizona, where both of their infant sons were removed from their family by the Department of Child Safety, Arizona’s version of CPS (Child Protection Services).

They lost their first son, Keaton, at 2 months of age after taking him to the doctor shortly after receiving multiple vaccines and becoming sick. A Child Abuse Pediatrician at Phoenix Children’s Hospital, Dr. Cynthia Nelson, reported that Keaton had been abused based on medical evidence.

And while the parents have not yet been found guilty of any crime in an ongoing investigation, an investigation in which other doctors have allegedly weighed in and disagreed with Dr. Cynthia Nelson, the State of Arizona also removed the Meissinger’s second son 48 hours after he was born, simply because there was an open investigation regarding their first baby.

This story has drawn national attention, and Health Impact News recently received an email from the mother, Briana, explaining that the Arizona Attorney General office was demanding that we take down their story.

We have been publishing stories about state-sponsored child kidnappings on our MedicalKidnap.com website for over 4 years now, and this is not the first time we have been told we must remove one of our articles.

We have never complied with these demands and threats, and we are NOT going to start now.

Former Nurse at Phoenix Children's Hospital Speaks Out Against Medical Kidnapping of Children

A hallmark of a free people is the ability to think for ourselves, which includes the right to question, to seek out truth, and to hold opinions that are different from those of someone else.

If, however, the person that parents question is a doctor, the cherished American value of this basic liberty may be squashed by a simple phone call to Child Protective Services, after which custody of the child is seized by the state.

Medical kidnapping has become the go-to punishment for those parents who dare to question their children’s doctors. With ancient religious fervor, medical “heretics” are seeing their families ripped apart.

At a recent rally for families in front of Phoenix Children’s Hospital, a former nurse spoke out about the abuses that she has seen at the hospital. She told the group:

“I am in this field. I didn’t go into healthcare to steal children!”

Yet, that is the scenario that is being played out in Children’s Hospitals every single day, all across America.

Arizona Foster Mother Found Guilty of Child Abuse after Scalding Young Devani

The Arizona woman accused of scalding her adoptive child causing third degree burns to 80% of her body resulting in the amputation of all 10 toes has been found guilty of 2 of the 3 charges brought against her.

Samantha Osteraas of Tucson, Arizona, faces between 10 and 24 years in prison for hurting Devani, the little girl that the Arizona Department of Child Services placed into her care after removing her from a foster home where she was being abused in a pedophilia pornography ring.

A Pima County jury of 9 women and 3 men deliberated for 8 hours before reaching their verdict on Friday afternoon, October 19, 2018. According to News 4 Tucson, Osteraas:

“…was found not guilty for the first count of child abuse. However, the jury did find her guilty for the lesser charge of reckless child abuse.

For the second child abuse count, she was found guilty.”

One of the court watchers who was present for the emotional trial said that the jury decided that she was not guilty of “negligent child abuse,” which was the first count of abuse. They stopped short of saying that she burned Devani intentionally.

They did, however, find that Samantha Osteraas was guilty of delaying treatment after the burns occurred.

Whistleblowing Priests Killed to Prevent Exposing Pedophilia Problem in the Catholic Church?

The code of silence in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) that has protected pedophile priests for decades is being breeched by a few courageous whistleblowing Catholic clergy. These brave men have become willing to speak the truth at great risk to their careers and even to their very lives.

Evidence is very strong that the highest levels in the hierarchy of the Roman Catholic Church were fully aware of the molestation problem of children and even the rape of male seminary students, but did little if anything to stop it, thus condoning the crimes.

State level criminal investigations are now underway in 15 or more US states could lead to massive prosecution of pedophile priests.

The federal government announced last week that it has launched an investigation into criminal wrongdoing in 6 Roman Catholic dioceses in Pennsylvania plus an investigation in Buffalo, New York.

Two Eastern Orthodox dioceses in Pennsylvania are also under investigation.

A federal grand jury will be formed, and it will have the power to bring indictments against these church organizations under federal racketeering laws for interstate conspiracy to cover up and to commit crimes.

A guilty verdict under RICO laws could lead to the forfeiture of all assets of the RCC in the United States including church properties.

Arizona Parents Falsely Accused of Child Abuse Lose Infant Son - Have 2-Day-Old Newborn Also Medically Kidnapped

Paxton Meissinger came into the world on Tuesday, October 16, 2018, weighing all of 7 pounds and 2 ounces. Like every newborn baby, he wanted and expected only one thing – the presence of his mommy.

To an infant, the most important thing in the world is be surrounded by the love and warmth of the person whose heartbeat he has heard for as long as he had the ability to hear.

In her arms, every need he has is met, from her milk and the nutrition and antibodies it provides to the reassurance of her warmth and love.

The foundation for basic trust is laid as he hears the voices of both father and mother, and they respond to his communication. The first few weeks and months of life have been likened to a “fourth trimester,” where baby humans are designed to remain still a unit with their mothers.

However, for Baby Paxton, these basic human needs are no longer being met, thanks to the Arizona Department of Children’s Services (DCS).

When he was only 48 hours old, social workers took him away from his parents, Briana and Jordan Meissinger, claiming that this is “necessary to protect the child from suffering abuse or neglect.”

This is because Baby Paxton’s brother was also taken away from his parents. He was sick after receiving multiple vaccines at age 2 months old, and a Child Abuse Specialist at Phoenix Children’s Hospital accused the parents of abuse.

The case is still being fought in court where other doctors disagree with the Child Abuse Specialist, but the fact that charges exist was enough for Arizona DCS to take newborn Baby Paxton away from his parents.

The Catholic Church and Pedophilia: Trafficking Children as Sex Slaves

The Roman Catholic Church is on the verge of an internal civil war.

The battleground is between those who would liberalize the traditional definition of immoral sexual behavior for its clergy, and those who want to restore the conservative values of the Catholic faith as it has been known for more than a thousand years.

The scandal involving pedophile priests and the cover-up of their crimes against children and young men is bringing the liberal/conservative clash into sharp focus.

It is still a crime in the United States for an adult to have sexual encounters with boys and girls. Such crimes are called sexual assault or child molestation. Those who commit such crimes are called pedophiles. There are no exceptions granted by these laws for members of the clergy.

By focusing on the pedophile crimes committed by clergy of the Roman Catholic Church (RCC) in this article, I am not overlooking the crimes other pedophile groups commit against children — Those acts are equally immoral and illegal!

The focus of this article is on the types of criminal charges levied by the Pennsylvania grand jury investigation against predator priests and the cover-up of those crimes by the Roman Catholic hierarchy of bishops and cardinals.

Clearly, Protestant churches also have clergy and staff that who have committed sex crimes, but the focus today is on the Roman Catholic Church (RCC).

This is the first of three articles on pedophilia in the Roman Catholic Church (RCC). This article goes much deeper than one on one sex crimes against children. It also looks at the systematic cover-up of those crimes by the Catholic hierarchy.

A future article will look at the trafficking of children for use as sex slaves and the use of children for ritualistic sacrifices. Another article will highlight the heroic Catholic priests and bishops who are risking their lives to tell the truth about what is happening in their church.

Some of these whistleblowers are now in hiding in fear for their lives, while others have been killed or blackballed from parish work.

Trial Begins for Little Arizona Girl Placed with Pedophiles in Foster Care and Burned by Adoptive Mom

A woman who was approved by the State of Arizona to adopt a child out of the foster care system is on trial for child abuse. Samantha Osteraas faces 2 counts of child abuse for scalding a little girl entrusted to her care, causing 3rd degree burns to almost 80% of her body, causing all 10 of her toes to be amputated, and nearly costing the child’s life.

During the trial, which is expected to end this week, 7-year-old Devani took the stand and told a jury that Osteraas held her down in the bathtub with a pink towel, according to the Arizona Daily Star.

She is only 7 years old, but the beautiful child known to family advocates as “the little girl in the blue dress” has been through more abuse than most of us can imagine.

Devani was taken at the age of 2 from her parents by Arizona’s Child “Protective” Services – the Department of Child Services (DCS), but she was never abused in her parents’ home.

Her horrors began after she was in the custody of the State of Arizona. Before she was adopted by Samantha and Justin Osteraas, she was placed by DCS into a foster home with a man who is now serving prison time for running a pornographic and pedophile ring out of his home.

Iowa Judge Blasts Corrupt Social Worker and CPS for Lying and Giving False Testimony to Kidnap Children

An Iowa judge recently reprimanded the Department of Human Services (DHS) after a social worker was found to have repeatedly lied to the court about parents in order to have their parental rights to their children terminated.

According to the Associated Press (AP), District Associate Judge Adam Sauer criticized the testimony of social worker Chelsie Gray for being filled with “lies and misrepresentations.”

Judge Sauer dismissed the state’s petitions to terminate parental rights on an Iowa couple’s 4 children, finding that they had been “unfairly stripped of their parental rights.”

He also ruled that “referrals for new foster case placements shall stop immediately,” because the original ruling was based upon false information.

Unfortunately, as hundreds of thousands of parents have found, false testimony by social workers, and even doctors, is often standard fare when it comes to taking children from their families.

We have found this in our own investigations of hundreds of cases, where allegations written by social workers or Child Abuse Pediatricians are filled with discrepancies and statements that are readily demonstrated to be incorrect.

On the basis of false allegations, lies, and hearsay, without evidence, families are being ripped apart.

They are victims of generational genocide, and the children are more likely to end up as victims of sexual assault, child sex trafficking, or death.

Yet, the lack of due process and the corruption within the system is the rule, not the exception.

In Unprecedented Move Texas Judge Orders CPS to Have No Contact with 2 Children Removed without Warrant - Social Worker Pleads 5th in Court

Though much of the public may still believe that Child Protective Services must have a good reason whenever they take children away from their parents, the curtain is increasingly being pulled back to expose the ugly truth behind the facade.

Children are seized from their families many times over false allegations and lies. Deception within social services is the norm, not the exception.

One judge has had enough.

FOX 26 Houston reports that Texas judge Mike Schneider did something on Monday that has never happened in all of the state’s history – he ordered that CPS have no contact with 2 children they took from their parents.

According to family law attorney Dennis Slate:

“The affidavit they used to remove was full of mis-truths, and half truths, and outright lies.”

Investigative Reporter Randy Wallace reports that Judge Schneider asked the social worker in court why he filed the emergency motion to take the 5-month-old baby boy and 2-year-old daughter of Michael and Melissa Bright.

Despite the fact that the social worker had sworn an affidavit in order to take the children from their parents at Texas Children’s Hospital, he pleaded the fifth amendment in court.

CPS faces a sanctions hearing later this month where they could be fined tens of thousands of dollars.

The War Against Vitamin D - A Threat to Big Pharma

Natural substances with tremendous healing capabilities that cannot be patented are a huge threat to the pharmaceutical industry and their FDA-approved drugs, and certainly vitamin D is at the top of this list.

For example, published scientific literature shows that vitamin D is more effective in preventing annual influenza than the dangerous flu shot.

Since the best and primary source of vitamin D is from the sun, most people in North America are vitamin D deficient, even during the summer months when we are told to block the sun’s rays due to the fear of skin cancer.

When a natural substance like vitamin D can cure and prevent so many diseases, usually in ways far superior to FDA-approved drugs and vaccines, it should come as no surprise that Big Pharma will pull out all the stops to discredit the science behind these natural substances, as they affect their profits from pharmaceutical products.

This is routinely done by funding their own biased studies, and then attacking medical doctors and scientists who promote natural cures.

One of the areas of vitamin D deficiency that affects many of the families we work with here at Health Impact News, is in the area of Medical Kidnapping and the widely debunked theory of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) that is used to medically kidnap children.

Vitamin D deficiency can lead to brittle bones in infants and children, where multiple hairline fractures occur giving the appearance of “abuse” according to proponents of the Shaken Baby Syndrome medical theory.

One doctor who is a world-renown authority on vitamin D and has testified in court on behalf of parents falsely accused of SBS, is Dr. Michael Holick. He has recently come under fire and was attacked in the corporate-sponsored “mainstream” media that derives much of its advertising revenue from Big Pharma.

William B. Grant, PhD, the director for the Sunlight, Nutrition, and Health Research Center, and former senior research scientist at SRI International, the Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and the NASA Langley Research Center, has recently published a commentary with the Orthomolecular Medicine News Service exposing Big Pharma’s “disinformation playbook” and how they attack natural cures, and vitamin D health benefits specifically.

Dr. Grant has authored or coauthored over 60 articles in peer-reviewed journals.

Former Kansas Gubernatorial Candidate Becomes Warrior Fighting Against State-Sponsored Child Kidnapping

Jennifer Winn ran for governor of the state of Kansas in 2014. Near the end of her gubernatorial campaign, a mother reached out to her and said that she needed to talk with her. She told Jennifer Winn that the state was taking children from families. Frankly, she sounded crazy to Jennifer, like a “conspiracy theorist.”

The woman didn’t stop trying to talk to her. She persisted, blowing up her phone daily.

It became clear that “she’s not going to let up,” so Jennifer agreed to have the woman come to her office.

She was not prepared for what she heard. The mother brought in a detailed timeline of what had happened to her family, complete with transcripts and evidence to back up her side of the story.

Jennifer carried the papers home with her that night and stayed up most of the night reading the woman’s story. Based on a social worker’s false allegations, the mother’s children had been taken and placed into foster care.

As Jennifer got deeper into the story she says:

“I could not believe what I was reading. I was like Terri [LaPoint, who originally believed] ‘Oh, this is just an isolated case.’ I am going to expose this, and we’re going to fix it, and we’re going to get your kids.

She came in. We did a video that day.

I released that video, and in 24 hours, I had over 500 requests. In a week later, I had over 1,500 requests, and I was floored.

I literally, like, for 2 days, I shut down and I cried, because I couldn’t believe the stories I was reading.

Everything about this agency that I believed was true was a lie. Everything.

Children are being harmed.

Not only are they being harmed, they’re being drugged.”

A warrior had awakened. The truth of what Jennifer Winn was seeing caused something to rise up within her, and she has not been the same since.

She recently spoke to a crowd gathered in Washington D.C. to protest the abuses of state-sponsored kidnappings.

Law School Director: Stop Terminating Parental Rights - Preserve Family Relationships

Attorney Vivek Sankaran, director of the Child Advocacy Law Clinic and the Child Welfare Appellate Clinic at the University Michigan Law School, has written an excellent piece that was published in The Chronicle for Social Change titled: Termination of Parental Rights: What’s The Rush?

Vivek writes that family courts today are too quick to remove parental rights when one parent is deemed “unfit.” An attorney himself who has represented children in foster care, Vivek gives an example of a father who was incarcerated for drug usage, and yet stayed involved in his daughter’s life for the 8 years he spent in prison, and even helped fund her time in law school, where she was able to finish her degree and graduate.

He was able to stay involved in his daughter’s life because his parental rights were not severed, which is what happens in most states, sadly, when a parent is deemed “unfit” to parent.

Vivek writes that in one state, Utah, the Court of Appeals has questioned the necessity of terminating parental rights so quickly, and that this ruling could serve as a model for other states.

Indiana High Court Accuses CPS of "Significant Violations of Due Process in Termination of Parental Rights"

Cracks are starting to be exposed in the foundation of the state-sponsored child kidnapping structure of Child “Protective” Services. Parents who have been fighting the system for their children have seen these gaping flaws all along, but for decades anyone with power to change it has turned a blind eye to their plight.

Finally, it appears that the higher courts in one state are beginning to recognize that the system is, indeed, violating parental rights with alarming frequency.

Appellate judges from the Indiana Court of Appeals recently sent a strong rebuke to the Department of Child Services (DCS), citing “significant violations of due process occurring in termination of parental rights cases throughout the state.”

Indianapolis NBC affiliate Channel 13 reports that the judges acknowledged that there is a pattern of “repeated violations” of parental and Constitutional due process rights by DCS.

While the fact that the agency routinely violates parents’ rights certainly comes as no surprise to anyone on the front lines of the battle, the admission by the appeals court and by DCS itself that it is happening comes as a shock, albeit a good one, to attorneys and parents alike.

Could this be the beginning of the dominoes falling? Will other states take notice and follow suit?

Medical Kidnapping: Is Big Pharma Responsible for the Majority of the Nearly Half Million Children Put into the U.S. Foster Care System?

Medical kidnapping of children may be far more prevalent than anyone has realized. When Health Impact News launched MedicalKidnap.com in October of 2014, we believed that these stories were only a small fraction of the larger group of Child Protective Services cases where children were taken away from their families.

As we got deeper into our investigation, we realized that the problem was much more widespread than we ever could have imagined. We now know that medical issues are involved in at least half to as many as 80% of all the cases involving the removal of children from their homes.

Group of 4000+ Parents Takes on Minnesota CPS and Government Child Kidnapping and Trafficking

Earlier this year (2018) we reported that a group of Minnesota parents filed a federal civil rights lawsuit accusing Dakota County and the State of Minnesota for kidnapping their children and placing them unnecessarily into foster care.

The parents are part of an organization called The Family Preservation Foundation, which also goes by the name Stop CPS from Legally Kidnapping Children.

Recently, the group, which is reported to now represent over 4000 parents in Minnesota, garnered more local media coverage when a judge return a 1-year-old boy to his mother who had been allegedly placed into foster care for 3 months based on “false allegations of medical neglect.”

The return of Amanda Weber’s child was seen as a victory for the Family Preservation Foundation:

“The legal victory is symbolic for a coalition of parents and advocates seeking to change the state’s child protection system. The group has argued that Minnesota’s laws criminalize parents for what they consider to be routine parental discipline and have a disproportionate effect on black families.”

Federal Funding Provides Incentives for States to Take Children Away from Families Even When No Abuse is Present

When Child Protective Services (CPS) takes children from a loving, non-abusive family, the parents, and sometimes grandparents, aunts, and uncles, often seek out information about what is happening. Many gravitate toward groups on social media that provide education and support for those fighting CPS for their children.

As the confused parents try to sort out the information and learn how to get their children back, one question dominates their search: How can this happen in America?

Federal legislation enshrined in CAPTA and ASFA provide federal funding to states for foster care. For too long, these legislative acts have enabled and incentivized states taking children from innocent parents who have committed no crime, who have not abused their children.

By any definition this is human trafficking.

It is time to cut off the flow of tax dollars for the destruction of families, and instead find ways to help and support families.

The Ease with which Government Kidnaps Children - A Review of Current Legislation and the Multi-Billion Dollar Child "Protection" Industry

Attorney Connie Reguli writes:

It is hard to imagine in a sophisticated first-world country like the United States that the government officials could walk into your child’s public school, have them removed from their classroom, interviewed by government officials in private (without your knowledge), remove your child from the school, and place them in the home of a stranger all without your knowledge. The reason you ask, maybe you don’t feed your child enough, maybe they missed a few days from school, maybe someone just lied and said you were a drug dealer, and your child could not answer the right questions to exonerate you.

It is hard to imagine in a sophisticated first-world country that a new born baby could be stripped from his mother’s arms in a hospital because the Mother had one positive test for opiates during pregnancy, even though there was no showing of drugs in the Mother or the child at birth and there is no other evidence of child abuse or neglect.

It is hard to imagine in a sophisticated first-world country that a child could be locked in a hospital with a rare and untreated disease and separated from her entire family simply because her parents wanted to take her for a second medical opinion.

This is the state of our nation and the child welfare system in the United States.

Here’s what has to change….

Investigative Report in Kentucky Reveals Corruption Still Exists in Foster Care as Children Die or Go Missing

The corruption in Kentucky Child Protection Services and Foster Care has been reported on extensively here at Health Impact News since 2015.

A new report aired on Wave 3 News by investigative journalist John Boel reveals that corruption in the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services is apparently ongoing, as one child was allegedly murdered by his foster parent after being taken away from his family, and another foster parent is blowing the whistle on the abuses of Kentucky foster care where children go missing due to lack of oversight.

The current investigation began in 2017, when 4-year-old Hunter Payton died in foster care, and his biological parents questioned the story put forward as to the cause of his death, which was reported to be an accident.

“They told us it was an ‘unlikely’ injury,” Hunter’s mother April Payton said. “It doesn’t happen. Something hit him hard.”

He had only been in foster care for 3 months. During that time, the parents allegedly complained to the state about bruising on their son, and they were apparently told several different stories about how he died in an accidental fall.

As John Boel reports:

“Months after our report, Billy Embry-Martin, 33, was charged with murder.

The lawsuit accuses him and his husband, Travis Embry-Martin, of ‘violent punishment, physical abuse and denial of food.’

Billy Embry-Martin is free on bond awaiting a December trial on the murder charge.”

My Name Is Not “Respondent Mother”: The Need for Judicial Reform in Child Welfare

Losing a child for any reason is one of the most devastating things that can ever happen to a parent. The process of dealing with Child Protective Services and family court, while never easy, often serves to dehumanize parents and children. Instead of serving to help families overcome challenges, the system creates further harm when it treats parents as though they are worthless.

Not only are civil and constitutional rights violated routinely, but many parents find that the system seeks to strip them of their basic human dignity.

Law professor Vivek Sankaran recognizes that the treatment of parents by the courts is counterproductive to goals of restoring the family and helping the children.

Sankaran wrote a piece for the American Bar Association addressing these concerns, with suggestions that could be implemented by the courts when dealing with parents facing allegations by CPS.

Alabama Senior Citizen Medically Kidnapped and Forced onto Drugs Against Family Wishes

Just as Child Protective Services and a judge have almost omnipotent, unchecked power to decide unilaterally that the relationship between a parent and a young child is not worthy of being preserved, Adult Protective Services and a probate judge have the same power to sever the relationship between an adult child and their elderly parent.

Sometimes the relationship has endured for longer than the judge and social worker combined have been alive, yet with the stroke of a pen, a senior citizen can be completely torn away from their own children.

The wishes of the elder can be completely ignored, and documents assigning power of attorney to a trusted adult child can become meaningless. Medical and financial decisions are placed into the hands of a court-appointed guardian who is often a stranger to everyone in the family.

Nancy Scott, a retired English teacher from south Alabama, wrote to Health Impact News describing the medical kidnapping of her 102-year-old mother, who is also a beloved retired schoolteacher known to her former students as “Ms. Gregory.”

St. Vincent’s Hospital and the Alabama Department of Human Resources (DHR) seized custody of Marian (Gregory) Leonard in February 2018. She is being held against her will, forced by a Jefferson County, Alabama, court into Hospice care, even though she has no terminal illness or disease. She is elderly, but her mind is sound. She is being drugged against her will and has told her daughter that she doesn’t want the drugs.

Nancy has always enjoyed a close relationship with her mother, but she has not seen her since midsummer. At that time, Ms. Gregory begged to go home. She told Nancy:

“If you don’t get me out of here, they’re going to kill me, and they’re going to kill you.”

Was Texas Mom's Baby who was Accidentally Vaccinated with Gardasil Medically Kidnapped for Medical Research?

When Anita Vasquez sought medical care for the reactions her baby girl was having after mistakenly being given the Gardasil vaccine at only 4 months old, she had no way of knowing that she was walking into a hospital that was working on vaccine development in collaboration with one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world.

She found herself tangled in what appeared to her to be a deep web of interests that were in direct conflict with her only goal, which was simply trying to get help for her baby.

Instead of finding help, she was met with accusations that she had somehow caused harm. Doctors and social workers testified that Anita had Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (also known as “factitious disorder”), which means she was accused of making up her daughter’s medical conditions when there were none. Anita is a licensed nurse by profession.

The state of Texas recently terminated her parental rights to her daughter Aniya Blu.

It was apparent to Anita from the very beginning that there was more going on than meets the eye.

Evidence was hidden. Medical records were kept from her and her attorneys. Medical diagnoses of real problems were covered up.

The deception continued throughout the ordeal with Child Protective Services, and it followed Anita into the courtroom. There were many facts of the case that Anita didn’t learn about until just before the termination hearing. Even then, the evidence was ignored.

Anita Vasquez has appealed the termination of her parental rights for her daughter, who was mistakenly injected at 4 months old with the Gardasil 9 vaccine intended for her older brother. Anita received a letter on August 31, 2018, from the Thirteenth District of Texas Court of Appeals noting that her appeal was accepted.

How Medical Tyranny Through Forced HIV Drugs Destroyed a Child's Life and Killed His Mother

When Lindsey Nagel gave birth to her son Rico, she recognized that the only reason that she had lived long enough to fall in love and bear a child was because of the courage of her parents to discontinue a dangerous medication for her when she was just 2-years-old.

She was devastated when doctors insisted that the same drug be given to her newborn son. When she hesitated to comply, doctors and a social worker with the Mayo Clinic affiliated hospital called Child Protective Services.

The Nagel story is one of heartache, then triumph, followed by devastation. While no family escapes encounters with Child Protective Services unscathed, the Nagels’ encounter ultimately cost Lindsey’s life.

Like too many parents before and after her, Lindsey’s health declined and she lost the will to live.

She is another tragic casualty in the battle for families waging in our country right now as a result of medical kidnappings.

Babies for Cash - How the State Abuses Infants by Destroying the Mother-Child Bond in CPS Abductions

A baby’s first year is crucial to a baby’s emotional and cognitive development. It is in the earliest months of life that the foundations for basic trust, security, and relationships are laid. The parent-child relationship is the environment in which that is designed to happen.

Yet the majority of children who enter foster care are taken within their first year of life, depriving them of critical bonding time and causing permanent trauma and damage to the babies’ ability to trust. More children in this age group are not returned home and are later adopted out than any other age group.

According to the 2017 AFCARS report (Adoption and Foster Care Analysis and Reporting System) from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, almost 1 in 5 children who entered foster care during 2016 (the latest date for which data is available) were less than 1 year old when they were taken from their parents.

Fully 25% of the children deemed to be “waiting for adoption” were babies who came into the system at under a year old. These are defined as “children who have a goal of adoption and/or whose parents’ parental rights have been terminated.”

The numbers are clear that babies are the most likely age group to be seized from their parents, not returned, and adopted out. 92% of the adopters receive an “adoption subsidy,” which is a taxpayer-funded financial incentive to adopt.

Human babies are born with an innate emotional and psychological need for their biological parents. When the child cannot or does not receive the love and acceptance of their own mother and father, he or she is left with a gaping hole deep inside that they may struggle the rest of their lives to fill even if they are loved, wanted, and cherished by a substitute parent.

The harm of that separation is seldom considered by anyone within the Child Protective Services or foster care industry, evidenced by the fact that it is never mentioned in any of the thousands of pages of documents that we have examined for hundreds of families whose stories have been featured by Health Impact News.

Study: Children from Poor Parents, Even if they have a Drug Problem, do Worse if Put into Foster Care

The Lancet recently published a new study which shows that preschool children taken from their homes are twice as likely when they become young adults to have psychological problems and criminal convictions than those left in their own homes.

Unlike previous studies, this long term, population-based study matched the children in foster care with children from families with similar sociological and economic demographics.

As horrific as the outcomes are for children who are taken from their parents and placed into foster care, many policy makers, legislators, and our friends and neighbors continue to assert that foster care is necessary to protect children from abuse and harm.

Billions of dollars are poured into the system, but the evidence consistently shows that the foster care system is not helping children.

The majority of children, in the U.S. are taken for “neglect” – an ambiguous term that can be interpreted to include dirty dishes in the sink, playing outside in the yard, or simply being poor.

Only 17% of the allegations against parents are “substantiated” or “founded” according to the 2016 Child Maltreatment Report by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

This is hardly the first study to look at outcomes comparing children in foster care and children left in “troubled” homes. There have been numerous other studies, and they all come to the same conclusion: children left in troubled homes with their families do far better than children put into foster care.

How much more evidence do we have to see before we finally wake up as a society and recognize that the way we are doing things that we thought was helping is not actually helping?

There are almost half a million American children in foster care at any given time. Many more have been in the system at some point during their childhood.

At what cost to our children?

Pediatric Neuropathologist on Failed Science Behind Shaken Baby Syndrome: Doctors Value Their Careers More than the Truth

There are times throughout human history that a particular hypothesis or another is dogmatically accepted as truth.

In the past, those who challenged the group thinking could be hanged or burned at the stake as a heretic.

Even today, there can be a high price to pay for disagreeing with the status quo, even when there is strong evidence that shows that the group-think consensus is wrong.

Shaken Baby Syndrome is one such hypothesis.

Dr. Waney Squier is a world renowned pediatric neuropathologist whose intellectually honest quest for scientific truth has led her to change her belief about Shaken Baby Syndrome. She is joined by many other doctors and researchers who question the message that we have been taught to believe.

Her decision almost cost her career, and even now she is banned from testifying in court against Shaken Baby Syndrome.

She recently spoke out in a BBC interview about the science that led to her to change her mind about Shaken Baby Syndrome, and how many other doctors also know that the science does not support Shaken Baby Syndrome, but are too afraid to speak out because they fear losing their jobs.

Attorney Explains how to Protect Against America's Epidemic of Senior Medical Kidnappings

As we have previously reported here at Health Impact News, the medical kidnapping of America’s elderly is a $273 BILLION industry.

Medical kidnapping of senior citizens occurs when a doctor, usually a psychiatrist, deems that the senior can no longer take care of themselves, and gets a judge to sign an order of “guardianship” or “conservatorship” to someone working for the State.

This state-appointed guardian then comes in and seizes all of their assets, and keeps them a prisoner locked up in a mental facility, most of the time against the wishes of their family members.

This epidemic in the U.S. is even a larger problem than child medical kidnapping, as state-appointed guardians currently have 1.3 million elderly people nationwide under their control.

The few stories we have covered here at Health Impact News regarding seniors medically kidnapped represent just a tiny fraction of what is going on all across the U.S. every single day.

Attorney Mark Nestmann has written an article that was published on LewRockwell.com giving people practical advice on how to oppose these adult medical kidnappings: Protect Yourself from America’s Corrupt Guardianship System.

Former Foster Child Now a Mother Speaks Out Against Evil Foster Care and Adoption System

The following comment was submitted to Health Impact News in response to our article, The Corrupt Foster Care and Adoption System: Why Aren’t More Foster and Adoptive Parents Speaking Out?

“I tell you why adoptive families don’t speak up. They are usually infertile couples who are desperate to get their hot little hands on a child.

They often spend years on waiting lists, jumping through the hoops of applications, home studies, background checks, parenting classes and trial periods with foster children to ‘find a good fit.’

They don’t care whether the child was ‘justifiably’ taken from its real parents or not.

We FINALLY got a child, by God it’s ours, and we won’t let anyone take it away! Open adoptions, birthparent contact and the child’s desire to search are their worst nightmare.

Adoption can be as bad or worse than an abusive home – like the most horrific of all, when the child was unjustly taken from loving parents and given to abusive adopters (which is what happened to me).”

Exposing How Child Abuse Pediatricians Medically Kidnap Children: A Guide for Parents

It happens every day in America. Loving parents take their children to the emergency room for accidents, injuries, and illness.

Sometimes the child appears to be fine, but “to be on the safe side,” parents just want to get their child checked out.

Other times, the parents don’t know what’s wrong, but they look to the “experts” to figure out what is going on. They are worried about their child.

The last thing on their mind is that someone could come in and take their child away from them, accusing them of child abuse.

Yet it is becoming increasingly common for a trip to the doctor or hospital to escalate quickly into this kind of nightmare scenario. A concern for the health of their child becomes a fight for the very survival of the family unit as parents are blindsided by Child Abuse Pediatricians and social workers.

Policies designed to help medical staff spot real child abuse can actually set up innocent parents for false allegations of abuse. Parents walking into a medical setting seeking help for their child often have no idea that they may be walking into a trap.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) is a professional organization of pediatricians. Their policies impact the practices of local pediatricians and doctors in Children’s Hospitals.

The public usually pays little attention to specific AAP policies. Policies are generally assumed to be based on scientific evidence, but there are times that politics, agendas, or financial incentives play a role in establishment of policies.

Parents (consumers) have a right to know about the policies of a business or establishment they choose to interact with, especially when those policies can have a significant impact on the well-being of their family.

In the interest of “informed consent,” this article will highlight specific AAP policies that are often used by Child Abuse Pediatricians to ensnare innocent parents.

After Trip to Emergency Room Illinois Couple has all 4 Children Medically Kidnapped

Like many Americans, Mary Sweeney and Cedric Roberts believed that Child Protective Services was made up of “the good guys,” the ones who protect children from bad parents who abuse their children. They didn’t realize that a trip to the emergency room puts normal, loving parents at risk of losing their children.

Mary wanted to make sure that everything was fine after a simple accidental injury, but the trip to the ER resulted in all 4 of their children being taken from them.

It could have happened to anyone.

The suburban Chicago couple spent the summer without their children, including infant twins, because a Child Abuse Pediatrician in another state has accused them of abusing one of their babies.

The doctor never saw the baby in person. A fracture the doctor diagnosed ended up being a glare on her screen. There was no fracture. It was a mistake.

Even so, Illinois Department of Child and Family Services (DCFS) has not returned the children to their parents.

New Way to Kidnap Children from Their Homes: Pretend to be a Social Worker

It is the one of the scariest things that a parent can ever experience. There is a knock on the door. Someone says, “I am a social worker from Child Protective Services. We got a call and I need to see your children.”

It happens every day in every state all across America. Social workers, alone or accompanied by police, show up to homes and to hospital rooms without a court order or warrant. There is no emergency circumstance where a child’s life is in danger in the time it would take for them to get a court order or warrant signed by a judge, as provided for in the 4th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States.

As terrifying as this is, what if the person on the doorstep is not even a social worker? What if they are a kidnapper posing as a social worker?

This happened to a mother in New York recently. Ashley Bradley posted her story on Facebook, and the post went viral. If she had not known her rights, she could easily have fallen prey to a scheme to kidnap her 9-month-old baby.

America #1 in Child Sex Trafficking and Pedophilia - CPS and Foster Care are the Pipelines

Many Americans hold to a national pride that believes the United States is, or at least was, the greatest country in the world.

Few would argue that America is “not what it used to be” when considering the “greatness” of America today.

Current American President Donald Trump was swept into power because he ran on a campaign slogan to “Make America Great Again” (MAGA), suggesting that what was once considered “great” in America no longer is.

This pride that America is greater than most other countries of the world, that it is the land of opportunity and hope, was perhaps best articulated by the American poet, Emma Lazarus, who penned the following words that today are etched into a plaque attached to the Statute of Liberty standing in the harbor of New York City, which was once considered the gateway to America:

“Give me your tired, your poor, Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free, The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.

Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me, I lift my lamp beside the golden door!”

Today, depending on how one measures “greatness,” America could still be considered greater than other countries in certain aspects, such as having the world’s largest economy, or the world’s most powerful military force.

But there is one area where America exceeds all other nations’ of the world that hopefully most Americans would not be proud to admit: America is the #1 destination for pedophilia and child sex trafficking, and this huge market exists mainly because it is funded by taxpayers through the U.S. government Child Protection Services and Foster care system.

Parenting in the 21st Century: Big Government (and Your Neighbor) Is Watching You and Your Children

Parents of 20-somethings probably recall the “Mommy Wars.” Parenting magazines and mainstream media frequently addressed the cultural battle between mothers who made different parenting choices – stay-at-home moms vs working moms, breastfeeding vs formula feeding, homeschool or public school, or epidural vs natural childbirth.

With the advent of social media, the term “Mom-shaming” came into use. Passionate advocates took to Facebook and blogs to promote their perspective on the “right way” to parent.

As emotionally brutal as the Mommy Wars or Mom-shaming could be, they pale in comparison to the new reality facing parents today in trying to navigate the often stormy waters of parenting.

There is now a whole other dimension added to the mix. Mothers (and fathers) now face the real possibility that someone who disagrees with their choices will call the police and report them to Child Protective Services.

Parental refusal to bow to the opinions of those around them can carry drastic consequences. Families can literally lose their children, even permanently, because someone who doesn’t like their parenting style decided to invoke the strong arm of governmental authority.

The fears of others, even irrational or statistically-unlikely fears, are becoming codified into the social “moral” fabric of modern society. Self-appointed, cultural watchdogs, who would have been called “busybodies” in times past, are no longer content to wag their fingers or type out a nasty post.

By involving Child Protective Services, these fear mongers often subject the children to the possibility of far worse conditions than anything they could be “rescuing” them from.

New York Times writer Kim Brooks found herself on the defensive end of another person’s fear about a parenting decision, and she faced the possibility of arrest and losing her children. She wrote an opinion piece entitled “Motherhood in the Age of Fear,” in which she eloquently describes the escalation of the Mommy Wars into a very battle for our children themselves.

Parents Lose Custody of Disabled Adult Son for Questioning Psych Drugs

Medical kidnapping can happen to adults as well as children. Health Impact News has reported a number of adult kidnapping stories over the years.

Some involve senior citizens. Others, like this one reported by ABC News in Raleigh, North Carolina, regarding 24-year-old, Ian Bankert, involves the seizure of adult children with mental illness or disability from their parents who have loved, raised, and cared for their children their entire lives.

Doctors (mostly psychiatrists) and courts have the power to step in and take over the entire lives of such individuals, isolating them from their families and ultimately deciding every aspect of their care.

Ian’s parents became concerned about the doctors “overprescribing him with medication,” a concern which is shared by many parents and patients, and watchdog groups.

Doctors recommended “more medication and long-term care,” but his parents, according to ABC11, “instead insisted that a good diet, exercise and faith could restore Ian’s sense of self.”

Ian’s story is another in a long list of cases where the financial and academic interests of one group – psychiatrists and public guardians – are pitted against the civil rights and familial interests of individuals and their families.

The long arm of the state again overrides the decisions of parents who know and love their son and want what is best for him. They do not believe that locking him away from his life and loved ones and drugging him are the answer.

American Academy of Pediatrics' Failing Shaken Baby Syndrome Diagnoses: Use Tyranny When Science Fails

The line between medicine and the justice system has been blurred. Certain doctors, especially those certified as Child Abuse Specialists or Child Abuse Pediatricians, have essentially become judge, jury, and executioner in cases involving Shaken Baby Syndrome and Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy allegations.

The testimony of one of these doctors can result in a family being ripped apart with the child sent away to foster care or even adopted out by someone else. Parents and grandparents are sentenced to prison, even a lifetime in prison or death row, based on their testimony.

Clearly, these doctors have a tremendous amount of power, literally holding the fate of generations within their control.

The American Academy of Pediatrics (AAP) recently issued a “consensus statement” regarding Abusive Head Trauma (their preferred name for what is more commonly known as Shaken Baby Syndrome).

It essentially asserts that there is no question that their way is the right way, that judges and the public need to recognize that they are right, and that anyone who says otherwise is just wrong.

Increasingly, attorneys and the public are questioning the assertions made by the doctors who hold themselves up as the ultimate authority over legal matters involving abuse.

Cases are being overturned, and innocent parents are being freed.

The consensus statement appears to be a response to the plethora of SBS cases being overturned in the courts, a statement to let people know that they are still in charge and that their dogma, to which the authors hold with almost religious fervor, is not to be challenged.

Grandmother Wrongly Accused of Shaken Baby Syndrome is Freed from Prison After 11 Years

The Los Angeles Times is reporting that a grandmother was freed from prison this month after Loyola Law School’s Project for the Innocent became involved.

Maria Mendez spent the last 11 years of her life, serving a 25-year sentence for the death of her 9-month-old grandson. She had been convicted of Shaken Baby Syndrome, but attorneys and law students who fight for people who are wrongfully convicted took up her case, pointing out medical evidence that was not considered by the court.

Mendez was originally convicted based on the testimony of a Child Abuse Specialist.

Dr. Carol Berkowitz is the Director of the Child Abuse Fellowship at Harbor-UCLA Medical Center. At one time she served as the President of the American Academy of Pediatrics. She is part of the Helfer Society – an elite group of doctors involved with Child Abuse, and in 2014, she won the society’s highest award.

Despite her many accolades, Dr. Berkowitz failed to consider alternative explanations for the injuries sustained by the grandson of Ms. Mendez. The testimony that she gave reflects the junk science beliefs involved in Shaken Baby Syndrome.

Other doctors disagree with her diagnosis, but she was the only doctor to testify 11 years ago.

Pediatric Child Abuse "Experts" are NOT Experts in Anything

A common denominator in many of the cases of medical kidnapping that we have covered at Health Impact News is the presence of a Child Abuse Specialist doctor. Time and again we have reported stories where a parent takes a child to a hospital for one reason or another, only to find themselves accused of child abuse by a Child Abuse Pediatrician, even when there are real medical conditions present.

Once that accusation is made, doctors almost universally stop looking for any other explanation for a child’s symptoms, sometimes jeopardizing the health of the child doctors are supposed to be helping. The child is usually separated from his or her parents and is frequently placed in the care of strangers – a practice that, in itself, is harmful to children.

Parents tend to assume that the doctors are concerned about finding out what is wrong with their child. They do not expect that they may encounter a doctor whose role aligns more with prosecutors and police officers than it does with the practice of medicine.

Defense attorneys in Virginia have recently discovered what could be termed an “unholy alliance” between prosecutors and a child abuse team at Children’s Hospital of the King’s Daughters (CHKD) in Norfolk.

According to the Daily Press, the Virginia attorneys are concerned that:

“the agreement — which they learned of only recently — makes CHKD doctors part of the “prosecution team” rather than truly independent experts, which they fear could tip the scales of justice.”

The contracted agreement has been in place since, at least, 2013 in that location. How many other similar contracts exist around the country? Such an agreement could provide a partial explanation for troubling practices that many families have encountered when taking their children to their local children’s hospitals where they are medically kidnapped.

Texas Mom Who is a Nurse Fights to Regain Custody of Daughter Taken Away After Gardasil Vaccine Injury

Social workers told a Texas mother that Monday was her last visit with her daughter. Aniya Blu Vasquez was medically kidnapped from her family after she became ill following a medical error in which her pediatrician injected her with the Gardasil 9 vaccine intended for her older brother. Aniya was just 4 months old at the time.

A Texas court decided last month that the parental rights of her mother, Anita Vasquez, should be terminated, devastating the family and supporters alike.

However, their story is not over.

In a quirk of legalities, Anita Vasquez filed a Declaration of Recision of Signature/Contracts before the court was able to file the entry of judgement on the termination of parental rights.

As a result, there will be another hearing on Monday, July 23, 2018, at the Victoria County Courthouse at 9 a.m.

She says that there is substantial new evidence in her case that was not considered by the court. Anita asserts that the very basis upon which CPS seized custody of Aniya was fraudulent, and CPS knew it all along.

Concerned citizens are rallying around the family that they believe is suffering a grave injustice.

Attorney: Elder "Protective Services" is a Racketeering Enterprise Medically Kidnapping Seniors

More than 30 years ago, throughout the United States, state governments created agencies known as “elder protective services.”

As seen by such designated titles, these agencies are made to appear as though state governments are helpful resources for citizens.

However, nothing could be further from the truth.

These so-called protective agencies are, in fact, wolves in sheep’s clothing that I can attest to from not only my direct personal experiences, but also from years of research.

Upon years of my reviewing and obtaining voluminous court documentation throughout the Commonwealth of Massachusetts—particularly, in my professional experience as an attorney, there is no doubt, whatsoever, that public officials have been operating a racketeering enterprise through the probate and family courts, feeding off our most vulnerable citizens, the elderly.

These public officials do so through physical and financial exploitation of the elderly.

In 2015, I filed a federal civil action in the District Court of Massachusetts providing overwhelming and irrefutable documentation that state elder protective agencies is one cog of many in a long-embedded governmental money laundering and embezzlement enterprise.

Parents of Down Syndrome Baby Euthanized by Vanderbilt Hospital Expose Lies of Social Workers in Court

Could things start to be turning around for the Rivenburg family? At stake in the most recent court hearing was the termination of parental rights for the parents of Annalise Rivenburg, the big sister of deceased Baby Steffen.

While their family and many supporters around the world waited and prayed, Steffen Rivenburg, Sr., and Patricia Tornberg walked into Judge Wayne Shelton’s Clarksville, Tennessee, courtroom on Monday, July 9, 2018.

They had been in that courtroom many times, and every time they felt like were walking into a lions den, facing attorneys, social workers, doctors, Guardian ad Litems (GALs), and a judge, all of whom seemed determined to tear them and their family apart.

This time, however, it was different. Grandmother Lisa Rivenburg, spokesperson for the family, told Health Impact News:

“It was epic!

The judge LISTENED to the kids [Steffen, Sr., and Patricia] this time!”

This is the first time since their children were taken from them by the Department of Children’s Services (DCS) on February 2, 2017, that the family has felt that they were listened to in court.

They don’t know why things changed, but they see this as a huge answer to prayer.

Annalise is still not home with her family, but her parents’ parental rights have not been severed. For now she remains in the foster home that she was placed in by DCS, but she is not up for adoption.

Arizona Veterans Group Calls Out Local Law Enforcement and Mayor for Covering Up Pedophile Trafficking

Last month (June 2018) Health Impact News reported on the story out of Tuscon, Arizona, where a group called Veterans on Patrol uncovered a child sex camp that was believed to be used by cartels crossing the border from Mexico to traffick children in the U.S.

Local law enforcement refused to acknowledge that the camp was used in child sex trafficking, and just when it looked like they were going to remove the members of the group from continuing their investigations, something dramatically changed, and the veteran group, now joined by hundreds of volunteers coming in from all over the world, was allowed to continue their patrols in the area.

Their patrols have continued the past few weeks, and the group is claiming that they have shut down some of the human trafficking, as well as drug trafficking, as a result of their efforts.

The leader of the group, Lewis Arthur, who once enjoyed a great local reputation for his work with getting veterans off of the streets, has come under increasing pressure and criticism from local law enforcement and the corporate-sponsored media.

He recently vented some of his frustration on a Facebook Live-stream broadcast, where he accused local law enforcement and the Tucson mayor, Jonathan Rothschild, for covering up known pedophile groups operating within Tucson, Arizona.

Throughout his broadcast, Arthur makes is clear that he is being driven by a mission he believes has been given to them from God, and his trust that God will protect him from those seeking to destroy him and his credibility.

He believes that their work is revealing the truth about human trafficking coming across the border, and its link to pedophile groups operating out of Tucson and elsewhere which is being covered up by bad law enforcement officers and political figures.

Mother Who Was Sexually Trafficked as a Child in Foster Care Has Her Own Baby Medically Kidnapped - Fears for Her Safety

A Maryland couple followed the advice of their doctors, and now their baby has been taken away from them by Child Protective Services.

First time parents, Jennifer Guskin and Scott McFalls, were concerned about their baby’s weight, but none of the three pediatricians they consulted noticed that baby Iris had a tongue and lip tie.

By the time they found a doctor who figured it out, CPS had already decided to take their baby from them.

It is the kind of nightmare scenario that could happen to any family. Doctors may not always be able to figure out why a child isn’t gaining weight, but as soon as the baby is diagnosed with failure to thrive, Child Protective Services is often quick to blame the parents and seize the child.

Unlike most families, Jennifer Guskin and Scott McFalls know all too well what kinds of horrors possibly face children taken by CPS and put into foster care. Jennifer was adopted as a baby herself, and she has recently gone public with horrific details about her childhood and how she became a victim of child sex trafficking and experimentation.

Jennifer and Scott recognize the danger that their baby is in, and that thought terrifies them.

Tennessee Court Seeks to Terminate Parental Rights for Young Sister of Down Syndrome Baby Euthanized by Vanderbilt Hospital

It has been just over a year since the death of Baby Steffen Rivenburg Jr. at the hands of Vanderbilt Hospital, Tennessee Department of Children’s Services (DCS) and Judge Wayne Shelton’s court. Since his tragic, senseless death, his family has been fighting DCS and the court for custody of Baby Steffen’s older sister, Annalise.

On Monday, July 9, parents, Steffen Rivenburg Sr. and Patricia Thornberg, will again go to court over custody of Annalise. Maybe. They were supposed to have court on Monday, June 11. When they went to court that day, they were told that court was cancelled.

They again went to court on June 19 for a scheduled foster care review board hearing. When they arrived on that date, they were told that court was changed to July 23. They later received documents in the mail telling that that court was to be held on July 23.

Quite by accident, they learned that the July 23 hearing has been moved to Monday, July 9. Steffen’s mother, Lisa Rivenburg, the unofficial family spokesperson, told Health Impact News that they called the court this past Monday, July 3, about filing some paperwork. That was when they learned that their court date had moved up 2 weeks. If they hadn’t called the courthouse, they never would have known about the date change.

The hearing will presumably address motions filed by DCS, including a “Motion to Ratify Per Plan and Motion to Review Permanency” for Annalise.

On June 11, 2018, DCS filed for termination of parental rights over Annalise. The family has 30 days to respond to the TPR filing. They hope to address the filing in court on Monday, July 9.

The public is invited to come to the Montgomery County Juvenile Court at Two Millennium Plaza, Clarksville, TN 37040 on Monday, July 9, at 10:30 a.m.

Father Wrongly Convicted for Shaken Baby Syndrome Death of Son Set Free After 10 Years

A District Court judge has overturned the 2009 homicide conviction of Robert Wilkes, marking yet another court victory for the Montana Innocence Project.

Wilkes’ 3-month-old son, Gabriel, died in October 2008. More than a year later, Wilkes was convicted in the baby’s death and sentenced to 40 years in prison.

The Montana Innocence Project began to look into his case in 2012, finding that Gabriel had no signs of abuse and that the prosecution relied on the theory of Shaken Baby Syndrome in Wilkes’ case.

The Innocence Project gathered a series of medical experts from around the country to review the case. They determined a number of other likely causes of his death. Also, the medical examiner who performed the autopsy had listed the cause of death as “undetermined,” something Wilkes’ defense attorney did not present at trial.

In an order issued Thursday, District Court Judge James Haynes of Ravalli County, who was brought in to oversee the Wilkes case, overturned the conviction. As part of his order the judge concluded that Wilkes’ attorney at trial had been ineffective in his representation of his client.

In a statement, Innocence Project attorney Toby Cook said the medical evidence they presented was “overwhelming.”

“While we have always believed in Dave’s innocence, he can never regain the 10 years he has lost,” Cook said.

Massachusetts Attorney Exposing Medical Kidnapping Threatened with Being Disbarred

Lisa Belanger says that she was always “Daddy’s girl.” She is the youngest daughter of Marvin Siegel of Boxford, Massachusetts, and she and her father have always been very close.

It has now been more than a year and a half since she has seen her father, not by her choice or the choice of her father. A court, guardians, and lawyers have medically kidnapped her father, essentially imprisoning him in his own home, and they have forbidden his baby girl from having any contact with him.

Lisa Belanger is an attorney who followed in her father’s footsteps, and she is not taking this cruel twist of life lying down. She has been fighting to get him back since he was taken under state guardianship in mid December 2011.

Now, in what she sees as retaliation for exposing the corruption in the guardianship system in and around the Boston area, an attorney, who has been fighting alongside the guardians against the family of Marvin Siegel, is attempting to have Lisa Belanger disbarred.

This attorney, Marsha Kazarosian, was hired by Mr. Siegel at one time, but just before he was medically kidnapped, he attempted to fire her. In a handwritten statement, he wrote:

“I want to terminate your services for going against my wishes.”

Kazarosian refused to be dismissed. Now, almost 7 years later, Lisa Belanger is still fighting the attorney for one of the most basic of human rights – the right to have a relationship with her father.

She says that the complaint against her essentially boils down to this:

They’re saying, “We’re going after you because you dare to expose us.”

Children Taken by Arizona CPS for 2.5 Years Return Home with Horrible Accounts of Abuse in Foster Care

A young Arizona boy wrote a heartbreaking letter to his teacher describing the horrors that he saw while he was in a group foster home.

Had the things that he talked about happened in his own family home, the teacher would have been mandated to contact Child Protective Services, and a social worker likely would have taken him from his home before the day was out.

However, the incidents happened under state custody, and it was almost a month later that the teacher told the boy’s mother about the letter.

As hundreds of parents have reported to Health Impact News, the real abuse and dangers in foster care are swept under the rug by social workers, while minor incidents or accidents that happen in loving family homes are turned into major catastrophes that Child Protective Services must rush in and address.

The children of Arizona mom, Aprilli Coumpy, were taken from her by the Department of Child Safety (DCS) in March of 2015, over an accidental injury involving spilled Ramen noodles.

The children spent almost 2 1/2 years in various foster and group homes, before they were finally returned home. Their case was closed on August 15, 2017.

The separation traumatized the children and their mother, and they are in counseling as they try to heal and move forward from the harm caused by those charged with protecting families.

Now that the children are finally back home and starting the healing process, they want to go public with the horrible abuses the children suffered while in foster care.

Texas Mom Blamed for 4-Month-Old Daughter's Accidental Gardasil Vaccine Injury - Loses Parental Rights

A Texas jury decided Thursday afternoon, June 21, to terminate the parental rights of a mother whose 4-month-old baby was injected with the Gardasil-9 vaccine in error.

Anita Vasquez is devastated. She and her friends and supporters are shocked that this could happen.

Instead of doctors and social workers considering the possibility that the symptoms her daughter, Aniya Blu Vasquez, experienced could be related to the vaccine that is not approved for children under 9-years-of-age, Anita was blamed, and her daughter was taken from her by Child Protective Services (CPS).

Anita tells us that there was important information that the jury did not hear before making their decision. There were things that she believes her attorney should have presented but did not.

For example, only doctors who believed that there were no side effects from the Gardasil vaccine were allowed to testify.

Hundreds of Thousands of Children in the U.S. are Being Separated from Their Parents - Many are Sexually Trafficked

The corporate sponsored “mainstream” media has been fixated in recent days with reports that children are being separated from their parents at U.S. borders.

For the news sources that are critical of the current administration, one is led to believe that this is a recent problem that just started.

However, this limited and biased view is not even close to the truth.

Health Impact News has covered the issue of child trafficking of minor children coming across the U.S. borders since 2016, when Senator Rob Portman (R-Ohio) published a six-month investigation into the matter during the Obama administration.

Focusing on a couple of thousand children currently in border facilities without their parents also ignores a far greater problem, one that is a national crisis, and that is the 400,000+ children who have been taken away from their parents, and the practice of child trafficking that is continuing to happen in every U.S. state every single day.

The overall real problem in this tragedy is one of child trafficking, and it is time that this issue gets public attention.

Florida Illegally Separating Children of U.S. Citizens from their Parents - Where's the Outcry?

Young children torn from their parents, sleeping in a different bed every night. Families torn apart needlessly – and illegally — over and over again.

But this time it’s not the U.S.-Mexico border. This time it’s Florida.

Who says it’s illegal? A report commissioned by the state itself.

Why is it happening? In part, because caseworkers are terrified of “media consequences” if they leave a child in her or his own home and something goes wrong.

Mother Faces Jury Trial As Texas Seeks to Terminate Her Parental Rights Over Daughter Injured by Gardasil Vaccine

A trial began this week for a mother who was separated from her baby after the 4-month-old mistakenly received a Gardasil-9 vaccine intended for her older brother. The Texas Department of Family and Protective Services seeks to convince a jury to terminate the parental rights of Anita Vasquez for her now 22-month-old daughter, Aniya Blu Vasquez.

Jury selection began on Monday, June 18, 2018, for the trial which is expected to last up to 2 weeks.

We originally reported their story in June of last year.

The previously healthy baby, Aniya, began showing symptoms of problems almost immediately after getting the Gardasil shot, a vaccine which is not approved for use in children under 10 years of age.

Her mother sought medical attention for the symptoms that her daughter exhibited, asking each practitioner about the connection between the symptoms and the Gardasil-9 shot that her baby should not have received, but her concerns were rebuffed at every turn.

No doctor that saw her daughter wanted to admit that the vaccine could have any kind of side effects.

The doctor who made a medical error in giving her the vaccine has suffered no consequences, but the baby’s family has been ripped apart, as the mother is being blamed for her daughter’s medical condition.

American Children Terrorized by CPS While Lawmakers Cry About Border Children

Americans are in an uproar about illegal immigrant parents and children separated at the border. The level of hysteria surrounding this topic has reached a fever pitch with senators like Chuck Schumer mugging distraught for the cameras at every opportunity.

While the shrill voices shriek loudly about the rights of Mexicans and other assorted border jumpers, American parental rights are being stripped from them, unconstitutionally, every single day.

American parents have lost their due process and Fourth Amendment rights, and most of them don’t even know it. Most anyone who has been visited by Child Protective Services can testify to the absolute terror that the state can inflict on a family for very little or no reason at all.

Right now in the state of Mississippi, Michael Chambers is missing his little girl, Belle.

His nightmare began when a Mississippi social worker, Kyra Reed (who also goes by Kyra Carson), knocked on his door demanding entrance without a warrant. Chambers was never told what the charges were.

Chambers refused to allow the social worker in without a warrant, and this began a process of the social worker trying to get into the home without a warrant.

When she was unsuccessful, she simply abducted Chambers’ daughter from school.

Difficult Father's Day for Dads Who Lost Their Children to Corrupt Child Protection System

It is Father’s Day. The day that we honor dads. The holiday began decades ago as a day to celebrate the strong, heroic, protective men who inspire, encourage, and push us to be the best we can be.

Most of us have a beautiful, nostalgic image of what today is supposed to be like, but for too many of our readers, that image is a painful reminder of what could be, what should be – but isn’t.

Children and parents are being separated by the hundreds of thousands in the United States. There are many fathers who want nothing more than to be with their children today, but a judge or a social worker has decided that they can’t be.

If they had done something wrong, the bitter separation might be somewhat easier to bear, but many dads today are in a situation that was created by a false allegation or by asking for a second medical opinion. They wanted to protect their children and give their best, but people who see their children as little more than dollar signs have stolen that basic human right from them.

May God soon bring about the day of restoration of families, and may He hold and protect all of the children, and comfort every one who is missing a loved one today.

Foster Children Turned into Breeders? - CPS Seizes Half of All Babies Born to Teen Moms in Foster Care

According to a recent study published in June 2018, 1 out of 4 newborns born to mothers who are in foster care themselves are seized by Child Protective Services (CPS) within their first week of life. According to American Academy of Pediatrics, by the time the babies reach 2-years-old, almost half of them, 48.8%, are taken from their mothers.

At Health Impact News, we have seen a clear pattern of CPS involvement with parents who were in foster care themselves, whether their babies were born while they were in foster care or after they aged out.

Many such parents have reported that they feel targeted by CPS. Some have had children taken by the same social workers who took them from their families when they were younger, and some even appear before the same judge as both child and parent.

This is the first study that looks at the numbers of children taken from mothers in foster care, and the results are shocking. They reveal massive failure on the part of the foster care system to help the children with whom it is charged with protecting.

According to the study:

“The biggest differences were seen for children taken into care within 7 days. … those in care at the birth of their child (regardless of whether they were in care at conception) had more than 11 times the odds of having their child placed in care.”

Are Children Taken Away from Parents Using Drugs Better Off in Foster Care?

Drug addiction and the opioid crisis are big news. It seems that policy makers and legislators on just about every level are discussing the problem and what to do about it.

Certainly, child welfare agencies have been quick to jump on the bandwagon, removing children from their families at the mere mention of the word “drugs.”

Richard Wexler is the executive director of the National Coalition for Child Protection Reform. He argues that the issue of drug usage is not so black-and-white, and he criticizes “child welfare’s typical, knee-jerk take-the-child-and-run response to the opioid epidemic.”

Wexler recently wrote an article, “Child Welfare Policy Around Opioids Driven By Ignorance and Arrogance,” for Youth Today, in which he examines a “research brief” published in March 2018, by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, which looked at parental substance abuse and children being taken by Child Protective Services.

Wexler was not impressed by the methodology or conclusion of the HHS brief, and calls the child welfare policies “enormously dangerous to children.”

Wexler writes:

“Indeed, the most important takeaway from the research brief is that child welfare policy on this issue lives at the intersection of ignorance and arrogance and that is enormously dangerous to children.

The alternative to leaving children with parents who have substance abuse issues — foster care — usually is far worse for the children.

This is not just the case for foster children in general. Research from the last great ‘drug plague,’ crack cocaine, found that even infants born with cocaine in their systems typically developed better when left with birth mothers able to care for them than they did when placed in foster care.”

This is a point that we have stated many times at Health Impact News – that children who are placed into foster care are at least 6 times more likely to be abused, raped, molested, or killed in foster care than they are if left in their own home, even in a troubled home, such as a home where the parent is a drug user.

By removing children from parents who have drug issues, social workers are more often than not taking children out of the frying pan and throwing them into the fire.

Many of the children taken from their homes end up being trafficked into the child sex trafficking trade. Social workers, judges, GALs, and society at large must reexamine CPS “protection.”

At what cost are these children being “protected?”

Thousands of Children in the UK Foster Care System Are Being Sold to Pedophile Rings

According to a growing number of reports, thousands of children are simply disappearing from the UK Care System (the equivalent of the “Foster Care” system in the U.S.) every year, and what is said to be happening to them is too awful to contemplate.

Maggie Tuttle, children’s campaigner and founder of the action group, Children Screaming to be Heard, states:

“The so called 10,000 kids, in 2018, that have gone missing are now being trafficked from care by Government bodies and their self-made army known as the Social Services, who also control the nation and as we know thousands of kids are stolen from care for the pedophiles.”

Whistle-blower and retired Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officer, Jon Wedger, who has a background working in the vice squad and in child abuse cases, told Health Impact News that he began investigating these “lost” children in the care of Social Services, and found many were being sold to brothels.

But instead of being commended for his work, he lost his job and was threatened.

A Scotland Yard detective told him:

“When you investigate any crime, and you do well in it, you get praised, but when you look into child abuse cases, the opposite happens. If you ever expose what you have found out, you will lose your home, your children and your job…you must shut the f’ up. You will be thrown to the wolves; you have no idea who and what you are dealing with. I am warning you now, you must back away.”

Veteran's Group in Arizona Confronts Police on Inaction - Finds Child's Dead Body While Authorities Stand By

Earlier this week we reported that a local veterans group based in Tucson, Arizona, Veterans on Patrol, uncovered a child sex camp while out on patrol looking for homeless veterans to pull off of the streets.

The corporate media, local law enforcement, and even many in social media have criticized the group for “making a big deal out of nothing.” Local police mocked them, asking them where their evidence was, and where the victims were, in spite of the fact that they had been presented with much evidence that clearly contradicted the official police story that this was a “homeless camp.”

But today, Thursday June 7th, events took a dramatic turn as VOP’s patrols uncovered a decomposing child’s skull and bones.