Christopher Weber Editor
Posted: 12/7/09Filed Under:Investigations, Crime, Supreme Court This week the Supreme Court will consider three challenges to a federal corruption law that has been used to prosecute a number of fraud cases, including those of former lobbyist Jack Abramoff, former Illinois governor George Ryan and some Enron executives.
Critics claim the language of the law is too vague, but many prosecutors say they depend on it when going after crooked politicians and business executives, The Washington Post reported. The government is currently using the provision in its case against Rod Blagojevich, the Illinois governor accused of trying to sell President Obama's former Senate seat.
The controversy focuses on a phrase that says it is illegal for public or private employees to "deprive another of the intangible right of honest services." That ambiguous language has recently caused cases to get caught up in lower courts, bringing criticism from federal judges.
Justice Antonin Scalia has pushed for a review of the law, according to the Post. Scalia wrote it "invites abuse by headline-grabbing prosecutors in pursuit of local officials, state legislators and corporate C.E.O.'s who engage in any manner of unappealing or ethically questionable conduct."
After refusing to consider the law last term, the court has now agreed to review it starting Tuesday.
http://www.politicsdaily.com/2009/12/07/supreme-court-considers-federal-corruption-law/
Isabella Brooke Knightly and Austin Gamez-Knightly
In Memory of my Loving Husband, William F. Knightly Jr. Murdered by ILLEGAL Palliative Care at a Nashua, NH Hospital
Sunday, December 13, 2009
President Obama Warned of Civil Unrest Bred in Philadelphia’s DHS Child Slaughter
hirelyrics
December 13th, 15:13 President Obama Warned of Civil Unrest Bred in Philadelphia’s DHS Child Slaughter
-----Original Message-----
From: "Roxanne Grinage" [dignityforthehumanspirit@hirelyrics.org]
Date: 12/13/2009 02:40 PM
To: FCaplan2401@verizon.net, AnneMarie.Ambrose@phila.gov, Kenneth.A.Dixon@phila.gov, Dionne.M.Woodbury@phila.gov, Jacinta.Garrison@phila.gov, Letitia.C.Batton@phila.gov, Joseph.E.Kuna@phila.gov, robert.matthews@courts.phila.gov, michael.horan@courts.phila.gov, Lisette.Shirdan-Harris@courts.phila.gov, TEPEsquire@aol.com... more
Cc: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov, oig@phila.gov, tactical@phillychildsupport.com, DA.WEBMAIL@phila.gov, PAED_clerksoffice@paed.uscourts.gov, michael.daley@pacourts.us, gallred@amglaw.com
Copy for Gloria Allred Famous Attorney, Fern Brown Caplan's Best Friend according to a published CBS interview of Gloria Allred. Americans and professionals cannot look the other way any longer while judicial authorities abuse their judicial capacities to cause slaughter of American Children. Do something urgently about the increasingly worsening State of Child Abuse Emergency.
-----Original Message-----
From: "Roxanne Grinage" [dignityforthehumanspirit@hirelyrics.org]
Date: 12/13/2009 02:40 PM
To: FCaplan2401@verizon.net, AnneMarie.Ambrose@phila.gov, Kenneth.A.Dixon@phila.gov, Dionne.M.Woodbury@phila.gov, Jacinta.Garrison@phila.gov, Letitia.C.Batton@phila.gov, Joseph.E.Kuna@phila.gov, robert.matthews@courts.phila.gov, michael.horan@courts.phila.gov, Lisette.Shirdan-Harris@courts.phila.gov, TEPEsquire@aol.com
CC: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov, oig@phila.gov, tactical@phillychildsupport.com, DA.WEBMAIL@phila.gov, PAED_clerksoffice@paed.uscourts.gov, michael.daley@pacourts.us
Subject: Re:Re: EMERGENCY IMMD NEEDED EZEKIEL AND ARRIYEL BROWN BEING BEAT BY GIRLFRIEND SAUNDRA SULLIVAN AND HER SISTER ERICK BROWN SAYS HE'S GOING TO KILL THE KIDS!!!! Please Save Ezekiel and Arriyel - 11-13-09 Erick is drunk broadcast threatening to kill them and Saundra Sullivan and her sister are recording hitting the kids.
Police would not help. Lorraine will file emergency petition for relief tomorrow 34 S 11th Street DR No. 0C0705124. Please issue IMMD Task Force to Rescue kids being threatened with death and being beat while the Child Abusers Saundra Sullivan are calling the mother Lorraine to threaten and gloat saying "hear the slaps, I'm hitting now yeah that's right what you gonna do, I'm hitting your kids right now” The kids are heard through several phone calls and over several hours crying and screaming and Erick is sloppy drunk texting vulgar threats and comments and today actually stated he is going to "kills these damn kids" while Saundra is proclaiming that her sister is beating them" . Please issue IMMD to get them and bring them to me and Lorraine and let us take them to hospital and them keep them until expedited hearing in DR No. OCO0705124. We'll do emergency petition tomorrow - please don't take to foster home. Too much trauma for these precious babies. Please take this opportunity to reverse some of the wrong you've done for whatever reason and rescue my grand babies Ezekiel and Arriyel.
While I was doing my blog talk show today about the state of emergency of Philadelphia Family Court and DHS ordered child abuse and our proofs about Saundra Sullivan abusing Arriyel's and Ezekiel's and Erick Brown staying on drinking binges again since we complied with Judge Robert J. Matthews Sua Sponte bench warrant order November 17, 2009....The increasing violence, constant abandonment death threat Erick Brown makes to his family child abuse I warned you about in 47 pages of July 20th Custody Complaint destroyed by Fern Brown Caplan and Timothy Possenti and covered up by Anne Marie Ambrose Kenneth A. Dixon Judge Matthews have resulted in the children abuse and injuries being suffered by Ezekiel and Arriyel since November 17th and now openly recorded and bragged about by child abusing Saundra Sullivan and Drunk Erick Brown. Listen to show link for some sound file proofs, we will have on disk as evidence along with other proofs of Saundra Sullivan's abuse of Ezekiel and Arriyel Brown since November 17, 2009. BlogTalkRadio.com/Born-To-Serve
WON'T YOU PLEASE TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO RIGHT THE WRONGS YOU DID TO MY FAMILY FOR WHICH EZEKIEL AND ARRIYEL ARE SUFFERING INJURY AND THREAT OF LOST LIFE? PLEASE GO GET THE CHILDREN AND DO NOT PLACE THEM IN A FOSTER HOME FOR FINANCIAL GAIN WHERE THEY WILL BE FURTHER TRAUMATIZED. PLEASE RETURN THEM TO ROXANNE GRINAGE AND WILLIE BROWNSON OR THEIR MOTHER LORRAINE IMMEDIATELY OR TAKE THEM TO A HOSPITAL AND CALL US SO WE CAN COME BE WITH THEM.
PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS BLOG TALK SHOW IF IT HELPS YOU DO THE RIGHT THING. I AM WILLING TO WITHDRAW ALL MY PROOFS OF YOUR CORRUPTION CRIMES AGAINST MY FAMILY IF YOU WOULD JUST BE DECENT AND TRY TO CORRECT THE SUFFERING YOU HAVE INFLICTED UPON ARRIYEL AND EZEKIEL WHO ARE SCARED TRAUMITIZED BEING HIT HEARING THEIR MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER TOLD THEY WILL BE KILLED AND WE CAN'T EVER SEE THEM AGAIN OR TALK TO THEM.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims
http://www.BlogTalkRadio.com/Born-To-Serve
Obama asked for Child Abuse State of Emergency Philadelphia Matthews Caplan Possenti Ambrose DHS
CPS Corruption Victims Ask President Obama Declare Child Abuse State of Emergency
Roxanne Grinage, Court Reform, Corruption in Government, US Citizens Docket, CPS
[info]hirelyrics
December 13th, 13:09
Obama asked for Child Abuse State of Emergency Philadelphia Matthews Fern Caplan Possenti Anne Marie Ambrose DHS Crimes http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims
This is a history making HireLyrics on Blog Talk Radio broadcast; both for corruption in government clean up initiation and CPS Victim Pro Se Court Reform and Crime Victim Compensation. Download this show. While this show aired Erick Brown threatened to kill babies Ezekiel and Arriyel, Saundra Sullivan and her sister beat Ezekiel and Arriyel called Lorraine Grinage and said "Yeah I'm hitting em now, I'm hitting now, what you gonna do?" Lorraine listened helplessly hearing her children cry as they were beat by Saundra Sullivan and Saundra Sullivan's sister. Fern Caplan Esq, best friend of Gloria Allred famed attorney, Timothy Possenti, Esquire wealthy commercial litigation attorney Media, PA and CCP Family Court Judge Robert J. Matthews should go to jail for forcing Ezekiel and Arriyel to suffer assault injuries and eventually loss of life. Saundra Sullivan lives at 972 Anchor Street, Philadelphia, PA 19124, Saundra Sullivan cell phone is 267-357-7919, her home phone is 215-743-7909. Erick Brown's cell is 215-776-2634: All law enforcement other cps corruption Philadelphia Family Court and DHS victims are asked to call or text notices that the World is Watching the crimes committed against children and accountability will be leveraged. Roxanne Will Come back and edit this show description and update website with all Contact Information for telephoning, faxing and emailing or writing Judge Robert J. Matthews, Fern Brown Caplan and Timothy Possenti, Esquire to do the right thing and correct what they did wrong before it too late for their corruption victims Ezekiel and Arriyel being held hostage and threatened with death by their drunk father Erick Brown and being beat by Saundra Sullivan, her sister and Saundra Sullivan's mother. Dear Heavenly Father I petition you through your son Lord Jesus Christ that the Holy Spirit pervade surround and dwell within Ezekiel Arriyel Brown and all those individuals and dwellings which might have any effect on their hearts spirits bodies and psyches. Roxanne.
HireLyrics invites CPS Corruption in Government Victim Families to submit proofs for public post to a prototype demonstration US Citizens Controlled Public Incident Report Docket Database submitting CPS Corruption in Government Victims’ data of local courts' kidnap for profit and willful prolonged child abuse crimes for an Open Letter to First Lady Michelle Obama pleading for her help slowing the CPS Corruption systematic slaughter of America's Children Families and would be U.S. Economy Human Resources, Work Force and Product Contributors; and a separate Publicly Posted Letter to US President Barack Obama asking he Declare a State of Emergency that would block corrupt judges attorneys state workers from side stepping criminal accountability abusing congressional acts/laws enacted after United States Constitution and Bill of Rights Amendments, including and especially the 1983 Civil Rights Act which is being systematically abused in federally funded revenue driven Family Courts and City Department of Human Services foster and adoption contractors. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims
HireLyrics as managed by Roxanne Grinage CPS American Family Victims’ submissions of CPS victimization will not be sealed or held confidential, as we believe that the State of Emergency posed by the unchallenged systematic slaughter and human trafficking of American Children into pedophilia, sex entertainment, psychotropic drug, and social security disability, never showing up to make careers contributions into quality of life and U.S. Economy enriching industries of healthcare, education, technology, engineering, military/defense, engineering, space travel, community development and mentorship, twelve step recovery, medicine, should be aggressively advertised and publicly posted, recorded, logged, tracked and made accessible in a U.S. Citizens Controlled Public Incident Report Docket Database.
Submissions of Corruption in Government Crime Stories submitted to HireLyrics at DignityForTheHumanSpirit@HireLyrics.org will be made public in all morally sound and lawful processes HireLyrics enters our data and shares our learning which has any chance of slowing and eventually stopping CPS Corruption in Government machine link consumption of American Families and Children whose American Work Force and Careers Contributions are stolen by court and city positioned negligent judges, revenue driven mayors, social workers, commercial litigation attorneys posing as custody and child support attorneys and federal grant funded and private foster and adoption contractors whose product for sale is children.
HireLyrics Evidence Package Modules comprised of Standard Access Legal Administrative Assistant Document Production Tools developed by Roxanne Grinage specifically for the CPS Corruption in Government American Family Victim Pro Se disadvantaged creator along with the each CPS Victims’ Crime Victim Public Post Incident Reporting using the internet technologies, will be burned onto data disc for each and every US CPS Corruption Victim who submits their claims and details of proofs including first and last names and all address or contact information they have for the court and DHS positioned criminals (not just the story – full post incident data/details as described in Roxanne’s form designed for public post incident reporting available at HireLyrics.org). http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims
All docs and links to CPS Victims audio, internet social networking profiles, blog journals and videos which document the crimes inflicted by CPS DHS Family Court positioned assailants will be copied and pasted to Word documents, converted to pdf formats with active links, and burned to 120 minute data DVD discs. The content on each HireLyrics Evidence Package Module will be printed showing an index of the CPS Victims submissions posted as US Citizens Controlled Public Incident Report Docket Events.
The indices of the CPS Victims submissions posted as US Citizens Controlled Public Incident Report Docket Events of the CPS Victim’s data disc will be inserted with Table of Contents into the Catalog HireLyrics Evidence Package Modules CPS Corruption in Government Court Reform Initiative, “CPS Corruption in Government Victims of Systematic Child Slaughter Ask First Lady and President Obama to Intervene Declare State of Emergency”; and the Catalog produced as a Due Diligence Pitch Book sent to the First Lady and President Obama hard copy and on disc as pdf with active links burned to “CPS Corruption in Government Victims of Systematic Child Slaughter Ask First Lady and President Obama to Intervene Declare State of Emergency”; also published for free download at www.HireLyrics.org and released without protection of copyright for anyone else to upload, share or re-publish. “Sharing learning results in community courage…HireLyrics shares our learning.” http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims
HireLyrics Evidence Package Module One.
US Citizens Controlled Public Post Incident Report. Corruption in Government Pro Se Court Reform Disclosure. Judicial Oaths ensure CPS victim’s state and us constitutional rights to approach State Superior and Federal Courts seeking redress (to make right what is wrong) for grievances and proofs of racketeering human trafficking theft of human beings theft of education and careers, fraud of several recover.gov agencies, damages and loss due to personal injury, wrongful death, etc on the strength of state and US constitutional rights and without having to become or purchase bar attorney representation. Federal Judges who can be shown have violated Judicial Oaths, particularly Canon 2 Outside Relationship will demonstrate Administrative Formula “Connect Relationships: Two Way Accountability Work Ethic Synergy and Intent” and expose the Official Corruption Fraud Civil Rights Relationships that compel courts to cover up aid and abet systematic corruption and nationwide CPS American families’ victimizations and ultimately correlate dollar amount losses to U.S. Economy.
HireLyrics Evidence Package Module Two.
Nationwide CPS Corruption in Government Victims’ Supreme Court Cert Petition Exhibit A will prove to First Lady, President Obama, Homeland Security and Supreme Court Justices that a class of Americans exists who are systematically discriminated against for receiving fair and accurate adjudication of the verified truthful petitions for redress made in the United States District Federal Courts and State Superior Courts. Civil Unrest growing in Americans’ disillusionment with complaint, appeal and redress corrupt court venues coupled with the various polarized conflicting sovereignty, coalition and collaborator groups scrambling to brainstorm strategies which range from traditional, “oh well that’s the way it has always been, can’t do nothing about rescuing my children until I save up enough money for the next attorney to rip me off…” to “let’s think outside the box and invent the administrative tools needed to talk to our courts, measure revenue impacts of Work Ethic Synergy and Intent to leverage Two Way Accountability for who the heck is defrauding the Recovery.gov agencies and siphoning unfairly US Stimulus funding and American Work Force and Product Contributors; to “Extreme political views which self appoint enforcement of America’s Constitution and allow for punishment by death of those corrupt officials who are found guilty of treason and theft.” http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims
HireLyrics Evidence Package Module Three. Flagrant Clerk of Court Errors Conspicuous for Favoring Official Corruption Fraud Defendants responsibly recorded will list docket numbers Federal Investigators can scrutinize/review to see all the Clerk of Court driven deliberate censorship, flagrant errors, denial of due process imposed upon the Pro Se Crime Victim litigant which covers up aids and abets the proven corruption and crimes in Family Court and revenue driven paid foster and adoption contractors city and town jurisdictions. Actual redacted censored dismissed with or without prejudice, Federal Court statistically closed or deemed unintelligible as a result of Clerk of Court censorship and unconstitutionally sealed or impounded Superior Court documents in the possession of Crime Victim Pro Se Claimants that are submitted to Roxanne Grinage dba HireLyrics.org DignityForTheHumanSpirit@HireLyrics.org will be scanned and publicly posted in their entirety onto HireLyrics Evidence Package Module DVDs going to First Lady and President Obama pleading for Presidential Emergency Intervention regarding the State of Emergency posed by CPS Corruption in Government Systematic Slaughter of American Children siphoning US Economy enriching Human Resources Work Force and Product contributors. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims
HireLyrics Evidence Package Module Four. Corruption in Government American Family Pro Se State and US Citizens Declaration of Stay Away Notice and Crime Victim Compensation Lien Attachment Claim Form developed by Roxanne Grinage records into US Citizens Controlled Public Docket the Federal Crime Victim’s Notice and Demand that proven criminals were not acting in any judicial capacity when crimes of assault, kidnap for profit, prolonged child abuse, judicial negligence, employee misconduct, identity theft, education and careers theft, obstruction of health care, personal injury, wrongful death, defamation, slander, job loss, homelessness, attorney custody evaluator and professional services retainer commissions and fees extortion crimes were committed against the American Family CPS Corruption in Government Victim. The family court, department of human services and paid foster and adoption contractor criminals having titles of judge, esquire, social worker, child advocate, etc may not speak on behalf of the children they are proven to have acted criminally against. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims
The CPS Corruption in Government American Family Victim shows by pro se standard access into litigation venues that pro se litigant is in fact an American Family Federal Crime Witness Victim Plaintiff having U.S. Attorney’s office 2004 Crime Victim Bill of Rights pertaining to Official Corruption Fraud Civil Rights crimes and right to protection from those proven Organized Crime criminals who have been shown to be guilty of judicial misconduct, willful judicial failure to protect, complicit accessory to prolonged child abuse, racketeering, conspiracy kidnap for profit, slavery and human trafficking, willful accessory to aggravated assaults, personal injury and wrongful death, etc.
The deadline for submissions to www.HireLyrics.org to be administrated as described is January 8, 2010 allowing full week for HireLyrics Evidence Package Module production to be produced and sent to First Lady and President Obama on Martin Luther King’s birthday. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims Host Name: HireLyrics
Roxanne Grinage, Robert J. Matthews, Fern Brown Caplan, Timothy E. Possenti, Esquire, Judge, Corruption, Child Abuse, President Obama, First Lady, State of Emergency, Civil Unrest, Retaliation, Ezekiel Brown, Arriyel Brown, 911, Court Reform, Police, 972 Anchor Street, Philadelphia, PA, 19124, Saundra Sullivan's Sister, Saudra Sullivan's Mother Elli abused foster children, foster children, ssi, auto accident, personal injury, hostage, Erick Brown threatens to kill Arriyel and Ezekiel, Fern Brown Caplan doomed abused children, Timothy E. Possenti abused children, Gloria Allred, Fern Caplan is Gloria Allred's best friend, Timothy possenti has 3 sons, Timothy Possenti's wife is Lauren Possenti, Timothy E. Possenti 274000 condo, Timothy E. Possenti bribed Michael A. Horan, Judge Matthews Perjury, Judge Matthews abused children, US District Court, Eastern District PA, 209cv04119-MSG, 29cv05448-BMS, 209-cv-5015-MSG, Anne Marie Ambrose Child Abuse, Anne Marie Ambrose Jail Time, Jail for Judge Matthews, Jail for Tim Possenti, Jail for Fern Caplan, Jail for DHS, Civil Unrest, Riots, Retailiation, Kidnap, Rescue Children, CPS, DHS, City of Philadelphia, Philadelphia Family Court, Petition, Complaint, Pro Se, Crime Victim Compensation, UCC Lien, Commerce, Complex Litigation, Supreme Court, Homeland Security, FBI, Stimulus Fraud, Human Traffic, Slavery, Foster, Adoption, Corruption in Government, Court Reform, Rescue Corruption created abused children.
http://hirelyrics.livejournal.com/15323.html
December 13th, 15:13 President Obama Warned of Civil Unrest Bred in Philadelphia’s DHS Child Slaughter
-----Original Message-----
From: "Roxanne Grinage" [dignityforthehumanspirit@hirelyrics.org]
Date: 12/13/2009 02:40 PM
To: FCaplan2401@verizon.net, AnneMarie.Ambrose@phila.gov, Kenneth.A.Dixon@phila.gov, Dionne.M.Woodbury@phila.gov, Jacinta.Garrison@phila.gov, Letitia.C.Batton@phila.gov, Joseph.E.Kuna@phila.gov, robert.matthews@courts.phila.gov, michael.horan@courts.phila.gov, Lisette.Shirdan-Harris@courts.phila.gov, TEPEsquire@aol.com... more
Cc: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov, oig@phila.gov, tactical@phillychildsupport.com, DA.WEBMAIL@phila.gov, PAED_clerksoffice@paed.uscourts.gov, michael.daley@pacourts.us, gallred@amglaw.com
Copy for Gloria Allred Famous Attorney, Fern Brown Caplan's Best Friend according to a published CBS interview of Gloria Allred. Americans and professionals cannot look the other way any longer while judicial authorities abuse their judicial capacities to cause slaughter of American Children. Do something urgently about the increasingly worsening State of Child Abuse Emergency.
-----Original Message-----
From: "Roxanne Grinage" [dignityforthehumanspirit@hirelyrics.org]
Date: 12/13/2009 02:40 PM
To: FCaplan2401@verizon.net, AnneMarie.Ambrose@phila.gov, Kenneth.A.Dixon@phila.gov, Dionne.M.Woodbury@phila.gov, Jacinta.Garrison@phila.gov, Letitia.C.Batton@phila.gov, Joseph.E.Kuna@phila.gov, robert.matthews@courts.phila.gov, michael.horan@courts.phila.gov, Lisette.Shirdan-Harris@courts.phila.gov, TEPEsquire@aol.com
CC: AskDOJ@usdoj.gov, oig@phila.gov, tactical@phillychildsupport.com, DA.WEBMAIL@phila.gov, PAED_clerksoffice@paed.uscourts.gov, michael.daley@pacourts.us
Subject: Re:Re: EMERGENCY IMMD NEEDED EZEKIEL AND ARRIYEL BROWN BEING BEAT BY GIRLFRIEND SAUNDRA SULLIVAN AND HER SISTER ERICK BROWN SAYS HE'S GOING TO KILL THE KIDS!!!! Please Save Ezekiel and Arriyel - 11-13-09 Erick is drunk broadcast threatening to kill them and Saundra Sullivan and her sister are recording hitting the kids.
Police would not help. Lorraine will file emergency petition for relief tomorrow 34 S 11th Street DR No. 0C0705124. Please issue IMMD Task Force to Rescue kids being threatened with death and being beat while the Child Abusers Saundra Sullivan are calling the mother Lorraine to threaten and gloat saying "hear the slaps, I'm hitting now yeah that's right what you gonna do, I'm hitting your kids right now” The kids are heard through several phone calls and over several hours crying and screaming and Erick is sloppy drunk texting vulgar threats and comments and today actually stated he is going to "kills these damn kids" while Saundra is proclaiming that her sister is beating them" . Please issue IMMD to get them and bring them to me and Lorraine and let us take them to hospital and them keep them until expedited hearing in DR No. OCO0705124. We'll do emergency petition tomorrow - please don't take to foster home. Too much trauma for these precious babies. Please take this opportunity to reverse some of the wrong you've done for whatever reason and rescue my grand babies Ezekiel and Arriyel.
While I was doing my blog talk show today about the state of emergency of Philadelphia Family Court and DHS ordered child abuse and our proofs about Saundra Sullivan abusing Arriyel's and Ezekiel's and Erick Brown staying on drinking binges again since we complied with Judge Robert J. Matthews Sua Sponte bench warrant order November 17, 2009....The increasing violence, constant abandonment death threat Erick Brown makes to his family child abuse I warned you about in 47 pages of July 20th Custody Complaint destroyed by Fern Brown Caplan and Timothy Possenti and covered up by Anne Marie Ambrose Kenneth A. Dixon Judge Matthews have resulted in the children abuse and injuries being suffered by Ezekiel and Arriyel since November 17th and now openly recorded and bragged about by child abusing Saundra Sullivan and Drunk Erick Brown. Listen to show link for some sound file proofs, we will have on disk as evidence along with other proofs of Saundra Sullivan's abuse of Ezekiel and Arriyel Brown since November 17, 2009. BlogTalkRadio.com/Born-To-Serve
WON'T YOU PLEASE TAKE THIS OPPORTUNITY TO RIGHT THE WRONGS YOU DID TO MY FAMILY FOR WHICH EZEKIEL AND ARRIYEL ARE SUFFERING INJURY AND THREAT OF LOST LIFE? PLEASE GO GET THE CHILDREN AND DO NOT PLACE THEM IN A FOSTER HOME FOR FINANCIAL GAIN WHERE THEY WILL BE FURTHER TRAUMATIZED. PLEASE RETURN THEM TO ROXANNE GRINAGE AND WILLIE BROWNSON OR THEIR MOTHER LORRAINE IMMEDIATELY OR TAKE THEM TO A HOSPITAL AND CALL US SO WE CAN COME BE WITH THEM.
PLEASE LISTEN TO THIS BLOG TALK SHOW IF IT HELPS YOU DO THE RIGHT THING. I AM WILLING TO WITHDRAW ALL MY PROOFS OF YOUR CORRUPTION CRIMES AGAINST MY FAMILY IF YOU WOULD JUST BE DECENT AND TRY TO CORRECT THE SUFFERING YOU HAVE INFLICTED UPON ARRIYEL AND EZEKIEL WHO ARE SCARED TRAUMITIZED BEING HIT HEARING THEIR MOTHER AND GRANDMOTHER TOLD THEY WILL BE KILLED AND WE CAN'T EVER SEE THEM AGAIN OR TALK TO THEM.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims
http://www.BlogTalkRadio.com/Born-To-Serve
Obama asked for Child Abuse State of Emergency Philadelphia Matthews Caplan Possenti Ambrose DHS
CPS Corruption Victims Ask President Obama Declare Child Abuse State of Emergency
Roxanne Grinage, Court Reform, Corruption in Government, US Citizens Docket, CPS
[info]hirelyrics
December 13th, 13:09
Obama asked for Child Abuse State of Emergency Philadelphia Matthews Fern Caplan Possenti Anne Marie Ambrose DHS Crimes http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims
This is a history making HireLyrics on Blog Talk Radio broadcast; both for corruption in government clean up initiation and CPS Victim Pro Se Court Reform and Crime Victim Compensation. Download this show. While this show aired Erick Brown threatened to kill babies Ezekiel and Arriyel, Saundra Sullivan and her sister beat Ezekiel and Arriyel called Lorraine Grinage and said "Yeah I'm hitting em now, I'm hitting now, what you gonna do?" Lorraine listened helplessly hearing her children cry as they were beat by Saundra Sullivan and Saundra Sullivan's sister. Fern Caplan Esq, best friend of Gloria Allred famed attorney, Timothy Possenti, Esquire wealthy commercial litigation attorney Media, PA and CCP Family Court Judge Robert J. Matthews should go to jail for forcing Ezekiel and Arriyel to suffer assault injuries and eventually loss of life. Saundra Sullivan lives at 972 Anchor Street, Philadelphia, PA 19124, Saundra Sullivan cell phone is 267-357-7919, her home phone is 215-743-7909. Erick Brown's cell is 215-776-2634: All law enforcement other cps corruption Philadelphia Family Court and DHS victims are asked to call or text notices that the World is Watching the crimes committed against children and accountability will be leveraged. Roxanne Will Come back and edit this show description and update website with all Contact Information for telephoning, faxing and emailing or writing Judge Robert J. Matthews, Fern Brown Caplan and Timothy Possenti, Esquire to do the right thing and correct what they did wrong before it too late for their corruption victims Ezekiel and Arriyel being held hostage and threatened with death by their drunk father Erick Brown and being beat by Saundra Sullivan, her sister and Saundra Sullivan's mother. Dear Heavenly Father I petition you through your son Lord Jesus Christ that the Holy Spirit pervade surround and dwell within Ezekiel Arriyel Brown and all those individuals and dwellings which might have any effect on their hearts spirits bodies and psyches. Roxanne.
HireLyrics invites CPS Corruption in Government Victim Families to submit proofs for public post to a prototype demonstration US Citizens Controlled Public Incident Report Docket Database submitting CPS Corruption in Government Victims’ data of local courts' kidnap for profit and willful prolonged child abuse crimes for an Open Letter to First Lady Michelle Obama pleading for her help slowing the CPS Corruption systematic slaughter of America's Children Families and would be U.S. Economy Human Resources, Work Force and Product Contributors; and a separate Publicly Posted Letter to US President Barack Obama asking he Declare a State of Emergency that would block corrupt judges attorneys state workers from side stepping criminal accountability abusing congressional acts/laws enacted after United States Constitution and Bill of Rights Amendments, including and especially the 1983 Civil Rights Act which is being systematically abused in federally funded revenue driven Family Courts and City Department of Human Services foster and adoption contractors. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims
HireLyrics as managed by Roxanne Grinage CPS American Family Victims’ submissions of CPS victimization will not be sealed or held confidential, as we believe that the State of Emergency posed by the unchallenged systematic slaughter and human trafficking of American Children into pedophilia, sex entertainment, psychotropic drug, and social security disability, never showing up to make careers contributions into quality of life and U.S. Economy enriching industries of healthcare, education, technology, engineering, military/defense, engineering, space travel, community development and mentorship, twelve step recovery, medicine, should be aggressively advertised and publicly posted, recorded, logged, tracked and made accessible in a U.S. Citizens Controlled Public Incident Report Docket Database.
Submissions of Corruption in Government Crime Stories submitted to HireLyrics at DignityForTheHumanSpirit@HireLyrics.org will be made public in all morally sound and lawful processes HireLyrics enters our data and shares our learning which has any chance of slowing and eventually stopping CPS Corruption in Government machine link consumption of American Families and Children whose American Work Force and Careers Contributions are stolen by court and city positioned negligent judges, revenue driven mayors, social workers, commercial litigation attorneys posing as custody and child support attorneys and federal grant funded and private foster and adoption contractors whose product for sale is children.
HireLyrics Evidence Package Modules comprised of Standard Access Legal Administrative Assistant Document Production Tools developed by Roxanne Grinage specifically for the CPS Corruption in Government American Family Victim Pro Se disadvantaged creator along with the each CPS Victims’ Crime Victim Public Post Incident Reporting using the internet technologies, will be burned onto data disc for each and every US CPS Corruption Victim who submits their claims and details of proofs including first and last names and all address or contact information they have for the court and DHS positioned criminals (not just the story – full post incident data/details as described in Roxanne’s form designed for public post incident reporting available at HireLyrics.org). http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims
All docs and links to CPS Victims audio, internet social networking profiles, blog journals and videos which document the crimes inflicted by CPS DHS Family Court positioned assailants will be copied and pasted to Word documents, converted to pdf formats with active links, and burned to 120 minute data DVD discs. The content on each HireLyrics Evidence Package Module will be printed showing an index of the CPS Victims submissions posted as US Citizens Controlled Public Incident Report Docket Events.
The indices of the CPS Victims submissions posted as US Citizens Controlled Public Incident Report Docket Events of the CPS Victim’s data disc will be inserted with Table of Contents into the Catalog HireLyrics Evidence Package Modules CPS Corruption in Government Court Reform Initiative, “CPS Corruption in Government Victims of Systematic Child Slaughter Ask First Lady and President Obama to Intervene Declare State of Emergency”; and the Catalog produced as a Due Diligence Pitch Book sent to the First Lady and President Obama hard copy and on disc as pdf with active links burned to “CPS Corruption in Government Victims of Systematic Child Slaughter Ask First Lady and President Obama to Intervene Declare State of Emergency”; also published for free download at www.HireLyrics.org and released without protection of copyright for anyone else to upload, share or re-publish. “Sharing learning results in community courage…HireLyrics shares our learning.” http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims
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The CPS Corruption in Government American Family Victim shows by pro se standard access into litigation venues that pro se litigant is in fact an American Family Federal Crime Witness Victim Plaintiff having U.S. Attorney’s office 2004 Crime Victim Bill of Rights pertaining to Official Corruption Fraud Civil Rights crimes and right to protection from those proven Organized Crime criminals who have been shown to be guilty of judicial misconduct, willful judicial failure to protect, complicit accessory to prolonged child abuse, racketeering, conspiracy kidnap for profit, slavery and human trafficking, willful accessory to aggravated assaults, personal injury and wrongful death, etc.
The deadline for submissions to www.HireLyrics.org to be administrated as described is January 8, 2010 allowing full week for HireLyrics Evidence Package Module production to be produced and sent to First Lady and President Obama on Martin Luther King’s birthday. http://www.blogtalkradio.com/born-to-serve/2009/12/13/philadelphia-courts-child-slaughter-pro-se-victims Host Name: HireLyrics
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US Kids Represent Psychiatric Drug Goldmine
US Kids Represent Psychiatric Drug Goldmine
Saturday 12 December 2009
by: Evelyn Pringle, t r u t h o u t | Report
Prescriptions for psychiatric drugs increased 50 percent with children in the US, and 73 percent among adults, from 1996 to 2006, according to a study in the May/June 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs. Another study in the same issue of Health Affairs found spending for mental health care grew more than 30 percent over the same ten-year period, with almost all of the increase due to psychiatric drug costs.
On April 22, 2009, the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported that in 2006 more money was spent on treating mental disorders in children aged 0 to 17 than for any other medical condition, with a total of $8.9 billion. By comparison, the cost of treating trauma-related disorders, including fractures, sprains, burns, and other physical injuries, was only $6.1 billion.
In 2008, psychiatric drug makers had overall sales in the US of $14.6 billion from antipsychotics, $9.6 billion off antidepressants, $11.3 billion from antiseizure drugs and $4.8 billion in sales of ADHD drugs, for a grand total of $40.3 billion.
The path to child drugging in the US started with providing adolescents with stimulants for ADHD in the early 80s. That was followed by Prozac in the late 80s, and in the mid-90s drug companies started claiming that ADHD kids really had bipolar disorder, coinciding with the marketing of epilepsy drugs as "mood stablizers" and the arrival of the new atypical antipsychotics.
Parents can now have their kids declared disabled due to mental illness and receive Social Security disability payments and free medical care, and schools can get more money for disabled kids. The bounty for the prescribing doctors and pharmacies is enormous and the CEOs of the drug companies are laughing all the way into early retirement.
Psychiatric Drugs Explained
During an interview with Street Spirit in August 2005, investigative journalist and author of "Mad in America," Robert Whitaker, described the dangers of psychiatric drugs. "When you look at the research literature, you find a clear pattern of outcomes with all these drugs," he said, "you see it with the antipsychotics, the antidepressants, the anti-anxiety drugs and the stimulants like Ritalin used to treat ADHD."
"All these drugs may curb a target symptom slightly more effectively than a placebo does for a short period of time, say six weeks," Whitaker said. However, what "you find with every class of these psychiatric drugs is a worsening of the target symptom of depression or psychosis or anxiety, over the long term, compared to placebo-treated patients."
"So even on the target symptoms, there's greater chronicity and greater severity of symptoms," he reports, "And you see a fairly significant percentage of patients where new and more severe psychiatric symptoms are triggered by the drug itself."
Whitaker told Street Spirit that the rate of Americans disabled by mental illness has skyrocketed since Prozac came on the market in 1987, and reports: (1) the number of mentally disabled people in the US has been increasing at a rate of 150,000 people per year since 1987, (2) that represents an increase of 410 new people per day and (3) the disability rate has continued to increase and one in every 50 Americans is disabled by mental illness.
The statistics above beg the question of how could this happen when the so-called new generation of "wonder drugs" arrived on the market during the exact same time period. The truth is, the "wonder drugs" cause most of the bizarre behaviors listed by doctors to warrant a mental illness disability.
Psychiatric Drug Goldmine
The CIA "World Factbook" estimate the world population to be about 6.8 billion and the US population to be a mere 307 million. In an April 2008 report, the market research firm Datamonitor reported that the "US dominates the ADHD market with a 94 percent market share."
ADHD drug prices at a middle dose for 90 pills at DrugStore.com, are: Adderall $278, Concerta $412, Desoxyn $366, Strattera $464 and Vyvanse $385. Daytrana costs $437 for three boxes of 30 nine-hour patches.
The SSRI and SNRI antidepressants include GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil and Wellbutrin, Pfizer's Zoloft, Celexa and Lexapro from Forest Labs, Luvox by Solvay, Wyeth's Effexor and Pristiq and Lilly's Prozac and Cymbalta. The average price of these drugs is about $300 for 90 pills at DrugStore.com.
The prices for anticonvulsants can run as high as $929 for 180 tablets of Glaxo's Lamictal, and $1170 for 180 tablets of Johnson & Johnson's Topamax.
In 2008, the atypical antipsychotics took over the slot as the top revenue earners in the US, and include Seroquel by AstraZeneca; Risperdal and Invega marketed by Janssen, a division of J&J; Geodon by Pfizer; Abilify from Bristol-Myers Squibb; Novartis' Clozaril and Eli Lilly's Zyprexa. The average price on these drugs for 100 pills at DrugStore.com is about $1,000. Lilly also sells Symbyax, a drug with Zyprexa and Prozac combined, at a cost $1,564 for 90 capsules at DrugStore.com in May 2009.
The briefing material submitted to an FDA advisory panel in April 2009 reported that an estimated 25.9 million patients worldwide had been exposed to Seroquel since its launch in 1997 through July 31, 2007, in the US, and the second quarter of 2007 for countries outside the US. Of that number, an estimated nearly 15.9 million took Seroquel in the US, compared to only ten million patients in the rest of the world. In 2008, the US accounted for roughly $3 billion of Seroquel's $4.5 billion in worldwide sales.
For the full-year of 2008, Eli Lilly reported worldwide Zyprexa sales of about $4.7 billion, with US sales of $2.2 billion and only $2.5 billion for the rest of the world.
FDA as Promotional Tool
On June 12, 2009, an FDA advisory panel gave the green light to expand the marketing of Zyprexa, Seroquel and Geodon for use with 13 to 17 year-olds diagnosed with schizophrenia and 10 to 17 year-olds diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The FDA usually follows its advisers' recommendations.
"Such approval gives manufacturers a shield from liability - for illegally promoting the drugs for off-label use," said Vera Hassner Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection.
"And such approval ensures increased use of these drugs," she warned. "Manufacturers and mental health providers will profit while children's physical and mental health will be sacrificed."
"The body of evidence showing these drugs to be harmful is irrefutable," she said, "it is documented in FDA's postmarketing database, and in secret internal company documents uncovered during litigation."
According to Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the atypicals increase the risk of obesity, type II diabetes, hypertension, heart attacks and stroke.
He said the drugs were marketed as safer and easier to tolerate than the older, cheaper antipsychotics because they would cause fewer neurological injuries like tardive dyskinesia and akathisia.
Those claims turned out to be totally false, he said, and "they continue to cause same neurological side-effects as the older antipsychotics."
"Children are known to be compliant patients and that makes them a highly desirable market for drugs, especially when it pertains to large-profit-margin psychiatric drugs, which can be wrought with issues of non-compliance because of their horrendous side effect profiles," according to a June 29, 2009 paper titled, "Drugging Our Children to Death," in Health News Digest.com, by Gwen Olsen, who spent over a decade as a pharmaceutical sales rep, and authored the book, "Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher."
Children are forced to take their drugs by doctors, parents and school personnel, she said. "So, children are the ideal patient-type because they represent refilled prescription compliance and 'longevity.'"
"In other words," Olsen noted, "they will be lifelong patients and repeat customers for Pharma!"
"The initiative to drug our children for profit has exceeded all common sense boundaries and is threatening the welfare of every American child," she stated, and it "is up to each and every one of us to stop this madness!"
Drug Makers Busted
Most all of the psychiatric drug companies have come under investigation over the past several years for promoting their drugs for off-label use, especially with children. However, the fines they end up paying are trivial compared to the profits earned through the illegal marketing campaigns.
In September 2007, Bristol-Myers Squibb entered into a $515 million civil settlement with the US Department of Justice for illegally marketing drugs, including Abilify, for off-label uses. In the first six months of 2009, Abilify had sales of $1.9 billion. In 2008, the salary and compensation package of Bristol-Myers' CEO, James Cornelius, was $23,150,236, according to the AFL-CIO's Executive PayWatch Database.
On January 29, 2009, Paxil and Wellbutrin maker, GlaxoSmithKline, announced that it would record a legal charge in the fourth quarter of 2008 of $400 million relating to an ongoing investigation initiated by the US attorney's office in Colorado into the US marketing and promotional practices for several products for the period 1997 to 2004. The government inquired about alleged off-label marketing as well as medical education programs for doctors, "other speaker events, special issue boards, advisory boards, speaker training programmes, clinical studies, and related grants, fees, travel and entertainment," according to a Glaxo annual report.
In January 2009, Eli Lilly settled with the DOJ and more than 30 states for $1.4 billion over the off-label marketing of Zyprexa. The agreement included a $615 million fine for a federal criminal charge. But $1.4 billion was chump change considering that Zyprexa was still Lilly's best seller in 2008, with sales of $4.69 billion. Lilly also has paid over $1 billion to settle lawsuits filed by Zyprexa patients. In the first six months of 2009, Zyprexa sales were $1.5 billion. In 2008, Lilly's CEO, John Lechleiter, had a pay package worth $12,856,882
In September 2009, the DOJ reached a $2.3 billion settlement with Pfizer related to the off-label promotion of several drugs, including the psychiatric drugs, Geodon, Zoloft and Lyrica, in the largest health-care fraud settlement in history. But even though Pfizer took the entire $2.3 billion as an earnings charge for the fourth quarter of 2008, the drug maker was still able to post a fourth quarter profit of $268 million. Pfizer's CEO in 2008, Jeffrey Kindler, had a salary and pay package of $15,547,600.
Johnson & Johnson is also dealing with the DOJ and state-level investigations into the off-label marketing of Risperdal. The company's latest SEC filing lists nine subpoenas received by the company involving promotions of Risperdal, including one "seeking information regarding the Company's financial relationship with several psychiatrists." In the first six months of 2009, Risperdal earned $660 million. J&J's CEO, William Weldon, had a pay package worth $29,127,432 in 2008.
AstraZeneca's third quarter SEC filing lists a $520 million tentative settlement agreement with the US attorney's office in Philadelphia to resolve allegations related to the off-label marketing of Seroquel. At "least 34 states are pursuing separate investigations of AstraZeneca's marketing practices as part of a joint investigation and others may be conducting their own probes," according to Ed Silverman on Pharmalot.
"A half a billion dollar one-time settlement is just a small cost of doing business for a company that sold $17 billion worth of the offending drug in the last five years," Dr. Roy Poses points out on the Health Care Renewal web site. In 2008 alone, Seroquel had world-wide sales of more than $4.4 billion.
As of July 13, 2009, AstraZeneca was also defending approximately 10,381 served or answered personal injury lawsuits and approximately 19,391 plaintiff groups involving Seroquel, according to SEC filings. Some of the cases also include claims against other drug makers such as Eli Lilly, Janssen Pharmaceutica and/or Bristol-Myers Squibb, the filing notes.
On September 23, 2009, Shire Pharmaceuticals received a subpoena from the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General in coordination with the US attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, seeking production of documents related to the sales and marketing of Adderall XR, Daytrana and Vyvanse, according to Shire's third quarter report for 2009.
In a November 6, 2009, SEC filing, Abbott Labs said the federal prosecutor for the Western District of Virginia was conducting an investigation for the US Justice Department of whether the company's sales and marketing of Depakote violated civil or criminal laws, including the Federal False Claims Act and an anti-kickback statute related to reimbursement by Medicare and Medicaid programs to third parties.
In 2008, Depakote had sales of $1.36 billion and Abbott CEO, Miles White, had a salary and compensation package of $28,253,387.
In February 2009, the DOJ unsealed a lawsuit alleging that Forest Laboratories marketed the antidepressants Celexa and Lexapro for unapproved uses in children, and paid kickbacks to induce doctors to promote the drugs, including Dr. Jeffrey Bostic at Harvard University. In its latest SEC filing, Forest disclosed that it reached an agreement in principle in May 2009 to settle the civil aspects of US federal and state probes. "Penalties in the civil settlement are covered by a $170 million reserve Forest created in April," according to a November 9 report by Dow Jones.
Forest also disclosed that the agreement "does not resolve the government's ongoing investigation into potential criminal law violations" related to Celexa and Lexapro, and thyroid drug Levothroid, Dow Jones notes. In 2008, the salary and compensation for Forest CEO, Howard Solomon, was $6,565,324.
Over the past year and a half, a large number of so-called "Key Opinion Leaders" in the field of psychiatry have been exposed for not fully disclosing money received from many of the drug companies above through an investigation by the US Senate Finance Committee under the leadership of Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley.
The list so far includes Harvard University's Joseph Biederman, Thomas Spencer and Timothy Wilens; Charles Nemeroff and Zackery Stowe from Emory; Melissa DelBello at the University of Cincinnati; Alan Schatzberg, president of the American Psychiatric Association from Stanford; Martin Keller at Brown University; Karen Wagner and Augustus John Rush from the University of Texas and Fred Goodwin, the former host of a radio show called "Infinite Minds," broadcast by National Pubic Radio.
Fines as a Business Expense
The fraud settlements are "merely a cost of doing business to these pharmaceutical Goliaths and, in fact, caps their liability for these crimes," said Alaskan attorney Jim Gottstein, the leader of the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights), a public interest law firm.
"Most importantly," he noted, "these settlements have not stopped the practice of psychiatrists and other prescribers giving these drugs to children and youth and Medicaid continuing to pay for these fraudulent claims."
"Because of the massive, harmful, increase in the psychiatric drugging of America's children and youth, who are inherently forced, PsychRights has made addressing the problem a priority," he said.
Gottstein conducted an investigation and determined that the vast majority of off-label psychotropic drug prescriptions for children and youth that are paid for by Medicaid constitute Medicaid fraud.
PsychRights now has a national "Medicaid Fraud Initiative Against Psychiatric Drugging of Children & Youth," designed to address this problem by "having lawsuits brought against the doctors prescribing these harmful, ineffective drugs, their employers, and the pharmacies filling these prescriptions and submitting them to Medicaid for reimbursement," according to its web site.
"Anyone who submits or causes claims to be submitted to Medicaid for drugs that are not for a 'medically accepted indication' is committing Medicaid Fraud," said Gottstein, in a July 27, 2009 press release announcing the launch of the national campaign.
"Those guilty of this Medicaid Fraud include psychiatrists and other physicians prescribing these drugs, their employers, and pharmacies submitting the false claims to Medicaid," he pointed out.
PsychRights estimates that over $2 billion in such fraudulent Medicaid claims are being paid by the government each year.
"Once one sues over specific offending prescriptions, all of such prescriptions can be brought in, which means that any psychiatrist on the losing end of such a lawsuit will almost certainly be bankrupted, because each offending prescription carries a penalty of between $5,500 and $11,000," PsychRights explained.
It is hoped that once the doctors and pharmacies realize they are subject to financially ruinous Medicaid fraud judgments, the practice will be stopped or substantially reduced.
"Each prescriber may have a million dollars or few, at most, to lose, but the pharmacies' financial exposure can run into the hundreds of millions of dollars and it is hoped this will attract attorneys to take these cases," the web site noted.
In September and October 2009, Gottstein gave presentations on the initiative at the annual conferences of the National Association of Rights Protection and Advocacy and the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology in order to find people who are potentially interested and willing to pursue such cases.
"This was successful and we have at least a few such cases cooking," he reported. "PsychRights stands ready to help people interested in bringing such suits."
In late 2006, Gottstein won international fame by subpoenaing and releasing thousands of documents involving Eli Lilly's illegal marketing of Zyprexa, which resulted in front page stories in The New York Times.
PsychRights also has an appeal pending on a lawsuit filed against the state of Alaska and responsible state officials seeking declaratory and injunctive relief that Alaskan children and youth on Medicaid have the right not to be administered psychotropic drugs unless and until a number of specific conditions are met. The lawsuit seeks to prohibit the state from paying for psychiatric drugs prescribed off-label to children and youth.
In responding to the lawsuit, the state claimed that they do have any control over or responsibility for the psychiatric drugging of children in their custody, or any responsibility under Medicaid, and moved for dismissal on the grounds that PsychRights does not have standing, or the right to bring the suit, because it was not harmed by the state's actions.
The court agreed and dismissed the case. "We think the judge is wrong and have filed an appeal," said Gottstein.
In May 2009, Gottstein sent letters to Sens. Charles Grassley and Herb Kohl and Reps. Henry Waxman, Bart Stupak, John Dingell and Barney Frank, describing the massive Medicaid fraud involved in the prescribing of psychiatric drugs to children in the US and asked for "assistance in stopping these illegal reimbursements."
As of November 8, 2009, Gottstein reported, "I haven't gotten as much as an acknowledgment of receipt from any of the members of Congress to whom I wrote."
While pursuing causes on behalf of PsychRights, Gottstein donates all of his time on a pro bono basis.
http://www.truthout.org/1213091
Saturday 12 December 2009
by: Evelyn Pringle, t r u t h o u t | Report
Prescriptions for psychiatric drugs increased 50 percent with children in the US, and 73 percent among adults, from 1996 to 2006, according to a study in the May/June 2009 issue of the journal Health Affairs. Another study in the same issue of Health Affairs found spending for mental health care grew more than 30 percent over the same ten-year period, with almost all of the increase due to psychiatric drug costs.
On April 22, 2009, the US Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality reported that in 2006 more money was spent on treating mental disorders in children aged 0 to 17 than for any other medical condition, with a total of $8.9 billion. By comparison, the cost of treating trauma-related disorders, including fractures, sprains, burns, and other physical injuries, was only $6.1 billion.
In 2008, psychiatric drug makers had overall sales in the US of $14.6 billion from antipsychotics, $9.6 billion off antidepressants, $11.3 billion from antiseizure drugs and $4.8 billion in sales of ADHD drugs, for a grand total of $40.3 billion.
The path to child drugging in the US started with providing adolescents with stimulants for ADHD in the early 80s. That was followed by Prozac in the late 80s, and in the mid-90s drug companies started claiming that ADHD kids really had bipolar disorder, coinciding with the marketing of epilepsy drugs as "mood stablizers" and the arrival of the new atypical antipsychotics.
Parents can now have their kids declared disabled due to mental illness and receive Social Security disability payments and free medical care, and schools can get more money for disabled kids. The bounty for the prescribing doctors and pharmacies is enormous and the CEOs of the drug companies are laughing all the way into early retirement.
Psychiatric Drugs Explained
During an interview with Street Spirit in August 2005, investigative journalist and author of "Mad in America," Robert Whitaker, described the dangers of psychiatric drugs. "When you look at the research literature, you find a clear pattern of outcomes with all these drugs," he said, "you see it with the antipsychotics, the antidepressants, the anti-anxiety drugs and the stimulants like Ritalin used to treat ADHD."
"All these drugs may curb a target symptom slightly more effectively than a placebo does for a short period of time, say six weeks," Whitaker said. However, what "you find with every class of these psychiatric drugs is a worsening of the target symptom of depression or psychosis or anxiety, over the long term, compared to placebo-treated patients."
"So even on the target symptoms, there's greater chronicity and greater severity of symptoms," he reports, "And you see a fairly significant percentage of patients where new and more severe psychiatric symptoms are triggered by the drug itself."
Whitaker told Street Spirit that the rate of Americans disabled by mental illness has skyrocketed since Prozac came on the market in 1987, and reports: (1) the number of mentally disabled people in the US has been increasing at a rate of 150,000 people per year since 1987, (2) that represents an increase of 410 new people per day and (3) the disability rate has continued to increase and one in every 50 Americans is disabled by mental illness.
The statistics above beg the question of how could this happen when the so-called new generation of "wonder drugs" arrived on the market during the exact same time period. The truth is, the "wonder drugs" cause most of the bizarre behaviors listed by doctors to warrant a mental illness disability.
Psychiatric Drug Goldmine
The CIA "World Factbook" estimate the world population to be about 6.8 billion and the US population to be a mere 307 million. In an April 2008 report, the market research firm Datamonitor reported that the "US dominates the ADHD market with a 94 percent market share."
ADHD drug prices at a middle dose for 90 pills at DrugStore.com, are: Adderall $278, Concerta $412, Desoxyn $366, Strattera $464 and Vyvanse $385. Daytrana costs $437 for three boxes of 30 nine-hour patches.
The SSRI and SNRI antidepressants include GlaxoSmithKline's Paxil and Wellbutrin, Pfizer's Zoloft, Celexa and Lexapro from Forest Labs, Luvox by Solvay, Wyeth's Effexor and Pristiq and Lilly's Prozac and Cymbalta. The average price of these drugs is about $300 for 90 pills at DrugStore.com.
The prices for anticonvulsants can run as high as $929 for 180 tablets of Glaxo's Lamictal, and $1170 for 180 tablets of Johnson & Johnson's Topamax.
In 2008, the atypical antipsychotics took over the slot as the top revenue earners in the US, and include Seroquel by AstraZeneca; Risperdal and Invega marketed by Janssen, a division of J&J; Geodon by Pfizer; Abilify from Bristol-Myers Squibb; Novartis' Clozaril and Eli Lilly's Zyprexa. The average price on these drugs for 100 pills at DrugStore.com is about $1,000. Lilly also sells Symbyax, a drug with Zyprexa and Prozac combined, at a cost $1,564 for 90 capsules at DrugStore.com in May 2009.
The briefing material submitted to an FDA advisory panel in April 2009 reported that an estimated 25.9 million patients worldwide had been exposed to Seroquel since its launch in 1997 through July 31, 2007, in the US, and the second quarter of 2007 for countries outside the US. Of that number, an estimated nearly 15.9 million took Seroquel in the US, compared to only ten million patients in the rest of the world. In 2008, the US accounted for roughly $3 billion of Seroquel's $4.5 billion in worldwide sales.
For the full-year of 2008, Eli Lilly reported worldwide Zyprexa sales of about $4.7 billion, with US sales of $2.2 billion and only $2.5 billion for the rest of the world.
FDA as Promotional Tool
On June 12, 2009, an FDA advisory panel gave the green light to expand the marketing of Zyprexa, Seroquel and Geodon for use with 13 to 17 year-olds diagnosed with schizophrenia and 10 to 17 year-olds diagnosed with bipolar disorder. The FDA usually follows its advisers' recommendations.
"Such approval gives manufacturers a shield from liability - for illegally promoting the drugs for off-label use," said Vera Hassner Sharav, president of the Alliance for Human Research Protection.
"And such approval ensures increased use of these drugs," she warned. "Manufacturers and mental health providers will profit while children's physical and mental health will be sacrificed."
"The body of evidence showing these drugs to be harmful is irrefutable," she said, "it is documented in FDA's postmarketing database, and in secret internal company documents uncovered during litigation."
According to Dr. Stefan Kruszewski, a Harvard-trained psychiatrist from Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the atypicals increase the risk of obesity, type II diabetes, hypertension, heart attacks and stroke.
He said the drugs were marketed as safer and easier to tolerate than the older, cheaper antipsychotics because they would cause fewer neurological injuries like tardive dyskinesia and akathisia.
Those claims turned out to be totally false, he said, and "they continue to cause same neurological side-effects as the older antipsychotics."
"Children are known to be compliant patients and that makes them a highly desirable market for drugs, especially when it pertains to large-profit-margin psychiatric drugs, which can be wrought with issues of non-compliance because of their horrendous side effect profiles," according to a June 29, 2009 paper titled, "Drugging Our Children to Death," in Health News Digest.com, by Gwen Olsen, who spent over a decade as a pharmaceutical sales rep, and authored the book, "Confessions of an Rx Drug Pusher."
Children are forced to take their drugs by doctors, parents and school personnel, she said. "So, children are the ideal patient-type because they represent refilled prescription compliance and 'longevity.'"
"In other words," Olsen noted, "they will be lifelong patients and repeat customers for Pharma!"
"The initiative to drug our children for profit has exceeded all common sense boundaries and is threatening the welfare of every American child," she stated, and it "is up to each and every one of us to stop this madness!"
Drug Makers Busted
Most all of the psychiatric drug companies have come under investigation over the past several years for promoting their drugs for off-label use, especially with children. However, the fines they end up paying are trivial compared to the profits earned through the illegal marketing campaigns.
In September 2007, Bristol-Myers Squibb entered into a $515 million civil settlement with the US Department of Justice for illegally marketing drugs, including Abilify, for off-label uses. In the first six months of 2009, Abilify had sales of $1.9 billion. In 2008, the salary and compensation package of Bristol-Myers' CEO, James Cornelius, was $23,150,236, according to the AFL-CIO's Executive PayWatch Database.
On January 29, 2009, Paxil and Wellbutrin maker, GlaxoSmithKline, announced that it would record a legal charge in the fourth quarter of 2008 of $400 million relating to an ongoing investigation initiated by the US attorney's office in Colorado into the US marketing and promotional practices for several products for the period 1997 to 2004. The government inquired about alleged off-label marketing as well as medical education programs for doctors, "other speaker events, special issue boards, advisory boards, speaker training programmes, clinical studies, and related grants, fees, travel and entertainment," according to a Glaxo annual report.
In January 2009, Eli Lilly settled with the DOJ and more than 30 states for $1.4 billion over the off-label marketing of Zyprexa. The agreement included a $615 million fine for a federal criminal charge. But $1.4 billion was chump change considering that Zyprexa was still Lilly's best seller in 2008, with sales of $4.69 billion. Lilly also has paid over $1 billion to settle lawsuits filed by Zyprexa patients. In the first six months of 2009, Zyprexa sales were $1.5 billion. In 2008, Lilly's CEO, John Lechleiter, had a pay package worth $12,856,882
In September 2009, the DOJ reached a $2.3 billion settlement with Pfizer related to the off-label promotion of several drugs, including the psychiatric drugs, Geodon, Zoloft and Lyrica, in the largest health-care fraud settlement in history. But even though Pfizer took the entire $2.3 billion as an earnings charge for the fourth quarter of 2008, the drug maker was still able to post a fourth quarter profit of $268 million. Pfizer's CEO in 2008, Jeffrey Kindler, had a salary and pay package of $15,547,600.
Johnson & Johnson is also dealing with the DOJ and state-level investigations into the off-label marketing of Risperdal. The company's latest SEC filing lists nine subpoenas received by the company involving promotions of Risperdal, including one "seeking information regarding the Company's financial relationship with several psychiatrists." In the first six months of 2009, Risperdal earned $660 million. J&J's CEO, William Weldon, had a pay package worth $29,127,432 in 2008.
AstraZeneca's third quarter SEC filing lists a $520 million tentative settlement agreement with the US attorney's office in Philadelphia to resolve allegations related to the off-label marketing of Seroquel. At "least 34 states are pursuing separate investigations of AstraZeneca's marketing practices as part of a joint investigation and others may be conducting their own probes," according to Ed Silverman on Pharmalot.
"A half a billion dollar one-time settlement is just a small cost of doing business for a company that sold $17 billion worth of the offending drug in the last five years," Dr. Roy Poses points out on the Health Care Renewal web site. In 2008 alone, Seroquel had world-wide sales of more than $4.4 billion.
As of July 13, 2009, AstraZeneca was also defending approximately 10,381 served or answered personal injury lawsuits and approximately 19,391 plaintiff groups involving Seroquel, according to SEC filings. Some of the cases also include claims against other drug makers such as Eli Lilly, Janssen Pharmaceutica and/or Bristol-Myers Squibb, the filing notes.
On September 23, 2009, Shire Pharmaceuticals received a subpoena from the US Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General in coordination with the US attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, seeking production of documents related to the sales and marketing of Adderall XR, Daytrana and Vyvanse, according to Shire's third quarter report for 2009.
In a November 6, 2009, SEC filing, Abbott Labs said the federal prosecutor for the Western District of Virginia was conducting an investigation for the US Justice Department of whether the company's sales and marketing of Depakote violated civil or criminal laws, including the Federal False Claims Act and an anti-kickback statute related to reimbursement by Medicare and Medicaid programs to third parties.
In 2008, Depakote had sales of $1.36 billion and Abbott CEO, Miles White, had a salary and compensation package of $28,253,387.
In February 2009, the DOJ unsealed a lawsuit alleging that Forest Laboratories marketed the antidepressants Celexa and Lexapro for unapproved uses in children, and paid kickbacks to induce doctors to promote the drugs, including Dr. Jeffrey Bostic at Harvard University. In its latest SEC filing, Forest disclosed that it reached an agreement in principle in May 2009 to settle the civil aspects of US federal and state probes. "Penalties in the civil settlement are covered by a $170 million reserve Forest created in April," according to a November 9 report by Dow Jones.
Forest also disclosed that the agreement "does not resolve the government's ongoing investigation into potential criminal law violations" related to Celexa and Lexapro, and thyroid drug Levothroid, Dow Jones notes. In 2008, the salary and compensation for Forest CEO, Howard Solomon, was $6,565,324.
Over the past year and a half, a large number of so-called "Key Opinion Leaders" in the field of psychiatry have been exposed for not fully disclosing money received from many of the drug companies above through an investigation by the US Senate Finance Committee under the leadership of Iowa Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley.
The list so far includes Harvard University's Joseph Biederman, Thomas Spencer and Timothy Wilens; Charles Nemeroff and Zackery Stowe from Emory; Melissa DelBello at the University of Cincinnati; Alan Schatzberg, president of the American Psychiatric Association from Stanford; Martin Keller at Brown University; Karen Wagner and Augustus John Rush from the University of Texas and Fred Goodwin, the former host of a radio show called "Infinite Minds," broadcast by National Pubic Radio.
Fines as a Business Expense
The fraud settlements are "merely a cost of doing business to these pharmaceutical Goliaths and, in fact, caps their liability for these crimes," said Alaskan attorney Jim Gottstein, the leader of the Law Project for Psychiatric Rights (PsychRights), a public interest law firm.
"Most importantly," he noted, "these settlements have not stopped the practice of psychiatrists and other prescribers giving these drugs to children and youth and Medicaid continuing to pay for these fraudulent claims."
"Because of the massive, harmful, increase in the psychiatric drugging of America's children and youth, who are inherently forced, PsychRights has made addressing the problem a priority," he said.
Gottstein conducted an investigation and determined that the vast majority of off-label psychotropic drug prescriptions for children and youth that are paid for by Medicaid constitute Medicaid fraud.
PsychRights now has a national "Medicaid Fraud Initiative Against Psychiatric Drugging of Children & Youth," designed to address this problem by "having lawsuits brought against the doctors prescribing these harmful, ineffective drugs, their employers, and the pharmacies filling these prescriptions and submitting them to Medicaid for reimbursement," according to its web site.
"Anyone who submits or causes claims to be submitted to Medicaid for drugs that are not for a 'medically accepted indication' is committing Medicaid Fraud," said Gottstein, in a July 27, 2009 press release announcing the launch of the national campaign.
"Those guilty of this Medicaid Fraud include psychiatrists and other physicians prescribing these drugs, their employers, and pharmacies submitting the false claims to Medicaid," he pointed out.
PsychRights estimates that over $2 billion in such fraudulent Medicaid claims are being paid by the government each year.
"Once one sues over specific offending prescriptions, all of such prescriptions can be brought in, which means that any psychiatrist on the losing end of such a lawsuit will almost certainly be bankrupted, because each offending prescription carries a penalty of between $5,500 and $11,000," PsychRights explained.
It is hoped that once the doctors and pharmacies realize they are subject to financially ruinous Medicaid fraud judgments, the practice will be stopped or substantially reduced.
"Each prescriber may have a million dollars or few, at most, to lose, but the pharmacies' financial exposure can run into the hundreds of millions of dollars and it is hoped this will attract attorneys to take these cases," the web site noted.
In September and October 2009, Gottstein gave presentations on the initiative at the annual conferences of the National Association of Rights Protection and Advocacy and the International Center for the Study of Psychiatry and Psychology in order to find people who are potentially interested and willing to pursue such cases.
"This was successful and we have at least a few such cases cooking," he reported. "PsychRights stands ready to help people interested in bringing such suits."
In late 2006, Gottstein won international fame by subpoenaing and releasing thousands of documents involving Eli Lilly's illegal marketing of Zyprexa, which resulted in front page stories in The New York Times.
PsychRights also has an appeal pending on a lawsuit filed against the state of Alaska and responsible state officials seeking declaratory and injunctive relief that Alaskan children and youth on Medicaid have the right not to be administered psychotropic drugs unless and until a number of specific conditions are met. The lawsuit seeks to prohibit the state from paying for psychiatric drugs prescribed off-label to children and youth.
In responding to the lawsuit, the state claimed that they do have any control over or responsibility for the psychiatric drugging of children in their custody, or any responsibility under Medicaid, and moved for dismissal on the grounds that PsychRights does not have standing, or the right to bring the suit, because it was not harmed by the state's actions.
The court agreed and dismissed the case. "We think the judge is wrong and have filed an appeal," said Gottstein.
In May 2009, Gottstein sent letters to Sens. Charles Grassley and Herb Kohl and Reps. Henry Waxman, Bart Stupak, John Dingell and Barney Frank, describing the massive Medicaid fraud involved in the prescribing of psychiatric drugs to children in the US and asked for "assistance in stopping these illegal reimbursements."
As of November 8, 2009, Gottstein reported, "I haven't gotten as much as an acknowledgment of receipt from any of the members of Congress to whom I wrote."
While pursuing causes on behalf of PsychRights, Gottstein donates all of his time on a pro bono basis.
http://www.truthout.org/1213091
How to Steal Babies-Child Protective Services: A Guide for Caseworkers
By Diane Depanfilis
The User Manual Series from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
http://books.google.com/books?id=0TOeL386UCUC&dq=child+protective&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=KiPelvS71r&sig=LaS5G-CmUDFK8HO8CyH8KJ6HzGU&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false
The User Manual Series from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services
http://books.google.com/books?id=0TOeL386UCUC&dq=child+protective&printsec=frontcover&source=bl&ots=KiPelvS71r&sig=LaS5G-CmUDFK8HO8CyH8KJ6HzGU&hl=en#v=onepage&q=&f=false
Constitutional Law-Family Courts Tyrannically Deny Fit Fathers Their Constitutional Right to Parent Their Children
Family Courts Tyrannically Deny Fit Fathers Their Constitutional Right to Parent Their Children
December 12th, 2009 by Admin Leave a reply » .courts routinely deny one fit parent – overwhelming the father- his parental right to raise his child. They tyrannically allege a right to deny father’s fundamental rights since they do so for ‘the best interest of the child’.
Such family court claims are tyrannical and directly conflict with constitutional rights and protections – as this article shows.
Fundamental or ‘Constitutional’ rights are enumerated in the Bill of Rights, the further Amendments, and rights raised to that level by Supreme Court Case law. Supreme Court case law overrides all lower jurisdictional laws including family courts procedures.
The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the state from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property (i.e. any fundamental right), without due process of law.” Due Process Clause “guarantees more than [a] fair process.”Washington v.Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 719 (1997). It includes a substantive component to the process that “provides heightened protection against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests.” Id., at 720; see also Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 301302 (1993).
The Supreme Court consistently upholds parental right as a fundamental constitutional right. And that’s the right to determine what the best interest of the child shall be.
The Supreme Court asserted that the ‘liberty’ protected by the Due Process Clause includes the right of parents to “establish a home and bring up children” and “to control the education of their own.” Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 401 (1923). So parenting includes both legal and physical custody of your children.
To deny a parental right requires constitutional due process that proves he’s either unfit or a clear danger to his children – proven with ‘clear and convincing’ evidence. As such, Santosky v. Kramer 455 U.S. 745 (1982) emphasized to restrict a fundamental right of a parent to any extent, requires a showing of clear and convincing evidence that serious harm will come to the child.
Family courts ignore all constitutional due process when they daily deny a fit father his right to physical and legal custody of his child – a right that every other fit parent has.
Family Court claims to determining ‘best interests of children’ over fit fathers’ rights are illegal in a presumably free republic. Only if there are no fit parents can the court invoke the ‘best interest of the child’ doctrine to assign custody.
In Parham v. J.R. et al 442 U.S. 584 (1979), the Supreme Court declared the ‘best interest of the child’ resides in the fit parent – not in the state: “Our constitutional system long ago rejected any notion that a child is a “the mere creature of the State” and, on the contrary, asserted that parents generally “have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare [their children] for additional obligations.”
In the 1978 case of Quillon v Walcott, the Supreme Court ruled: “If a state were to attempt to force the breakup of a natural family, over the objection of the parents and their children, without some showing of unfitness and for the sole reason that to do so was thought to be in the children’s best interest,” the Due Process Clause would clearly be violated.
In 2000, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Troxel v. Granville 530 U.S. 2000: “[S]o long as a parent adequately cares for his or her children (i.e. is fit), there will normally be no reason for the State to inject itself into the private realm of the family to further question the ability of that parent to make the best decisions concerning the rearing of that parent’s children.”
Under divorce and paternity actions, the ‘equal protection clause’ of the 14th Amendment, requires that one fit parent must necessarily retain all of his fundamental rights to the extent that the other does. But two disputing parents can’t both exercise a few decisions – such as where a child goes to school simultaneously – but these are few.
Now the level of scrutiny required for a family court to infringe upon fundamental rights of either parent is “strict scrutiny”, which requires the court to show that the infringement serves a “compelling state interest” and that there is no constitutionally less offensive way for the state to satisfy this compelling interest.
The constitutionally least offensive way – by far – is an equal partition of time parenting their child. So, during one’s parenting time, that parent can control all decisions about the child which parenting implies, i.e. education, religion, medical, etc, as well as the typical day to day decisions.
The family courts deny a father’s fundamental rights in order to extort money from him and support a billion dollar industry based on such denials. They provably work to the ‘worst interests of the children’
By: Shane Flait http://www.jordan-parliament.org/family-courts-tyrannically-deny-fit-fathers-their-constitutional-right-to-parent-their-children
December 12th, 2009 by Admin Leave a reply » .courts routinely deny one fit parent – overwhelming the father- his parental right to raise his child. They tyrannically allege a right to deny father’s fundamental rights since they do so for ‘the best interest of the child’.
Such family court claims are tyrannical and directly conflict with constitutional rights and protections – as this article shows.
Fundamental or ‘Constitutional’ rights are enumerated in the Bill of Rights, the further Amendments, and rights raised to that level by Supreme Court Case law. Supreme Court case law overrides all lower jurisdictional laws including family courts procedures.
The Fourteenth Amendment prohibits the state from depriving any person of “life, liberty, or property (i.e. any fundamental right), without due process of law.” Due Process Clause “guarantees more than [a] fair process.”Washington v.Glucksberg, 521 U.S. 702, 719 (1997). It includes a substantive component to the process that “provides heightened protection against government interference with certain fundamental rights and liberty interests.” Id., at 720; see also Reno v. Flores, 507 U.S. 292, 301302 (1993).
The Supreme Court consistently upholds parental right as a fundamental constitutional right. And that’s the right to determine what the best interest of the child shall be.
The Supreme Court asserted that the ‘liberty’ protected by the Due Process Clause includes the right of parents to “establish a home and bring up children” and “to control the education of their own.” Meyer v. Nebraska, 262 U.S. 390, 399, 401 (1923). So parenting includes both legal and physical custody of your children.
To deny a parental right requires constitutional due process that proves he’s either unfit or a clear danger to his children – proven with ‘clear and convincing’ evidence. As such, Santosky v. Kramer 455 U.S. 745 (1982) emphasized to restrict a fundamental right of a parent to any extent, requires a showing of clear and convincing evidence that serious harm will come to the child.
Family courts ignore all constitutional due process when they daily deny a fit father his right to physical and legal custody of his child – a right that every other fit parent has.
Family Court claims to determining ‘best interests of children’ over fit fathers’ rights are illegal in a presumably free republic. Only if there are no fit parents can the court invoke the ‘best interest of the child’ doctrine to assign custody.
In Parham v. J.R. et al 442 U.S. 584 (1979), the Supreme Court declared the ‘best interest of the child’ resides in the fit parent – not in the state: “Our constitutional system long ago rejected any notion that a child is a “the mere creature of the State” and, on the contrary, asserted that parents generally “have the right, coupled with the high duty, to recognize and prepare [their children] for additional obligations.”
In the 1978 case of Quillon v Walcott, the Supreme Court ruled: “If a state were to attempt to force the breakup of a natural family, over the objection of the parents and their children, without some showing of unfitness and for the sole reason that to do so was thought to be in the children’s best interest,” the Due Process Clause would clearly be violated.
In 2000, the United States Supreme Court ruled in Troxel v. Granville 530 U.S. 2000: “[S]o long as a parent adequately cares for his or her children (i.e. is fit), there will normally be no reason for the State to inject itself into the private realm of the family to further question the ability of that parent to make the best decisions concerning the rearing of that parent’s children.”
Under divorce and paternity actions, the ‘equal protection clause’ of the 14th Amendment, requires that one fit parent must necessarily retain all of his fundamental rights to the extent that the other does. But two disputing parents can’t both exercise a few decisions – such as where a child goes to school simultaneously – but these are few.
Now the level of scrutiny required for a family court to infringe upon fundamental rights of either parent is “strict scrutiny”, which requires the court to show that the infringement serves a “compelling state interest” and that there is no constitutionally less offensive way for the state to satisfy this compelling interest.
The constitutionally least offensive way – by far – is an equal partition of time parenting their child. So, during one’s parenting time, that parent can control all decisions about the child which parenting implies, i.e. education, religion, medical, etc, as well as the typical day to day decisions.
The family courts deny a father’s fundamental rights in order to extort money from him and support a billion dollar industry based on such denials. They provably work to the ‘worst interests of the children’
By: Shane Flait http://www.jordan-parliament.org/family-courts-tyrannically-deny-fit-fathers-their-constitutional-right-to-parent-their-children
Saturday, December 12, 2009
Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy article
Subj: munchausen syndrome by proxy article
As published in Living Now Australia January 2004
What is munchausen syndrome by proxy?
Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP) is a “diagnosis” used to describe an individual who
purportedly induces or exaggerates illness in a child to gain attention from the medical profession. MSBP
generally involves a mother deliberately making her child sick.
The term was coined by British doctor Sir Roy Meadow in the Lancet medical journal in 1977 to
describe parents, usually mothers, who harm their children in a medical context. The two cases in this
original paper were merely a collection of notes and did not appear to have any scientifically-based
research to underpin Sir Roy’s proposition. Many of Sir Roy’s articles on MSBP have been published in
the journal he himself edited, the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
A Munchausen syndrome by proxy diagnosis lacks scientific validity. It is not a definitive category in
the authoritative DSM IV (1994), only appearing in the appendix.
Parents and professionals should be aware that there are many similar labels to MSBP, which include
the following: somatisation disorder, abnormal illness behaviour, folie a deux, pervasive refusal syndrome,
hysteria, and factitious illness. Often the MSBP label will be combined with other labels. For example, a
mother may be accused of both MSBP and shaken baby syndrome.
It is a recent and extremely controversial diagnosis (Allison and Roberts, 1998). Despite its highly
controversial nature, MSBP is being used extensively in the medical profession, by social services, and in
court.
Dr Hayward-Brown contends that the profiling is extremely prejudicial, inaccurate, paradoxical and
often nonsensical
The prejudice of this MSBP label is so great that a mother’s credibility is completely destroyed. And,
once a child is removed it is virtually impossible for the mother to regain custody.’
It just takes a child protection officer from the Department of Community Services to say the child is
“at risk” and a mother loses her child.
‘The false accusations can happen to any mother or father at any time – it does not discriminate
regarding class or status,’
Mothers accused by over-zealous child protection
by Michael Nott
There are calls for judicial inquiries and the reopening of medical child abuse cases known as
‘Munchausen syndrome by proxy. MSBP originator Sir Roy Meadow is under official investigation by the
British General Medical Council, that registers UK doctors, as a “problem doctor”. He was criticised by
the British Court of Criminal Appeal and accused of giving misleading and contradictory evidence in
courts on the causes and incidence of child abuse.
Jennifer took her young daughter, Sara, who was suffering from a diagnosed illness to hospital as she
feared other critical medical problems. After being assessed by doctors, Sara was given medical treatment
however her mother questioned the doctors on the way they were treating the child.
That is when Jennifer’s nightmare began. She was accused of Munchausen syndrome by proxy
(MSBP) for allegedly causing her child’s illness – the basis of an MSBP “diagnosis”. Doctors called in
child protection officers from the New South Wales Department of Community Services and they took the
child into foster care.
This type of MSBP allegation is not unique. False and misleading MSBP charges are a worldwide
phenomenon with mothers across Australian, England, and the United States being falsely accused.
The New South Wales Department of Community Services does not have figures on MSBP
accusations, describing the number of MSBP cases as “insignificant”. However, one psychiatrist told an
accused mother that she is dealing with 27 families on a weekly basis.
These MSBP accusations, according to Dr Helen Hayward-Brown, occur to mothers whose children
suffer illnesses that cannot be easily diagnosed. ‘Mothers who present their children to hospital are
particularly at risk. This risk is compounded if they raise questions about their child’s treatment.’
Dr Hayward-Brown, a medical sociologist, was awarded her doctorate for investigating false
allegations of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. ‘Children are usually removed from the mother’s care,
often without adequate investigation, and mothers are only allowed minimal supervised contact or no
contact with their children. The prejudice of this MSBP label is so great that a mother’s credibility is
completely destroyed. And, once a child is removed it is virtually impossible for the mother to regain
custody.’
MSBP or Cisapride?
In another MSBP case a mother, Carol, has not had contact with her last baby who was removed shortly
after birth due to previous MSBP allegations. There are question marks over these prior accusations as the
children were prescribed the suspect reflux drug Cisapride. Documentation shows clearly that this drug
exacerbated her first child’s symptoms. Cisapride has been withdrawn in the United States and was banned
in England due to severe adverse reactions, including officially recorded deaths of several children.
However, Cisapride is still available in Australia and is used by the medical profession. The young
daughter of another accused mother was also treated with this drug.
The removal of a baby at birth due to previous MSBP allegations has been found to be a breach of
human rights by the European Court in the case of P, C & S vs. UK. The British Blair Government was
fined and had costs awarded against it totalling around 100,000 pounds. The European Court criticised
doctors and social workers for being “draconian” in their removal of the child.
In the MSBP cases investigated by Dr Hayward-Brown there is little natural justice in the accusations
– official files are falsified or wrong files used, and the medical profession and child protection workers
continually fail to fully investigate why a child has an illness. ‘One of the main predicaments for parents of
children with a difficult to diagnose illness is that the child’s symptoms are trivialised by the medical
professional.’
Alarmingly, one proponent of MSBP, Dr Herbert Schreier, describes MSBP mothers as ‘women who
are not wholly passive in their interactions with the medical profession’.
According to Dr Hayward-Brown, doctors accuse a mother of medical child abuse when they cannot
determine what is causing an illness. They do not consider that drugs such as Cisapride may have been
prescribed for the child, contributing to the medical problems. ‘The whole issue of MSBP has been hidden
away behind the closed walls of the secret Children’s Court that limits public and media access through
potential contempt of court actions.’
Doctors may want to protect themselves or their own incompetence by not fully investigating the
child’s illness. An expert British defence witness in child protection, now in Melbourne, Charles Pragnell,
said the so-called MSBP research conducted by Sir Roy Meadow was not scientifically based and was
merely his own conjecture, speculation and assertions that had questionable origins.
Mr Pragnell’s child protection expertise is backed up through his involvement in the exposure of
numerous false allegations of sexual abuse in Cleveland, England in 1987. ‘With those allegations it was
the over-zealous intervention of social workers that over-rode the rights of children and their families
causing them long-lasting emotional harm.’
He has found MSBP allegations follow threats by parents to report a doctor for negligence or
incompetence and threats to sue a doctor or a hospital. Therefore any retaliatory action by the doctor or
hospital required serious consideration. ‘In this way MSBP very effectively shifts the blame onto the
parents, who then come under scrutiny and investigation by the child protection system,’ Mr Pragnell
observed. He has found that government figures show that 85% of child abuse reports ‘have no substantive
basis’ and these false allegations are made for mistaken, mischievous, malicious or monetary reasons.
British opposition health and social services spokesman, Lord Howe, has called MSBP one of the most
pernicious and ill-founded theories to have gained currency in child care in the past 10 to 15 years. ‘It is a
theory without science. There is no peer-reviewed research to underpin MSBP and it rests on the assertions
of its founder Sir Roy Meadow.’
Concerns over the use of MSBP are also shared by Professor Colin Morley, formerly a paediatric
doctor with the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine in England and now working at the
University of Melbourne. Dr Morley said that MSBP gave no indication of what was happening to a child
and that it was very non-specific and could be mis-interpreted. He said it should be abandoned in favour of
what was happening to the child, as it had become a diagnosis with emotional overtones. Further, as Mr
Pragnell has pointed out, “MSBP children” usually suffer from congenital disorders and birth injuries,
surgical injury, inappropriate medication and other treatments, allergic reactions, vaccine damage,
infections such as Giardia and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Dr Morley is also uneasy that mothers are being told to confess to harming their child because if they
do not confess, they are unlikely to have their child back. ‘That is blackmail and may result in a false
confession.’
MSBP lacks scientific validity
These experts agree that in some cases child abuse may be caused by mothers, but they also assert that the
MSBP accusations are an unsafe and unreasonable practice that fails to address the illness and problems of
the child. Dr Hayward-Brown said that accusing a person of MSBP lacks scientific validity as it was not
recognised as a psychiatric disorder, only appearing in the appendix of the psychiatric Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IVR, as requiring further research. ‘One single mother related the
extraordinary chain of events that labelled her as an injurious MSBP mother, when the medical profession
failed, for 18 months, to discover her son’s chromosomal disorder.’
Dr Hayward-Brown also said that in another case both parents were charged with contempt of court
when they took their daughter to a gastroenterologist, despite the fact that they obtained a diagnosis for her
bowel complaint. ‘If the parent does obtain another diagnosis, some doctors will argue that the diagnosed
illness may co-exist with MSBP. This argument protects professionals from being sued for negligence as
for example, lack of diagnosis delaying treatment, wrongful removal of the child, etc.
‘MSBP is a recent and extremely controversial “diagnosis” that is unreliable as it may exclude genetic
and other factors that may be causing a child’s illness. However, despite its highly controversial nature,
MSBP is being used extensively in the medical profession, by social services, and in court.’
Some doctors could not acknowledge that some illnesses were very hard to diagnose and treat. This is
shown by a report in the British Medical Journal (August 2003) noting that the Court of Appeal for
England and Wales ruled that children can sue the healthcare trusts and local authorities that wrongly
conclude that they have been the victims of abuse. The BMJ cited one of the cases used by the court in its
findings and this was a 6-year-old boy who was said by Professor David Southall of North Staffordshire
Hospital to be a victim of fabricated illness. However, the boy was removed from the at-risk register after
three months when his condition was diagnosed as extensive and severe allergies.
In the UK last October, Dr. Umapati Biswas was found guilty of serious professional misconduct and
was struck off the medical register for making false allegations of child abuse.
In the inquiry into the Cleveland sexual abuse cases, Justice Bulter-Sloss recommended that child
protection workers needed to fully investigate claims made by medical professionals, rather than purely
accepting their opinions.
Dr Hayward-Brown discovered that the names of particular doctors and psychologists keep cropping
up as the ones who accuse mothers of MSBP. ‘They seem to be the ones that are predisposed to accuse
mothers.’ These professionals often know very little about the family, the child and their medical history
and with little first-hand contact, make the MSBP allegation.
A diagnosis is made without seeing the mother or child and by reading selected reports of other
doctors. This is called diagnosis by “immaculate perception”, Dr Hayward-Brown said.
‘Sir Roy Meadow has accused mothers of MSBP by reading selected doctors’ files and child protection
workers’ reports on a child – he does not meet the mother or child. He also provides expert evidence
outside his own speciality. Sir Roy has practiced this form of “diagnosis” in Australian cases.’
‘The MSBP profile used by doctors contain paradoxes that make it very difficult, almost impossible,
for mothers to prove their innocence. For example, being an over-protective parent is part of the MSBP
profile, but so is being a negligent parent,’ Dr Hayward-Brown said.
‘Good mothers are also in trouble. In Heather’s case, in the notification to social services, she was
described as purportedly “a good mother” with numerous and credible references attesting to her fine
mothering skills. Nevertheless she was still accused of MSBP since MSBP mothers are “able to deceive
everybody”.’
Dr Hayward-Brown said the MSBP profile appears to be expanding with the invention of the so-called
“falsification disorder by proxy” (FDP) for mothers who do not fit MSBP profile. ‘Doctors and social
workers are starting to use somatisation and conversion disorders in MSBP allegations, while older children
and disabled and autistic children are being targeted.’
The national child abuse conference in Sydney (November 2003) heard a child protection unit say that
the “anxiety” shown by a mother for her child’s illness could be a “concerning behaviour”. The child
protection units suggested that another MSBP symptom was when parents sought a second or third medical
opinion.
Dr Hayward-Brown contends that the profiling is extremely prejudicial, inaccurate, paradoxical and
often nonsensical. ‘The mothers are presumed to be guilty and it is very difficult for them to prove their
innocence.’ She notes that many parents who have been accused of MSBP and had their children removed
have not had criminal charges of child abuse laid against them. There is no criminal evidence, she
contends. It just takes a child protection officer from the Department of Community Services to say the
child is “at risk” and a mother loses her child. ‘In my view, evidence of child abuse simply does not exist to
convict mothers in a criminal court. Higher courts are dismissing Sir Roy’s theories. Mothers accused of
MSBP are usually too scared to speak out openly against doctors and the Department of Community
Services. They fear contempt of court charges by the Children’s Court that is closed to the public and
media.’
In her years of investigation, Dr Hayward-Brown has been shown evidence of many unethical or
corrupt practices including breaches of social services policies and procedures, refusal to investigate a
medical doctor’s notification that was accepted without qualification and the exclusion of documents
indicating innocence.
She also found that files were tampered with, there was fabrication of evidence, hearsay evidence in
court, intimidation, blackmail, withdrawal of treatment, hospital errors and mismanagement, lack of
knowledge of overseas expertise or lack of expertise in the relevant specialty, and attribution of father’s
comments to the mother.
In one MSBP case, doctors and Department of Community Services used the wrong child’s medical
file – same child’s name but wrong person. And a mother found over 120 false or inaccurate items in her
DOCS files.
In her thesis, Dr Hayward-Brown pointed out that the lack of scientific credibility of the diagnosis
could be seen by outcomes in United States courts, several of which have ruled that the use of the MSBP
diagnosis is not admissible. (These include Martinez v. United States of America, State v. Lumbrera, and
Commonwealth v. Robinson.)
The British General Medical Council has confirmed that both Sir Roy Meadow and Dr David Southall
are under official investigation as “problem doctors”. With these investigations occurring, it is questionable
how doctors can diagnosis MSBP in alleged child abuse cases in “good faith” and how doctors can
continue to use Sir Roy Meadow as one of their principal references in court affidavits when alleging
MSBP.
Previously, Dr Southall was suspended from child protection work for two years during the British
Griffiths Inquiry into his research work and MSBP accusations. The South Australian Supreme Court has
ruled that Dr Southall’s MSBP testimony could only be regarded as a lay person’s opinion, albeit a wellinformed
one as he is a paediatrician.
What about Sir Roy’s Munchausen-syndrome-by-proxy research documents? According to Lord
Howe, when Sir Roy was challenged to produce them, Sir Roy claimed that they had been destroyed. The
legitimacy of the MSBP theory is now undergoing intense scrutiny worldwide for its lack of scientific
integrity, highly questionable support literature in medical journals, and its continuing use by a minority of
members of the medical profession.
Dr Hayward-Brown concludes that there are major and disturbing problems in the procedures and
attitudes of the medical and social service professions in relation to MSBP, and wonders how the medical
profession can prove that a MSBP diagnosis is indeed positive? ‘The false accusations can happen to any
mother or father at any time – it does not discriminate regarding class or status, as has happened in
England. It is a nightmare waiting on the doorsteps on every Australian family if their child becomes ill or
is disabled.’
Note: the names of parents, their children and identifying facts in the case studies have been changed
or altered to protect the parents and children as required by law.
Michael Nott is a former radio and television journalist and a senior media and communications
officer for federal, NSW and Queensland government departments and agencies.
As published in Living Now Australia January 2004
What is munchausen syndrome by proxy?
Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP) is a “diagnosis” used to describe an individual who
purportedly induces or exaggerates illness in a child to gain attention from the medical profession. MSBP
generally involves a mother deliberately making her child sick.
The term was coined by British doctor Sir Roy Meadow in the Lancet medical journal in 1977 to
describe parents, usually mothers, who harm their children in a medical context. The two cases in this
original paper were merely a collection of notes and did not appear to have any scientifically-based
research to underpin Sir Roy’s proposition. Many of Sir Roy’s articles on MSBP have been published in
the journal he himself edited, the Archives of Disease in Childhood.
A Munchausen syndrome by proxy diagnosis lacks scientific validity. It is not a definitive category in
the authoritative DSM IV (1994), only appearing in the appendix.
Parents and professionals should be aware that there are many similar labels to MSBP, which include
the following: somatisation disorder, abnormal illness behaviour, folie a deux, pervasive refusal syndrome,
hysteria, and factitious illness. Often the MSBP label will be combined with other labels. For example, a
mother may be accused of both MSBP and shaken baby syndrome.
It is a recent and extremely controversial diagnosis (Allison and Roberts, 1998). Despite its highly
controversial nature, MSBP is being used extensively in the medical profession, by social services, and in
court.
Dr Hayward-Brown contends that the profiling is extremely prejudicial, inaccurate, paradoxical and
often nonsensical
The prejudice of this MSBP label is so great that a mother’s credibility is completely destroyed. And,
once a child is removed it is virtually impossible for the mother to regain custody.’
It just takes a child protection officer from the Department of Community Services to say the child is
“at risk” and a mother loses her child.
‘The false accusations can happen to any mother or father at any time – it does not discriminate
regarding class or status,’
Mothers accused by over-zealous child protection
by Michael Nott
There are calls for judicial inquiries and the reopening of medical child abuse cases known as
‘Munchausen syndrome by proxy. MSBP originator Sir Roy Meadow is under official investigation by the
British General Medical Council, that registers UK doctors, as a “problem doctor”. He was criticised by
the British Court of Criminal Appeal and accused of giving misleading and contradictory evidence in
courts on the causes and incidence of child abuse.
Jennifer took her young daughter, Sara, who was suffering from a diagnosed illness to hospital as she
feared other critical medical problems. After being assessed by doctors, Sara was given medical treatment
however her mother questioned the doctors on the way they were treating the child.
That is when Jennifer’s nightmare began. She was accused of Munchausen syndrome by proxy
(MSBP) for allegedly causing her child’s illness – the basis of an MSBP “diagnosis”. Doctors called in
child protection officers from the New South Wales Department of Community Services and they took the
child into foster care.
This type of MSBP allegation is not unique. False and misleading MSBP charges are a worldwide
phenomenon with mothers across Australian, England, and the United States being falsely accused.
The New South Wales Department of Community Services does not have figures on MSBP
accusations, describing the number of MSBP cases as “insignificant”. However, one psychiatrist told an
accused mother that she is dealing with 27 families on a weekly basis.
These MSBP accusations, according to Dr Helen Hayward-Brown, occur to mothers whose children
suffer illnesses that cannot be easily diagnosed. ‘Mothers who present their children to hospital are
particularly at risk. This risk is compounded if they raise questions about their child’s treatment.’
Dr Hayward-Brown, a medical sociologist, was awarded her doctorate for investigating false
allegations of Munchausen syndrome by proxy. ‘Children are usually removed from the mother’s care,
often without adequate investigation, and mothers are only allowed minimal supervised contact or no
contact with their children. The prejudice of this MSBP label is so great that a mother’s credibility is
completely destroyed. And, once a child is removed it is virtually impossible for the mother to regain
custody.’
MSBP or Cisapride?
In another MSBP case a mother, Carol, has not had contact with her last baby who was removed shortly
after birth due to previous MSBP allegations. There are question marks over these prior accusations as the
children were prescribed the suspect reflux drug Cisapride. Documentation shows clearly that this drug
exacerbated her first child’s symptoms. Cisapride has been withdrawn in the United States and was banned
in England due to severe adverse reactions, including officially recorded deaths of several children.
However, Cisapride is still available in Australia and is used by the medical profession. The young
daughter of another accused mother was also treated with this drug.
The removal of a baby at birth due to previous MSBP allegations has been found to be a breach of
human rights by the European Court in the case of P, C & S vs. UK. The British Blair Government was
fined and had costs awarded against it totalling around 100,000 pounds. The European Court criticised
doctors and social workers for being “draconian” in their removal of the child.
In the MSBP cases investigated by Dr Hayward-Brown there is little natural justice in the accusations
– official files are falsified or wrong files used, and the medical profession and child protection workers
continually fail to fully investigate why a child has an illness. ‘One of the main predicaments for parents of
children with a difficult to diagnose illness is that the child’s symptoms are trivialised by the medical
professional.’
Alarmingly, one proponent of MSBP, Dr Herbert Schreier, describes MSBP mothers as ‘women who
are not wholly passive in their interactions with the medical profession’.
According to Dr Hayward-Brown, doctors accuse a mother of medical child abuse when they cannot
determine what is causing an illness. They do not consider that drugs such as Cisapride may have been
prescribed for the child, contributing to the medical problems. ‘The whole issue of MSBP has been hidden
away behind the closed walls of the secret Children’s Court that limits public and media access through
potential contempt of court actions.’
Doctors may want to protect themselves or their own incompetence by not fully investigating the
child’s illness. An expert British defence witness in child protection, now in Melbourne, Charles Pragnell,
said the so-called MSBP research conducted by Sir Roy Meadow was not scientifically based and was
merely his own conjecture, speculation and assertions that had questionable origins.
Mr Pragnell’s child protection expertise is backed up through his involvement in the exposure of
numerous false allegations of sexual abuse in Cleveland, England in 1987. ‘With those allegations it was
the over-zealous intervention of social workers that over-rode the rights of children and their families
causing them long-lasting emotional harm.’
He has found MSBP allegations follow threats by parents to report a doctor for negligence or
incompetence and threats to sue a doctor or a hospital. Therefore any retaliatory action by the doctor or
hospital required serious consideration. ‘In this way MSBP very effectively shifts the blame onto the
parents, who then come under scrutiny and investigation by the child protection system,’ Mr Pragnell
observed. He has found that government figures show that 85% of child abuse reports ‘have no substantive
basis’ and these false allegations are made for mistaken, mischievous, malicious or monetary reasons.
British opposition health and social services spokesman, Lord Howe, has called MSBP one of the most
pernicious and ill-founded theories to have gained currency in child care in the past 10 to 15 years. ‘It is a
theory without science. There is no peer-reviewed research to underpin MSBP and it rests on the assertions
of its founder Sir Roy Meadow.’
Concerns over the use of MSBP are also shared by Professor Colin Morley, formerly a paediatric
doctor with the University of Cambridge School of Clinical Medicine in England and now working at the
University of Melbourne. Dr Morley said that MSBP gave no indication of what was happening to a child
and that it was very non-specific and could be mis-interpreted. He said it should be abandoned in favour of
what was happening to the child, as it had become a diagnosis with emotional overtones. Further, as Mr
Pragnell has pointed out, “MSBP children” usually suffer from congenital disorders and birth injuries,
surgical injury, inappropriate medication and other treatments, allergic reactions, vaccine damage,
infections such as Giardia and chronic fatigue syndrome.
Dr Morley is also uneasy that mothers are being told to confess to harming their child because if they
do not confess, they are unlikely to have their child back. ‘That is blackmail and may result in a false
confession.’
MSBP lacks scientific validity
These experts agree that in some cases child abuse may be caused by mothers, but they also assert that the
MSBP accusations are an unsafe and unreasonable practice that fails to address the illness and problems of
the child. Dr Hayward-Brown said that accusing a person of MSBP lacks scientific validity as it was not
recognised as a psychiatric disorder, only appearing in the appendix of the psychiatric Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders IVR, as requiring further research. ‘One single mother related the
extraordinary chain of events that labelled her as an injurious MSBP mother, when the medical profession
failed, for 18 months, to discover her son’s chromosomal disorder.’
Dr Hayward-Brown also said that in another case both parents were charged with contempt of court
when they took their daughter to a gastroenterologist, despite the fact that they obtained a diagnosis for her
bowel complaint. ‘If the parent does obtain another diagnosis, some doctors will argue that the diagnosed
illness may co-exist with MSBP. This argument protects professionals from being sued for negligence as
for example, lack of diagnosis delaying treatment, wrongful removal of the child, etc.
‘MSBP is a recent and extremely controversial “diagnosis” that is unreliable as it may exclude genetic
and other factors that may be causing a child’s illness. However, despite its highly controversial nature,
MSBP is being used extensively in the medical profession, by social services, and in court.’
Some doctors could not acknowledge that some illnesses were very hard to diagnose and treat. This is
shown by a report in the British Medical Journal (August 2003) noting that the Court of Appeal for
England and Wales ruled that children can sue the healthcare trusts and local authorities that wrongly
conclude that they have been the victims of abuse. The BMJ cited one of the cases used by the court in its
findings and this was a 6-year-old boy who was said by Professor David Southall of North Staffordshire
Hospital to be a victim of fabricated illness. However, the boy was removed from the at-risk register after
three months when his condition was diagnosed as extensive and severe allergies.
In the UK last October, Dr. Umapati Biswas was found guilty of serious professional misconduct and
was struck off the medical register for making false allegations of child abuse.
In the inquiry into the Cleveland sexual abuse cases, Justice Bulter-Sloss recommended that child
protection workers needed to fully investigate claims made by medical professionals, rather than purely
accepting their opinions.
Dr Hayward-Brown discovered that the names of particular doctors and psychologists keep cropping
up as the ones who accuse mothers of MSBP. ‘They seem to be the ones that are predisposed to accuse
mothers.’ These professionals often know very little about the family, the child and their medical history
and with little first-hand contact, make the MSBP allegation.
A diagnosis is made without seeing the mother or child and by reading selected reports of other
doctors. This is called diagnosis by “immaculate perception”, Dr Hayward-Brown said.
‘Sir Roy Meadow has accused mothers of MSBP by reading selected doctors’ files and child protection
workers’ reports on a child – he does not meet the mother or child. He also provides expert evidence
outside his own speciality. Sir Roy has practiced this form of “diagnosis” in Australian cases.’
‘The MSBP profile used by doctors contain paradoxes that make it very difficult, almost impossible,
for mothers to prove their innocence. For example, being an over-protective parent is part of the MSBP
profile, but so is being a negligent parent,’ Dr Hayward-Brown said.
‘Good mothers are also in trouble. In Heather’s case, in the notification to social services, she was
described as purportedly “a good mother” with numerous and credible references attesting to her fine
mothering skills. Nevertheless she was still accused of MSBP since MSBP mothers are “able to deceive
everybody”.’
Dr Hayward-Brown said the MSBP profile appears to be expanding with the invention of the so-called
“falsification disorder by proxy” (FDP) for mothers who do not fit MSBP profile. ‘Doctors and social
workers are starting to use somatisation and conversion disorders in MSBP allegations, while older children
and disabled and autistic children are being targeted.’
The national child abuse conference in Sydney (November 2003) heard a child protection unit say that
the “anxiety” shown by a mother for her child’s illness could be a “concerning behaviour”. The child
protection units suggested that another MSBP symptom was when parents sought a second or third medical
opinion.
Dr Hayward-Brown contends that the profiling is extremely prejudicial, inaccurate, paradoxical and
often nonsensical. ‘The mothers are presumed to be guilty and it is very difficult for them to prove their
innocence.’ She notes that many parents who have been accused of MSBP and had their children removed
have not had criminal charges of child abuse laid against them. There is no criminal evidence, she
contends. It just takes a child protection officer from the Department of Community Services to say the
child is “at risk” and a mother loses her child. ‘In my view, evidence of child abuse simply does not exist to
convict mothers in a criminal court. Higher courts are dismissing Sir Roy’s theories. Mothers accused of
MSBP are usually too scared to speak out openly against doctors and the Department of Community
Services. They fear contempt of court charges by the Children’s Court that is closed to the public and
media.’
In her years of investigation, Dr Hayward-Brown has been shown evidence of many unethical or
corrupt practices including breaches of social services policies and procedures, refusal to investigate a
medical doctor’s notification that was accepted without qualification and the exclusion of documents
indicating innocence.
She also found that files were tampered with, there was fabrication of evidence, hearsay evidence in
court, intimidation, blackmail, withdrawal of treatment, hospital errors and mismanagement, lack of
knowledge of overseas expertise or lack of expertise in the relevant specialty, and attribution of father’s
comments to the mother.
In one MSBP case, doctors and Department of Community Services used the wrong child’s medical
file – same child’s name but wrong person. And a mother found over 120 false or inaccurate items in her
DOCS files.
In her thesis, Dr Hayward-Brown pointed out that the lack of scientific credibility of the diagnosis
could be seen by outcomes in United States courts, several of which have ruled that the use of the MSBP
diagnosis is not admissible. (These include Martinez v. United States of America, State v. Lumbrera, and
Commonwealth v. Robinson.)
The British General Medical Council has confirmed that both Sir Roy Meadow and Dr David Southall
are under official investigation as “problem doctors”. With these investigations occurring, it is questionable
how doctors can diagnosis MSBP in alleged child abuse cases in “good faith” and how doctors can
continue to use Sir Roy Meadow as one of their principal references in court affidavits when alleging
MSBP.
Previously, Dr Southall was suspended from child protection work for two years during the British
Griffiths Inquiry into his research work and MSBP accusations. The South Australian Supreme Court has
ruled that Dr Southall’s MSBP testimony could only be regarded as a lay person’s opinion, albeit a wellinformed
one as he is a paediatrician.
What about Sir Roy’s Munchausen-syndrome-by-proxy research documents? According to Lord
Howe, when Sir Roy was challenged to produce them, Sir Roy claimed that they had been destroyed. The
legitimacy of the MSBP theory is now undergoing intense scrutiny worldwide for its lack of scientific
integrity, highly questionable support literature in medical journals, and its continuing use by a minority of
members of the medical profession.
Dr Hayward-Brown concludes that there are major and disturbing problems in the procedures and
attitudes of the medical and social service professions in relation to MSBP, and wonders how the medical
profession can prove that a MSBP diagnosis is indeed positive? ‘The false accusations can happen to any
mother or father at any time – it does not discriminate regarding class or status, as has happened in
England. It is a nightmare waiting on the doorsteps on every Australian family if their child becomes ill or
is disabled.’
Note: the names of parents, their children and identifying facts in the case studies have been changed
or altered to protect the parents and children as required by law.
Michael Nott is a former radio and television journalist and a senior media and communications
officer for federal, NSW and Queensland government departments and agencies.
Poor Children Likelier to Get Antipsychotics
DUFF WILSON
Published: December 11, 2009
New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.
Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times
Dr. Derek H. Suite, a psychiatrist in the Bronx, says he sees many children on antipsychotic drugs who do not need them.
Multimedia
Graphic
Children and Antipsychotic Drugs Those findings, by a team from Rutgers and Columbia, are almost certain to add fuel to a long-running debate. Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children?
The questions go beyond the psychological impact on Medicaid children, serious as that may be. Antipsychotic drugs can also have severe physical side effects, causing drastic weight gain and metabolic changes resulting in lifelong physical problems.
On Tuesday, a pediatric advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration met to discuss the health risks for all children who take antipsychotics. The panel will consider recommending new label warnings for the drugs, which are now used by an estimated 300,000 people under age 18 in this country, counting both Medicaid patients and those with private insurance.
Meanwhile, a group of Medicaid medical directors from 16 states, under a project they call Too Many, Too Much, Too Young, has been experimenting with ways to reduce prescriptions of antipsychotic drugs among Medicaid children.
They plan to publish a report early next year.
The Rutgers-Columbia study will also be published early next year, in the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs. But the findings have already been posted on the Web, setting off discussion among experts who treat and study troubled young people.
Some experts say they are stunned by the disparity in prescribing patterns. But others say it reinforces previous indications, and their own experience, that children with diagnoses of mental or emotional problems in low-income families are more likely to be given drugs than receive family counseling or psychotherapy.
Part of the reason is insurance reimbursements, as Medicaid often pays much less for counseling and therapy than private insurers do. Part of it may have to do with the challenges that families in poverty may have in consistently attending counseling or therapy sessions, even when such help is available.
“It’s easier for patients, and it’s easier for docs,” said Dr. Derek H. Suite, a psychiatrist in the Bronx whose pediatric cases include children and adolescents covered by Medicaid and who sometimes prescribes antipsychotics. “But the question is, ‘What are you prescribing it for?’ That’s where it gets a little fuzzy.”
Too often, Dr. Suite said, he sees young Medicaid patients to whom other doctors have given antipsychotics that the patients do not seem to need. Recently, for example, he met with a 15-year-old girl. She had stopped taking the antipsychotic medication that had been prescribed for her after a single examination, paid for by Medicaid, at a clinic where she received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
Why did she stop? Dr. Suite asked. “I can control my moods,” the girl said softly.
After evaluating her, Dr. Suite decided she was right. The girl had arguments with her mother and stepfather and some insomnia. But she was a good student and certainly not bipolar, in Dr. Suite’s opinion.
“Normal teenager,” Dr. Suite said, nodding. “No scrips for you.”
Because there can be long waits to see the psychiatrists accepting Medicaid, it is often a pediatrician or family doctor who prescribes an antipsychotic to a Medicaid patient — whether because the parent wants it or the doctor believes there are few other options.
Some experts even say Medicaid may provide better care for children than many covered by private insurance because the drugs — which can cost $400 a month — are provided free to patients, and families do not have to worry about the co-payments and other insurance restrictions.
“Maybe Medicaid kids are getting better treatment,” said Dr. Gabrielle Carlson, a child psychiatrist and professor at the Stony Brook School of Medicine. “If it helps keep them in school, maybe it’s not so bad.”
In any case, as Congress works on health care legislation that could expand the nation’s Medicaid rolls by 15 million people — a 43 percent increase — the scope of the antipsychotics problem, and the expense, could grow in coming years.
Even though the drugs are typically cheaper than long-term therapy, they are the single biggest drug expenditure for Medicaid, costing the program $7.9 billion in 2006, the most recent year for which the data is available.
The Rutgers-Columbia research, based on millions of Medicaid and private insurance claims, is the most extensive analysis of its type yet on children’s antipsychotic drug use. It examined records for children in seven big states — including New York, Texas and California — selected to be representative of the nation’s Medicaid population, for the years 2001 and 2004.
Read the rest of this article at:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/health/12medicaid.html
Published: December 11, 2009
New federally financed drug research reveals a stark disparity: children covered by Medicaid are given powerful antipsychotic medicines at a rate four times higher than children whose parents have private insurance. And the Medicaid children are more likely to receive the drugs for less severe conditions than their middle-class counterparts, the data shows.
Suzanne DeChillo/The New York Times
Dr. Derek H. Suite, a psychiatrist in the Bronx, says he sees many children on antipsychotic drugs who do not need them.
Multimedia
Graphic
Children and Antipsychotic Drugs Those findings, by a team from Rutgers and Columbia, are almost certain to add fuel to a long-running debate. Do too many children from poor families receive powerful psychiatric drugs not because they actually need them — but because it is deemed the most efficient and cost-effective way to control problems that may be handled much differently for middle-class children?
The questions go beyond the psychological impact on Medicaid children, serious as that may be. Antipsychotic drugs can also have severe physical side effects, causing drastic weight gain and metabolic changes resulting in lifelong physical problems.
On Tuesday, a pediatric advisory committee to the Food and Drug Administration met to discuss the health risks for all children who take antipsychotics. The panel will consider recommending new label warnings for the drugs, which are now used by an estimated 300,000 people under age 18 in this country, counting both Medicaid patients and those with private insurance.
Meanwhile, a group of Medicaid medical directors from 16 states, under a project they call Too Many, Too Much, Too Young, has been experimenting with ways to reduce prescriptions of antipsychotic drugs among Medicaid children.
They plan to publish a report early next year.
The Rutgers-Columbia study will also be published early next year, in the peer-reviewed journal Health Affairs. But the findings have already been posted on the Web, setting off discussion among experts who treat and study troubled young people.
Some experts say they are stunned by the disparity in prescribing patterns. But others say it reinforces previous indications, and their own experience, that children with diagnoses of mental or emotional problems in low-income families are more likely to be given drugs than receive family counseling or psychotherapy.
Part of the reason is insurance reimbursements, as Medicaid often pays much less for counseling and therapy than private insurers do. Part of it may have to do with the challenges that families in poverty may have in consistently attending counseling or therapy sessions, even when such help is available.
“It’s easier for patients, and it’s easier for docs,” said Dr. Derek H. Suite, a psychiatrist in the Bronx whose pediatric cases include children and adolescents covered by Medicaid and who sometimes prescribes antipsychotics. “But the question is, ‘What are you prescribing it for?’ That’s where it gets a little fuzzy.”
Too often, Dr. Suite said, he sees young Medicaid patients to whom other doctors have given antipsychotics that the patients do not seem to need. Recently, for example, he met with a 15-year-old girl. She had stopped taking the antipsychotic medication that had been prescribed for her after a single examination, paid for by Medicaid, at a clinic where she received a diagnosis of bipolar disorder.
Why did she stop? Dr. Suite asked. “I can control my moods,” the girl said softly.
After evaluating her, Dr. Suite decided she was right. The girl had arguments with her mother and stepfather and some insomnia. But she was a good student and certainly not bipolar, in Dr. Suite’s opinion.
“Normal teenager,” Dr. Suite said, nodding. “No scrips for you.”
Because there can be long waits to see the psychiatrists accepting Medicaid, it is often a pediatrician or family doctor who prescribes an antipsychotic to a Medicaid patient — whether because the parent wants it or the doctor believes there are few other options.
Some experts even say Medicaid may provide better care for children than many covered by private insurance because the drugs — which can cost $400 a month — are provided free to patients, and families do not have to worry about the co-payments and other insurance restrictions.
“Maybe Medicaid kids are getting better treatment,” said Dr. Gabrielle Carlson, a child psychiatrist and professor at the Stony Brook School of Medicine. “If it helps keep them in school, maybe it’s not so bad.”
In any case, as Congress works on health care legislation that could expand the nation’s Medicaid rolls by 15 million people — a 43 percent increase — the scope of the antipsychotics problem, and the expense, could grow in coming years.
Even though the drugs are typically cheaper than long-term therapy, they are the single biggest drug expenditure for Medicaid, costing the program $7.9 billion in 2006, the most recent year for which the data is available.
The Rutgers-Columbia research, based on millions of Medicaid and private insurance claims, is the most extensive analysis of its type yet on children’s antipsychotic drug use. It examined records for children in seven big states — including New York, Texas and California — selected to be representative of the nation’s Medicaid population, for the years 2001 and 2004.
Read the rest of this article at:http://www.nytimes.com/2009/12/12/health/12medicaid.html
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