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The Press-Enterprise has this story about a California family, still reeling from the trauma of separation by state social workers…

Kirk and Leslie Udvardi’s four children were born with serious medical conditions that resulted in more than 400 trips to the hospital. When Leslie grew frustrated at doctors’ failed attempts to diagnose her children, she turned to the internet and the Chiari Institute in Great Neck, N.Y., one of a handful of hospitals in the country that specializes in a medical condition that she feared that her children might have.  Doctors at the Institute have since confirmed that the mother’s suspicions were on-target.

But instead of welcoming this input, doctors reported the Udvardi’s to social services, suspecting that Leslie had Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy, a mental disorder in which a parent lies about a child’s illness or inflicts injuries to get attention from doctors.  The social workers intervened, taking custody of the children while they were at school and placing them in foster care for six days, until the parents’ case went to trial.

The judge criticized the county’s expert witness and dismissed the county to have the four children permanently removed from their parents’ custody, but the family now faces a new challenge: paying off the $151,000 in legal fees spent fighting off the allegations.  Even worse, legal standards prevent the family from recouping the costs from the social workers who made the initial allegations.

“Our judicial system has become grossly iniquitous,” Leslie writes in an open letter.  “Medical professionals responsible for unbiased and honest evaluations have the power to devastate and destroy families with no legal accountability.”

In the meantime, the family is struggling to find a way to meet the costs.  “We still have the debt and the emotional scars,” eighteen year-old Samuel says. “Maybe, eventually, I will get over it, but it’s going to take some time.”

From the Capitol Resource Institute (and California!):

When the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced in 2006 that the abortifacient drug “Plan B” was approved for over-the-counter use by women aged 18 years and older, CRI immediately criticized this action. One obvious negative point is that minors can easily sidestep the age requirement by having an older friend buy the drug for them.

But the reality is even worse than imagined. CRI was shocked and dismayed to discover through recent staff research that not only are minors able to access the drugs through older friends buying it for them, but it appears that on-campus health clinics are handing them out. And because many schools do not require parental notification when it comes to minors’ “confidential medical services,” parents are likely never notified that their young children are taking these dangerous, abortion-inducing drugs.

Our research revealed that, despite the FDA regulations requiring girls under 18 to obtain a prescription for “Plan B,” nearly 60 percent of California’s school-based health centers (SBHCs) provide emergency contraception to middle and high school students.

Each of California’s 64 SBHCs were contacted by CRI staff and we were able to speak directly with 41 of these clinics (a 64 percent response rate).

“It is an outrage that young girls are being helped by school clinics to sidestep FDA regulations that exist for their safety and protection,” Karen England, executive director of Capitol Resource Institute. “This is an example of how so-called women’s health advocates are not so much interested in women’s health as they are interested in unfettered access to abortion.”

But don’t worry, I’m sure the clinics have the child’s “best interest” in mind when they give out drugs without parental knowledge or consent. Of course there would never be a real need for parents to be involved here when we know that the government really knows what’s best for kids.

Check out other topics related to health issues and the child-parent relationship from our blog.

What kind of society rips a 17-year-old autistic boy from his loving home and places him in a state-run mental institution, where he is given heavy doses of drugs, kept physically restrained, kept away from his family, deprived of books and other mental stimulation and is left alone to rot?

According to an opinion piece published last Sunday in California’s Orange County Register, it can be our own society. Read the rest of this entry »

Last Saturday, hundreds of Maryland schoolchildren lined up with their parents in front of the Prince Georges County courthouse to receive mandatory vaccinations. About 2,300 children in the school district had not received vaccines for chickenpox or hepatitis B, prompting state officials to threaten parents with fines or even jail time if they did not comply.

According to Barbara Loe Fisher, President of the National Vaccine Information Center, terrorizing and threatening parents with jail time is not the way to handle the situation. “Chickenpox is not smallpox and hepatitis B is not polio,” Fisher explains.

The school’s response has also been decried by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons as a power play that “obliterates informed consent and parental rights.” The AAPS is also concerned that “vaccine round-ups,” like this one, could expose children to a dangerous cocktail of vaccines without first adequately checking their medical history for potentially-harmful side-effects.

The fundamental question isn’t whether vaccination is beneficial or harmful for children, but who should decide: the parents or the state? It is vitally important that parents are provided with access to the information they need to make important decisions, such as whether to vaccinate their children. But giving parents an ultimatum by compelling them to accept shots or face jail time crosses the line.