Any of you follow the Pelletier case?

[slngsht]

what are your thoughts?

[bigdog]

It just horrifies me that the state can wield that much power.

In a way it's no surprise. We as a people keep abdicating more of our day to day responsibilities in our lives to the faceless bureaucrats in office.

 

But. As I wasn't there, I don't have all the facts and can't make a final judgement. I do find it odd that I haven't heard very much from the first hospital. But then it's not been a big news item in Germany.

 

If it is as the Pelletier's say then we have gone very far down the path of becoming a despotic nation who's leaders clearly see themselves as God like. Of course said leaders do so with the blessings of the low info or short sighted voters out there.

[yellowss7]

I agree with Bigdog. Where is Tufts on this? It's not like they are some Podunk little community hospital. It's really strange that they were treating the kid and that this other hospital can step in and say they were wrong in their diagnosis and just take the Kid away from the parents.

 

Must be Bush's fault somehow. :bs::bs:

 

Tom

[xflow7]

I'm not up on all of the ins and outs, but the case is clearly tragic. However, states are in a tough position. They are frequently beat up for not doing enough when kids are harmed in unhealthy home situations, yet are often accused of over-reach when they intervene.

 

My fiancee works as a Guardian ad Litem here in Vermont (also known as a Court Appointed Special Advocate) so she is involved in DCF and family court issues here. What I know is that taking kids away is not something that is ever done lightly. The guiding principle is essentially always to return the child to their biological parents if it is in *any* way possible. None of us really know the details of this case (and we likely never will as family court proceedings are closed and sealed), but to be sure the judge has better information at his disposal than anyone in the public or the media.

 

Having said all that, it would seem to me appropriate that a court simultaneously order some kind of outside medical evaluation of the girl's case to either bolster, or not, BCH's diagnosis.

 

Dave

[slngsht]

Tufts probably staying quiet because nobody wants to discuss an active case.

 

Parents have paid a heavy price for speaking out. They lost permanent custody of their daughter a few days ago.

 

A bit of personal story on this... My older son was hospitalized for 10 days due to abcess behind his tonsil. It started out with a fever, and then his neck was visibly swollen. We took him to his doctor, and after that to the ER, where he was admitted. He was treated with one round of IV antibiotics, which were minimally effective, and after 2-3 days (still had a temp at this point), switched to a different pair of antibiotics which worked much better. After a 10 day stay at the hospital, he was sent home with the oral version of the same antibiotics.

 

He developed a rash from the oral antibiotics and back he went. His ENT ordered another CT Scan to determine the state of the abscess, and it was still there... His doctors at the hospital ordered a change of antibiotics to another pair, including Levaquin.

 

Not being an expert in medicine, I decided to at least google around to find some info on the drugs. Levaquin has some nasty potential side effects. We insisted - after MUCH heated argument - on a 2nd opinion. They contacted an infectious disease doc at Georgetown, who confirmed their choice.

 

At the recommendation of our ENT, we stopped treatment at the local hospital, checked him out, and drove him down to Childrens in DC. Their specialist examined the CT scans and put him back on the original antibiotics, which solved the problem. So how did the specialist at childrens arrive at a different conclusion? He LOOKED at the scan, rather than relying on the radiologist's readings. The Georgetown doctor, as well as the one at the hospital we were at both assumed the remaining abscess was fully formed.

 

Why did Levaquin scare me so much? This is the case I read about:

 

"Dr. David Flockhart, chief of the Division of Clinical Pharmacology at Indiana University School of Medicine, recalls examining a teenage girl from the Chicago suburbs after she had been given Levaquin four years ago for a condition that was diagnosed as a sinus infection. The Chicago teenager is one of 81 persons from 1 to 17 years old whose adverse reactions to Levaquin, Cipro or Floxin appear in the FDA’s adverse events data base.

 

These reactions ranged from nausea to coma and cardiac failure, according to the database.

 

The Chicago teenager was also 16 when a physician told her mother to give her Levaquin, according to the girl’s sister.

 

The sister, Teri Noto of Roselle, Ill., said the teenager did not get through the full course of daily 500-milligram Levaquin pills.

 

“After five days, it was as if a bomb went off in her body,” said the sister. “She collapsed at school and had to be half-carried out of the building.”

 

Noto said her sister had been a talented musician, artist and athlete, advancing to within a few points of a black belt in tae kwon do karate.

 

The girl, now 20, can walk only a short distance at a time, according to her sister. She attends college and gets around on an electric scooter.

 

She has had 29 orthopedic casts to prevent tendon rupture in her arms and legs, her sister said, and the hands that once played the piano and executed the swift movements of karate are often too weak to pick up a book."

 

Does that mean it would have happened to my son? No. But I still had the ability to decide which team of experts to go with. If they had refused to let me do that, I'd be in exactly the same situation.

[slngsht]

I'm not up on all of the ins and outs, but the case is clearly tragic. However, states are in a tough position. They are frequently beat up for not doing enough when kids are harmed in unhealthy home situations, yet are often accused of over-reach when they intervene.

 

My fiancee works as a Guardian ad Litem here in Vermont (also known as a Court Appointed Special Advocate) so she is involved in DCF and family court issues here. What I know is that taking kids away is not something that is ever done lightly. The guiding principle is essentially always to return the child to their biological parents if it is in *any* way possible. None of us really know the details of this case (and we likely never will as family court proceedings are closed and sealed), but to be sure the judge has better information at his disposal than anyone in the public or the media.

 

Having said all that, it would seem to me appropriate that a court simultaneously order some kind of outside medical evaluation of the girl's case to either bolster, or not, BCH's diagnosis.

 

Dave

I haven't seen where the parents have been accused of an unhealthy home situation. This kid was already under treatment by another medical team. They suggested examination by her GI doctor, who at that point in time had moved from Tufts to Boston. That's why they went there.

[xflow7]

Mazda, glad you persevered and got the treatment your son needed. To be clear, I don't at all think that a parent acting in the best interest of their child should give up their right to seek treatment when and where they want.

 

My understanding is that BCH was doubtful of the initial diagnosis and became concerned that the parents were endangering the child by manipulating her other health care providers and subjecting her to unnecessary treatment. In that sense, it goes beyond just a disagreement about diagnosis or treatment options and crosses into an accusation of abuse. Sorry, I was just using the phrase "unhealthy home situation" generically for cases in which children are endangered by their parents, not as a specific accusation of these parents.

 

Anyway, it is obviously a very serious charge and, to act on it should require a commensurate level evidence. But that's where it gets sticky for us, in the general public or the media, to conclude much. Between HIPAA and the closed nature of DCF hearings, the majority of the information will never be made available to us.

 

So my point is not that I necessarily side with BCH or the court. Rather I just would not assume that the decision to place her in permanent custody was taken lightly, or that what is available in the public domain is any kind of representation of the information on which the judge reached his decision.

 

Dave

Edited March 31, 2014 by xflow7

[Kitcat]

One of my 1st cases as an attorney was representing low income parents who had 6-7 young kids. The Welfare Dept wanted to take their 12 year old girl out of the home and place her in foster care. Said it was an unhealthy environment, parents were irresponsible, etc.

 

I rode to the rescue. Kept her where she was. Twelve months later she was pregnant (by her 14 year old step-brother). Nearly 40 years ago, but the memory of it is still difficult.

[slngsht]

Mazda, glad you persevered and got the treatment your son needed. To be clear, I don't at all think that a parent acting in the best interest of their child should give up their right to seek treatment when and where they want.

 

My understanding is that BCH was doubtful of the initial diagnosis and became concerned that the parents were endangering the child by manipulating her other health care providers and subjecting her to unnecessary treatment. In that sense, it goes beyond just a disagreement about diagnosis or treatment options and crosses into an accusation of abuse. Sorry, I was just using the phrase "unhealthy home situation" generically for cases in which children are endangered by their parents, not as a specific accusation of these parents.

 

Anyway, it is obviously a very serious charge and, to act on it should require a commensurate level evidence. But that's where it gets sticky for us, in the general public or the media, to conclude much. Between HIPAA and the closed nature of DCF hearings, the majority of the information will never be made available to us.

 

So my point is not that I necessarily side with BCH or the court. Rather I just would not assume that the decision to place her in permanent custody was taken lightly, or that what is available in the public domain is any kind of representation of the information on which the judge reached his decision.

 

Dave

I agree "facts" can be manipulated to favor one side or the other in the media.

 

Will be interesting to see how this turns out.