06 September 2009
Accusations of MSbP (FII) against parents of children and young people with
ME, the placing of children and young people on the "at risk" register,
threats of child protection proceedings and in some cases, forcible removal
of a child or young person from the home via court orders into hospital
wards (sometimes to locked psychiatric wards or where parents are denied
visiting rights) by social services, community paediatricians or paediatric
consultants, in cases where a child's diagnosis has been challenged by the
family or where the family has rejected treatments such as CBT/GET or
psychosocial management of their child's illness has, equally disturbingly,
been taking place for years within the ME patient community.
Sunday Times | 06 September 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/health/article6823345.ece
Question a doctor and lose your child
Ashleigh Cave lost the use of her legs after a vaccination
PARENTS are being threatened with having their children taken into care
after questioning doctors' diagnoses or objecting to their medical care.
John Hemming, a Liberal Democrat MP, who campaigns to stop injustices in
the family court, said: "Very often care proceedings are used as
retaliation by local authorities against 'uppity' people who question the
system."
Cases are emerging across the UK:
The mother of a 13-year-old girl who became partly paralysed after being
given a cervical cancer vaccination says social workers have told her the
child may be removed if she (the mother) continues to link her condition
with the vaccination.
More abused children need to be taken into care
A couple had all six of their children removed from their care after they
disputed the necessity of an invasive medical test on their eldest
daughter. Doctors, who suspected she might have had a blood disease, called
for social services to obtain an emergency protection order, although it
was subsequently confirmed that she was not suffering from the condition.
The parents were still considered unstable, and all their children were
taken from them.
A single mother whose teenage son is terminally ill and confined to a
wheelchair has been told he is to become the subject of a care order after
she complained that her local authority's failure to provide bathroom
facilities for him has left her struggling to maintain sanitary standards.
In the first of those cases, Ashleigh Cave, 13, from Liverpool, began
experiencing severe headaches and dizziness half an hour after being
inoculated last October with Cervarix, which guards against girls
contracting the human papilloma virus.
The schoolgirl was soon collapsing repeatedly; she lost the use of her legs
and was admitted to Alder Hey children's hospital. Nearly 11 months later
she is still in hospital and is unable to stand or walk unaided. Her
mother, Cheryl, has now been told that doctors believe her condition must
be psychosomatic.
"The hospital brought in social workers from the local authority who have
told me they are considering putting Ashleigh on an at-risk register,"
Cheryl Cave said. She is convinced her daughter's paralysis was caused by
the vaccination.
Cave said that a social worker from Sefton council said she suspected her
of having Munchausen's syndrome by proxy or factitious illness syndrome -
controversial conditions in which mothers are said to attribute illnesses
falsely to their children in order to gain attention.
Cave said: "The social worker said I should stop believing the injection
has anything to do with Ashleigh's condition because I am putting my
thoughts on to her and stopping her getting well.
"Since Ashleigh was in hospital she has become incontinent and had double
kidney infections and chest infections. Have I made all these up?"
In the third of these cases, Melvilina Gavin-Langley's 16-year-old son Omar
is terminally ill with Duchenne muscular dystrophy and restricted to a
wheelchair.
His mother is embroiled in a legal dispute with Birmingham city council
over a partly completed extension intended to provide Omar with easy access
to a bathroom.
Gavin-Langley, 49, who wants the extension rebuilt because she says it was
designed in a way that was dangerous and obstructed access to sewers, said:
"I have had to carry Omar upstairs to bathe him but it was risking
dislocating his shoulders and also I got a hernia from all the lifting.
"I told the council I could no longer lift Omar across my back.
"They then turned that around and said I had said I could no longer care
for my son. They say they have to put him into care because his hair has
not been washed and he's not getting a bath. They have just threatened me
with this because they don't like me taking legal action against them."
A spokesman for Birmingham city council confirmed the council was seeking
an interim care order but said social workers wanted Omar to remain with
his mother.
Sefton council did not comment on the Ashleigh Cave case.
-----------------------------------------------
John Hemming, MP's blog: http://johnhemming.blogspot.com/
-----------------------------------------------
Related information:
Panorama report | Sick and Tired | Mathew Hill | 1999
Report and video clips:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/events/panorama/506549.stm
BBC Transcript of Panorama "Sick and Tired" broadcast:
http://tinyurl.com/panoramasickandtired99
-----------------------------------------------
From Page 22 of the "Gibson Report", 2006
http://www.erythos.com/gibsonenquiry/Report.html
"3.3.4 Vaccination
"Vaccination is often blamed for unexplained outbreaks of illness and
regularly appears in the media being accused of such. The Group found that
there is no strong evidence to link CFS/ME to vaccination and it is
unlikely to be a cause..."
-----------------------------------------------
Extract from unofficial transcript prepared from audio recording of the
public meeting held by the "Gibson Inquiry" panel in London, 6 February
2007.
Extract picks up towards the end of the first half of the meeting:
Dr Charles Shepherd (Medical Advisor, ME Association) (CS): The second
quibble is in 3.34 and what you said about vaccinations. I think your
wording there is really going to cause people problems by saying that the
Group found there is no strong evidence to link CFS/ME to vaccination and
it is unlikely to be the cause. It is, I believe a cause or trigger factor
in a significant minority of people with this - I've probably got more
patients in the UK that anyone else with vaccine induced ME - these are
anecdotal cases, OK - I think I've probably got about 200.
Dr Ian Gibson, (former MP for Norwich North) (IG): Well, we didn't want to
get into anecdotal things...
CS: I know...
[Gibson talks over CS: ??????????]
CS: ...but if you looked at your experts who gave evidence - besides
myself, Weir, Pinching, Byron Hyde - all who reported anecdotal cases of
vaccinations...
IG: Of association with vaccination...
CS: Of association, and the CMO's Report acknowledged...we actually managed
to get in into the CMO's Report...
IG: We have to be very careful we don't say it's the cause of something.
CS: Yeah, but I think you are over cautious, there, and you know, we've
struggled to get these people industrial injury benefits and it really is a
struggle and that statement is not going to be helpful...
Suzy Chapman
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