The Glade 4.0

If you understood Occam's Razor, then you would know enough about bureaucratic systems and the state of DCS in Massachusetts to know that most of this entire situation is purely procedural from the point a mandatory first-reporter suspected abuse, as RangerDave said.

_________________

Bonus points if you can tell me which parent she would have inherited the disease from.

_________________
The Dude abides.

Her mother, as all mitochondrial DNA is maternally inherited.

_________________

There are so many things wrong with your logic here, I'm not sure where to start.

There's nothing wrong with my logic; a large bureaucratic system following the policies and procedures of that bureaucratic system is procedural, TheRiov.

A mandatory first-reporter initiated the situation by reporting suspected abuse(s) to the Department of Child Services. At that point, the procedure takes over, including even the initial removal of the child from the parents' custody, especially as the abuse was related to medical care, either through negligence or Medical Child Abuse. The flawed logic here, incidentally, is yours. You think a whole lot of people have to be complicit in this enterprise for it to be the wrong decision; that's not the case at all.

But then, you're the one making more assumptions than the rest of us.

_________________

No, a lot of people don't need to be complicit for the initial removal, but a lot sure do need to be so to keep the girl on a useless and/or detrimental psychological treatment regimen for over a year.

Complicit as in "I want to keep my job - this situation sucks for them but its not worth making my life inconvenient over".

That is most people in most aspects of life.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

My ex- was the GAL for 4 counties, I dated a social worker who worked for CPS, and my wife is a child psychologist. All of them have children of their own. Courts nearly always err on the side of not taking kids out of homes, to the point where sometimes it costs children their lives because they don't act fast enough. At least in Kentucky & Ohio there are multiple checks to prevent exactly the things you're alleging.

The job is a high-burnout, high stress and emotionally taxing--people who work in these professions do it because they believe in protecting children. I've know of a number of cases where they failed to act, but never even heard of a case where not one, but multiple people acted maliciously.

What power do the doctors have to compel the judges? What power do the CPS people have to compel the doctors or nurses or other health care people? What power do the doctors have to compel CPS?

You're inventing these threads of authority that don't exist.

/high-five

_________________
The Dude abides.

You keep inserting the element of malice, but I don't believe that's what most folks here are alleging. Rather, what I think most of us are saying is that once the first reporter flags a case, the machinery of the state kicks in and much of what happens from that point forward occurs on auto-pilot. It's like the criminal justice system - once an initial arrest puts you in the system, it requires a great deal of effort to get out. It's the same with any large bureaucracy - try convincing your home insurance carrier to cover something once the initial adjuster rejects your claim.


And you don't think that biases them toward a presumption of abuse once an initial report is made?


Again, it doesn't require a thread of formal authority, just bureaucratic auto-pilot and a good-faith, but nonetheless biasing, desire to protect kids.

Let me preface this by letting you all know that I spent a half day a week for 15 years in a Muscular Dystrophy clinic. Many of the syndromes I helped treat were later found to be Mitochondrial Disorders. I am by no means an expert in this. I leave that title to the doctors who spent their entire career researching and treating these disorders.

Mitochondrial Disorders are varied. There are at least 40 different ones known now. They express themselves in varied ways, with some people having severe symptoms, and their siblings having little to no symptoms. These are a complex and difficult group of disorders.

This is a short discussion:

This is a longer lecture:

Except for the name of Mitochondrial Disorder, doctors are not taught this in medical school. Only physicians who specialize in this really learn about it, and the knowledge base is growing and changing at a breakneck speed.

(Will leave my view of how this situation could have developed to another post.)

_________________
Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

Her Mitochondrial Disorder diagnosis was made by a specialist at Tuft's Medical Center in Boston.

I was able to do this, but it wasn't easy and USAA isn't a normal insurance company...

There is a wonderful children's book called The Phantom Tollbooth.


This may be what happened: an inexperienced Doctor did not know about Mitochondrial Disorders. The situation was odd. S/he is required by law to report anything even remotely suspicious. CPS gets the report and a stressed and overworked caseworker goes out to investigate. The caseworker asked the Doctor what was going on, and the Doctor said everything sounds odd, and s/he has never heard about the reported illness. Or maybe the Doc looked up one of the more common Mitochondrial Disorders, and the patient's symptoms did not match that one. So the child/patient is taken away from the parents.

At this point the case-child may have been passed from person to person. Each person assumed the first caseworker got all of the pertinent information, so the overworked caseworker just continues what was started.

By now, CPS, the State, and the Judge can not back down even if they now understand what really happened.

I saw this scenario repeatedly with the disorder, Osteogenisis Imperfecta. (Disorder of bone formation, which leads to frequent fractures/broken bones.)

_________________
Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

I can see how that scenario MIGHT have occurred, but by the time the case went to court (multiple times) SOMEONE would have re-evaluated the steps along the line and verified the information.

Tufts is on my short list of places to send a patient to diagnose what is going on. I would certainly go with the diagnosis provided from a Doctor at Tufts, than an inexperienced Physician.

None of the Doctors and Hospital are allowed to talk about this patient because of patient privacy issues/HIPAA.

_________________
Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

Inertia is a powerful thing. I have personally seen the opposite in my patients.

Not to knock CPS, honestly. It is a terribly stressful and difficult job, and one mistake can cost a life.

_________________
Memento Vivere

I have local knowledge.
That sandbar was not there yesterday!

Cool thanks for clearing it up. I have no reason to doubt the Tuft's center's expertise on the subject I was simply basing my opinion on the story provided by the op

_________________

I reiterate: Go in with guns and hang people.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

How do you hang people with guns? I think you meant rope.

_________________

Probably, I agree. But we're not reading about this story because it happens all the time. If it's never caught, and this happens all the time, there would be mass outrage and it would have been fixed. In order for rare events to occur, you have to do away with assumptions over "what should have happened" "what typically happens" and so on. If it fit that mold, there would be no story.

The only real assumption I'm making here is that there is not enough data to form an opinion.

You're not going to get 'enough data' because of confidentiality issues, but I'm unwilling to condemn the situation (or initiate armed action and commit multiple murders) with insufficient data. My person experience with individuals who work in these fields, my own personal experiences with the courts, my experience as a parent all lead me to give them the benefit of the doubt in this case.

I find it interesting that this is your answer to basically everything.

I note you didn't say you disagree in this instance.

_________________
"...but there exists also in the human heart a depraved taste for equality, which impels the weak to attempt to lower the powerful to their own level and reduces men to prefer equality in slavery to inequality with freedom." - De Tocqueville

Unfortunately it's only effective until more numerous people with bigger guns come and take her back, not to mention all the people below decision making level who loose their lives in the process.

At least if they take you alive they will give you a courtesy of a trial before they execute you

_________________
I prefer to think of them as "Fighting evil in another dimension"