Family Rights and Child Abuse News

Police: Texas mom shaved toddler's head and starved infant, collected $2K by pretending her children were sick

by Leigh Egan

Police say a Texas woman starved her then 4-month-old daughter and fooled people into believing that the baby had a rare disease in order to make a profit.

Dallas News reports that Katelyn Christina Carnline, 28, of Milano, Texas, raised a little over $2,000 on the fundraising website, You Caring, from unsuspecting donors, while depriving her baby girl of food and shaving her toddler son's head in order to make them appear sick.

crimeonline.com

June 9, 2017

Family Spots Miracle Baby's Rare Eye Cancer In Photos

An infant in UK has been diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer that was first suspected after the baby's family noticed an oddity in its pictures. The baby was diagnosed with retinoblastoma.

A 7-month-old baby in the U.K. has been diagnosed with a rare form of eye cancer that was first spotted in family photographs. Parents of Newcastle baby girl Frankie-Leigh Hendry were told earlier this month that their infant has retinoblastoma, a rare cancer, which is also the most common type of eye cancer in children. The condition is often detected in infancy when a parent notices something abnormal about a child's eye in a photograph taken with flash. In Frankie's case, a family member pointed out the oddity to the baby's mother, Megan Athey, in the pictures she took. A web search later hinted it could be a cancer, later diagnosed as retinoblastoma. A few hundred children in the United States are diagnosed with this form of cancer every year.

inquisitr.com

June 4, 2017

Seven children in protective custody in Santa Cruz County child-sex case with neurosurgeon, nurses

by Michael Todd

The relationship between former Santa Cruz neurosurgeon James Kohut, and nurses Emily Stephens and Rashel Brandon is becoming clear: the trio allegedly worked together to force children into sexual acts, such as sodomy, oral copulation and intercourse.

On May 9, a Watsonville resident gave police a video, shot in March, of the two nurses having sex with children as young as 3 years old in a Scotts Valley motel. The evidence triggered allegations that Kohut also had forced girls and boys to have sex with him multiple times since Jan. 1, 2016, according to court documents.

mercurynews.com

May 22, 2017

Justina Pelletier: Child Protective Services and Medical Child Abuse

by Gina Putt

Is medical child abuse essentially different than physical abuse, sexual abuse or neglect? The case of Justina Pelletier, a teenager with a mysterious medical history who was hospitalized and subsequently placed in protective custody.

The doctors at Boston Children's Hospital rejected her existing diagnosis, and diagnosed her as having a psychosomatic illness instead - that's an illness in which symptoms come from your mind, rather than an underlying disease process. The Department of Children and Family became involved when the parents disagreed with the new diagnosis. Justina spent nearly a year in a state psychiatric hospital, then went to a group home before being returned to her family.

decodedscience.org

May 22, 2017

Texas House votes to bar vaccinations of new foster children, even to prevent cancer

by Robert T. Garrett

House members voted Wednesday to bar doctors from vaccinating new foster children, even against cervical cancer and head and neck cancers caused by the human papillomavirus, or HPV.

The ban was part of an ongoing push in the name of parents' rights by members of the House Freedom Caucus, a dozen GOP rebels who left their mark on a broadly popular bill that would prod Child Protective Services to make a variety of improvements.

dallasnews.com

May 22, 2017