PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley initially brought attention to the issue with his August report “The Cost of Misdiagnosis,” which criticized doctors for what it alleges were rushed medical decisions that did not take into account children’s complicated medical history — decisions that led to unsubstantiated reports of medical child abuse and to children being taken from homes by Children & Youth. The report does not name doctors nor health systems, but Lehigh Valley Health Network’s John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center is the only child protection unit in the region. After the report’s release, families who said they were affected by the misdiagnoses went before government officials in both Lehigh and Northampton counties to explain their stories and concerns. Lehigh Valley Health Network also replaced the doctor at the heart of the allegations, Debra Esernio-Jenssen, as the head of the CAC after a roughly year-long search. She continues to provide care part time in other network locations, LVHN previously said. Among the criticisms, families have said, the CAC under Esernio-Jenssen dispensed unjust medical help. Children were removed from their parents, and families have never been the same, they said. Some speakers referred to it as “medical kidnapping.”
STORY: "Families call on Lehigh County to investigate child abuse misdiagnoses." published by The Morning Call (Reporter Grayson Golter), on September 28, 2023. (Graysen Golter covers general news in Lehigh County. He is from McKinney, Texas, and graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a journalism degree in 2020. Previously reporting and photographing for the Port Aransas South Jetty in Port Aransas, Texas, Golter also has interned for 60 Minutes in New York City and KXAN News in Austin, TX.(
SUB-HEADING: "Families call on Lehigh County commissioners to do more regarding child abuse misdiagnoses."
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GIST: "Over a month after highlighting the plight of Lehigh Valley families being torn apart due to child abuse misdiagnoses, those families returned to the Lehigh County Board of Commissioners on Wednesday to say the county still hasn’t done enough.
“We are still waiting for true leaders to step forward,” said Willow Feeney, 19, of Hellertown, who has said she was removed from her home after her parents were wrongfully accused of abuse. “While you might not have known before, you do now … and what we need is for a leader to step forward and say this will not happen in this county any longer.”
The families also were critical of the commissioners’ choice to replace retiring Children & Youth Director Paul Griffin with an internal candidate, Heather Reed. Kim Steltz, who co-founded the nonprofit Parents’ Medical Rights Group, called the appointment “same old, same old” due to Reed’s being present throughout the false accusations.
While the county Governance Committee unanimously recommended Reed earlier Wednesday, the Board of Commissioners still needs to formally appoint her at its next meeting.
Lehigh County Controller Mark Pinsley initially brought attention to the issue with his August report “The Cost of Misdiagnosis,” which criticized doctors for what it alleges were rushed medical decisions that did not take into account children’s complicated medical history — decisions that led to unsubstantiated reports of medical child abuse and to children being taken from homes by Children & Youth.
The report does not name doctors nor health systems, but Lehigh Valley Health Network’s John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center is the only child protection unit in the region.
After the report’s release, families who said they were affected by the misdiagnoses went before government officials in both Lehigh and Northampton counties to explain their stories and concerns.
Lehigh Valley Health Network also replaced the doctor at the heart of the allegations, Debra Esernio-Jenssen, as the head of the CAC after a roughly year-long search. She continues to provide care part time in other network locations, LVHN previously said.
Among the criticisms, families have said, the CAC under Esernio-Jenssen dispensed unjust medical help. Children were removed from their parents, and families have never been the same, they said. Some speakers referred to it as “medical kidnapping.”
On Wednesday, commissioners Chair Geoff Brace said he is still waiting to learn from the county’s legal department how much commissioners can influence the operations of Children and Youth Services regarding investigations into potential child abuse, hoping to share that information with the public at the next meeting.
Pinsley said the commissioners could at least call for an investigation into the problems brought to light by families, adding that despite Esernio-Jenssen’s departure from the CAC, a patient claimed she has already attempted to remove a child from their family just over a week ago.
“So far, you have worked in a bipartisan manner to do nothing,” Pinsley said. “I’m hoping you’ll work in a bipartisan manner to actually accomplish something.”
He also disputed criticism from commissioners Ron Beitler and Jeffrey Dutt, saying that he didn’t sit on the information for the most opportune moment.
Over a dozen people held a protest over the misdiagnoses Wednesday afternoon in front of the Lehigh County Government Center; nine residents later went before the board and similarly called on commissioners to act.
“You have a contract with this hospital, you are paying for this to happen to families … you need to stop it,” Alyx Hatton of Macungie said.
“This is not a game,” said Steltz, of Emmaus. “Families and children are not a campaign and they’re not politics. This is my family, and it’s their family, and it’s your family. But most importantly, it is the families that this has not yet happened to.”
Steltz’s son, 14-year-old Sebastian, told commissioners about his experiences with LVHN and CYS, explaining that they “medically kidnapped” him, isolated him from his family for five days, made him sick by taking away his medication, and gave him a lasting fear that authorities will take him away again.
“I had a normal life before any of this happened,” he said. “I will never be the same after what has happened to me.""
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.mcall.com/2023/09/28/families-call-on-lehigh-county-commissioners-to-do-more-regarding-child-abuse-misdiagnoses/
SEE BREAKDOWN OF SOME OF THE ON-GOING INTERNATIONAL CASES (OUTSIDE OF THE CONTINENTAL USA) THAT I AM FOLLOWING ON THIS BLOG, AT THE LINK BELOW: HL
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/47049136857587929
FINAL WORD: (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases): "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices.
Lawyer Radha Natarajan;
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
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FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions. They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they've exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;
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YET ANOTHER FINAL WORD:
David Hammond, one of Broadwater’s attorneys who sought his exoneration, told the Syracuse Post-Standard, “Sprinkle some junk science onto a faulty identification, and it’s the perfect recipe for a wrongful conviction.”
https://deadline.com/2021/11/alice-sebold-lucky-rape-conviction-overturned-anthony-broadwater-1234880143/
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