He added that he intends to release a report in February that will expand and follow-up on the findings from his misdiagnosis report.
The original report stated that the Northeast region of Pennsylvania, which includes Lehigh and Northampton counties, accounted for 40% of the state’s Munchausen syndrome by proxy cases in 2017-21, despite having 11% of the under-18 population. The 40% figure is equivalent to 10 cases.
Pinsley originally called for multiple reforms to these issues, including requiring a second opinion when considering removing a child from their family because of alleged child abuse.
He said it’s disappointing for the county to have taken so long to act on his report and recommendations, but remained hopeful that a new Board of Commissioners would take action."
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PHOTO CAPTION: "Mark Pinsley, Lehigh County controller, speaks about his investigation that has uncovered evidence of an abnormally high number of medical child abuse diagnoses in the Northeast region of Pennsylvania that impact Lehigh County costs Wednesday, Aug. 23, 2023, at Lehigh County Government Center in Allentown.
GIST: "The Lehigh County controller’s calls five months ago for widespread reform in the child welfare system have been met with reticence from county leaders, continued criticism from advocates and disagreements among officials.
While Lehigh County commissioners agreed to have their Human Services Committee take up the issue, recommendations from that committee have yet to be considered by the full board amid threats of lawsuits from parents who say they were wrongfully accused of child abuse, county officials said.
The report also led to infighting among county officials, with Controller Mark Pinsley, the report’s author, accusing the county executive and commissioners of threatening to cut his department’s budget in retaliation.
When asked this month about the status of the committee’s investigation and who would be leading it, General Services Director Rick Molchany said, “We have no comment at this time. The entire ‘opinion’ from the county controller is being discussed and we’ll determine a response in due time.”
Pinsley’s August report, “The Cost of Misdiagnosis,” criticized doctors for what it alleges were rushed medical decisions that led to unsubstantiated reports of medical child abuse and to children being taken from homes by child welfare workers in both Lehigh and Northampton counties.
While not specifically named in the report, families who appeared with Pinsley all pointed to one doctor in question: Debra Esernio-Jenssen, then-head of the Lehigh Valley Health Network’s John Van Brakle Child Advocacy Center, the only child advocacy center in the region and one of more than 40 in the state. While defending Esernio-Jenssen’s work, LVHN would later go on to replace her with Dr. Sarah Kleinle after what the network said was a yearlong search.
After the report’s release, the health network defended the center’s work. Representatives for LVHN didn’t respond to a request for additional comment for this story.
Lehigh County’s response
During a recent interview, former Lehigh County Commissioner Bob Elbich, who chaired the Human Services Committee before his term ended in December, said the group identified potential improvements for the county to consider, such as having the National Children’s Alliance certify the CAC for quality control and independently reviewing any medical assessments.
However, discussions came to a halt after the Lehigh Valley-based Parents Medical Rights Group, which worked with Pinsley on the report, announced potential litigation against the county and LVHN.
So far, two lawsuits have been filed, both this week, naming LVHN, Esernio-Jenssen and Northampton County, alleging their children were removed from care after the parents were wrongly accused of abuse.
Elbich, who did not seek reelection, said the county hasn’t yet implemented any improvements but he hopes the work continues into the new year with th new board of commissioners.
Commissioner April Riddick, the new chair of the Human Services Committee, said she wants to research more about how the county can address the concerns residents posed last year regarding child abuse misdiagnoses.
Elbich also criticized coverage of the issue of child abuse misdiagnoses in the region, noting that the misdiagnosis report from Pinsley, the county’s financial watchdog, didn’t highlight specific costs resulting from any misdiagnoses. He also said there wasn’t any evidence of misdiagnoses.
“Use of that term, I think, is … not appropriate in terms of trying to come to solutions that are improvements and helpful to the system, unfortunately,” he said. “It all became emotional.”
Pinsley responded that he intended to show the potential for high costs because of the number of Munchausen syndrome by proxy cases in the region. Munchausen syndrome by proxy is when a child’s caretaker makes up fake symptoms or causes real symptoms so the child will seem sick.
He added that he intends to release a report in February that will expand and follow-up on the findings from his misdiagnosis report.
The original report stated that the Northeast region of Pennsylvania, which includes Lehigh and Northampton counties, accounted for 40% of the state’s Munchausen syndrome by proxy cases in 2017-21, despite having 11% of the under-18 population. The 40% figure is equivalent to 10 cases.
Pinsley originally called for multiple reforms to these issues, including requiring a second opinion when considering removing a child from their family because of alleged child abuse.
He said it’s disappointing for the county to have taken so long to act on his report and recommendations, but remained hopeful that a new Board of Commissioners would take action.
Conflict in the county
Since the misdiagnosis report was introduced in August, Pinsley said, it has resulted not in policy changes but in intimidation and retaliation from other officials.
Documents that Pinsley provided to The Morning Call show that the report immediately garnered criticism from some county leaders.
For instance, the office of Lehigh County Solicitor David Backenstoe sent a memo to Pinsley on Aug. 16, before the report was released, warning that it could open Pinsley’s office to personal liability if the report contained false statements.
When asked about those correspondences and whether anyone from the county could be liable for Pinsley’s report, Backenstoe said he couldn’t comment.
Also Aug. 16, one of Pinsley’s staffers learned that two positions were being cut from the controller’s office for the 2024 budget, Pinsley said.
Because of the legal concerns and the budget cuts, Pinsley canceled a news conference in which he planned to announce the report. He waited until the 2024 budget had gone to print Aug. 23 — with his budget intact — before releasing the report to the public.
During a Board of Commissioners meeting Nov. 8, Pinsley accused county Executive Phillips Armstrong of orchestrating the budgetary change. He also accused Commissioner Jeffrey Dutt of working to prevent those positions from being reinstated at the delegation of board Chair Geoff Brace while he was on vacation.
Dutt denied retaliating against Pinsley and said during that meeting he “did hear about the positions but acted nothing on it.” He later clarified that he only heard a rumor about the positions, but affirmed that he didn’t discuss or take action on them.
Brace also denied those claims.
“The fact that we didn’t reduce your staffing budget, I think, is indicative of the board’s position,” Brace told Pinsley.
Pinsley also accused Armstrong of retaliation by not allowing his office to hire independent counsel, which is allowed under county rules.
Armstrong denied Pinsley’s claims, explaining that the county considers all departments for potential ways to save costs and ultimately decided it could afford to not make cuts to Pinsley’s staffing.
“There was nobody that was singled out any more than any other department,” Armstrong said.
Armstrong also said he vetoed the budget amendment for independent counsel because the controller’s legal budget already had the funds needed for it. He added that he had already signed off on Pinsley’s hiring attorney Matthew Mobilio as the controller office’s solicitor.
Mobilio also serves as Pinsley’s personal attorney in a lawsuit against the Lehigh County Republican Committee for claims it made during the 2023 election, in which Pinsley, a Democrat, won a second term.
Pinsley said he was “very happy that there’s three new commissioners coming in,” but difficulties remain for him with Armstrong, Brace and Dutt.
“We’ll have to figure out how to go forward,” he said.
Dutt said he didn’t feel he has a bad relationship with Pinsley, adding that they haven’t interacted very often since Dutt entered office.
Pinsley’s report was met with similar pushback in Northampton County, where he had also called for changes.
In December, Northampton County Human Services Director Sue Wandalowski accused Pinsley of potentially endangering children with his report, which she said contained misconceptions of how child abuse cases are investigated and how children can actually be separated from families.
“Inciting families to distrust the status determination process based on incorrect assumptions has the potential to lead more families to refuse to cooperate with investigations, participate in family engagement, and accept services designed to keep families together,” she said. “It makes the necessary work of the CPS workers even more difficult as they strive to keep children safe.""
The entire story can be read at:
https://www.mcall.com/2024/01/28/its-been-five-months-since-child-abuse-misdiagnosis-report-was-released-whats-happened-since-then/PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue/resource. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic" section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com. Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog; |
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-12348801
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