“Justina’s Law” Seeks to End Experimental Medical Research on Children Seized by Child Protection Services

This is nuts. BCH was stopping most of the treatments that Justina had been getting, because they weren't working and were likely causing harm. Justina had been subjected to a cocktail of medications, including some that cause constipation, and after developing intractable constipation, had then had surgery to install an abdominal access to her colon, which was being flushed with saline every day.

And her condition was getting worse. She was no longer strong enough to walk to the lunchroom at school, so a friend stayed with her in a classroom to eat lunch with her every day. Then she was rushed to BCH by ambulance in a snowstorm. When BCH indicated they thought she was being overtreated for a condition which nobody (including the doctor at Tufts who tentatively diagnosed it) was really sure she had, her parents flipped out, causing social workers to get a court order to keep her in the hospital. Then the parents (mainly the father) started a media campaign, claiming that Justina had been doing great, figure skating regularly (they showed a single old photo as "proof"), and was now deteriorating rapidly under BCH's care. They insisted she had to be transferred to Tufts, where she'd previously been treated.

An important point that never seemed to get much ink, but was reported by the Boston Globe, was that a couple of years earlier, TUFTS filed a complaint against the parents with Connecticut child protective services (since Justina was living in Connecticut with her parents), because they were refusing to cooperate with TUFTS' treatment recommendations, including the recommendation to have Justina get psychological counseling. During that investigation, at least one doctor outside of Tufts, a pediatrician, reported that the parents had been extremely difficult to deal with and had been "doctor shopping". The investigation was apparently concluded, after the parents agreed to get Justina to counseling (though it's not clear if they ever actually did, or only did so briefly to get CPS off their backs).

So two major hospitals filed complaints about these parents' handling of their daughter's medical needs, with CPS in two different states. When the parents were demanding that Massachusetts return her to Connecticut, the Massachusetts court contacted Connecticut CPS to see if they were willing to have the case handed over to them, so Justina could be returned to Connecticut, and they declined. Remember, they already had a file on her and her parents, so whatever was in there convinced them that it was just fine that Justina was being held in state custody in Massachusetts, and confined to a hospital there).

There are a lot of signs of Munchausen's-by-proxy in this case, and the father is a belligerent jerk. When BCH tried to move Justina out of the hospital to a group home setting, since she'd gotten healthy enough that she didn't need to be in a hospital setting anymore, the father immediately had his flunkies start picketing the group home and threatened to sue the facility if Justina was sent there. So the facility retracted its offer to take her, and after the father's behavior, no other non-hospital facility was willing to take her. So then the father resumed his media campaign about how BCH was refusing to let her leave the hospital, and she was getting sicker every day, and was probably going to die soon if she wasn't sent back to live with her family!

/r/Conservative Thread Link - healthimpactnews.com