Medical Kidnapping in the U.S. – Kidnapping Children for Drug Trials

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War Crimes Tribunal at Nuremberg. Adolf Hitler’s personal physician, 43-year old Karl Brandt. Brandt was also Reich Commissar for Health and Sanitation, and was indicted by the U.S. prosecution with 22 other Nazi doctors. Brandt was found guilty of participating in and consenting to using concentration camp inmates as guinea pigs in horrible medical experiments, supposedly for the benefit of the armed forces. He was sentenced to death by hanging. Image Source.

War Crimes Tri­bunal at Nurem­berg. Adolf Hitler’s per­son­al physi­cian, 43-year old Karl Brandt. Brandt was also Reich Com­mis­sar for Health and San­i­ta­tion, and was indict­ed by the U.S. pros­e­cu­tion with 22 oth­er Nazi doc­tors. Brandt was found guilty of par­tic­i­pat­ing in and con­sent­ing to using con­cen­tra­tion camp inmates as guinea pigs in hor­ri­ble med­ical exper­i­ments, sup­pos­ed­ly for the ben­e­fit of the armed forces. He was sen­tenced to death by hang­ing. Image Source.

The U.S. fed­er­al gov­ern­ment has man­dat­ed drug research with chil­dren. The need for chil­dren to par­tic­i­pate in drug com­pa­ny research is high, and the temp­ta­tion to over­step parental rights to force chil­dren to par­tic­i­pate is great. Researchers pub­licly admit using mon­ey and oth­er rewards to obtain par­tic­i­pa­tion of chil­dren in their drug trials.

Orga­ni­za­tions that advo­cate for the rights of par­ents to make deci­sions regard­ing their children’s health­care are find­ing that fos­ter chil­dren in CPS cus­tody are being enrolled in drug exper­i­ments with­out parental approval. State Child Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices are enrolling chil­dren in drug exper­i­ments with­out parental approval or court orders. How­ev­er, those who con­duct these drug exper­i­ments for phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies, and those who are charged with mon­i­tor­ing such research, do not see a prob­lem with their recruit­ment methods.

There is a Shortage of Children for Drug Research Studies

Kayla and Hannah Diegel suffer from a rare form of mitochondrial disease, and were removed from the custody of their parents in 2014 for allegedly disagreeing with their doctors. Are they a subject of a drug trial? Original Story.

Kay­la and Han­nah Diegel suf­fer from a rare form of mito­chon­dr­i­al dis­ease, and were removed from the cus­tody of their par­ents in 2014 for alleged­ly dis­agree­ing with their doc­tors. Are they a sub­ject of a drug tri­al? Orig­i­nal Sto­ry.

In a 2011 arti­cle in the Jour­nal Pedi­atrics, researchers dis­cussed the prob­lem of recruit­ing chil­dren for par­tic­i­pa­tion in clin­i­cal tri­als for drug test­ing. Researchers from Ohio State Uni­ver­si­ty (Colum­bus) and Case West­ern Reserve Uni­ver­si­ty, con­firm that the US fed­er­al gov­ern­ment is man­dat­ing that chil­dren be includ­ed in clin­i­cal research studies.

Dr. Tish­ler, PhD, and Dr. Staats Reiss, PhD stated:

Since 1994, fed­er­al guide­lines have called for the inclu­sion of chil­dren in clin­i­cal stud­ies. Relat­ed fed­er­al incen­tives and laws such as the “pedi­atric rule” (the Pedi­atric Research Equi­ty Act) and the pedi­atric exclu­siv­i­ty pro­vi­sion have also been passed to increase the num­ber of pedi­atric clin­i­cal tri­als launched by phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal com­pa­nies. Despite these man­dates, the allo­ca­tions to pedi­atric clin­i­cal tri­als in fed­er­al and pri­vate research and devel­op­ment bud­gets have remained lim­it­ed. In addi­tion, pedi­atric researchers con­tin­ue to expe­ri­ence dif­fi­cul­ty locat­ing chil­dren and fam­i­lies who are will­ing to enroll in clin­i­cal trials.

Recruit­ment for pedi­atric stud­ies is ham­pered by sev­er­al fac­tors includ­ing eth­i­cal con­cerns with using chil­dren as sub­jects, reg­u­la­to­ry over­sight that is sig­nif­i­cant­ly more restric­tive for child tri­als than for adult tri­als, a lack of research infra­struc­ture, the need to obtain con­sent from par­ents, and the chal­lenge of deter­min­ing appro­pri­ate pay­ments for par­tic­i­pa­tion that are not coer­cive. [1]

These researchers were strug­gling with eth­i­cal con­sid­er­a­tions con­cern­ing the use of mon­ey to entice par­ents to enroll their chil­dren in research stud­ies. These researchers didn’t think that par­ents should see the enroll­ment of their chil­dren in drug exper­i­ments as a mon­ey-mak­ing propo­si­tion. On the oth­er hand, they real­ized that mon­ey and gifts were very use­ful for bring­ing more chil­dren into phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal drug research.

They also not­ed that the num­ber of pedi­atric research par­tic­i­pants has been increas­ing. In 2006, they found that there were approx­i­mate­ly 45,000 chil­dren par­tic­i­pat­ing in exper­i­ments. There has also been an increase in the num­ber of Phase I stud­ies with nor­mal healthy chil­dren. In their review, only 9,817 of the 39,628 stud­ies list­ed on ClinicalTrials.gov includ­ed children.

The researchers indi­cat­ed that one of the most press­ing chal­lenges in doing pedi­atric clin­i­cal research is the lim­it­ed num­ber of par­tic­i­pants. Researchers often must net­work across sites or coun­tries to gain ade­quate num­bers of par­tic­i­pants. They often must expend sig­nif­i­cant ener­gy and resources locat­ing poten­tial subjects.

Dr. Tish­ler, and Dr. Staats Reiss dis­cussed how mon­ey is often giv­en in exchange for vol­un­tary par­tic­i­pa­tion. They stated:

One review of the Centerwatch.com clin­i­cal tri­als list­ing ser­vice pub­lished in 2002 revealed that near­ly 25% of pedi­atric tri­als offered pay­ments to par­tic­i­pants that ranged from $25 for an inves­ti­ga­tion of influen­za med­ica­tions to $1500 for a pso­ri­a­sis-med­ica­tion study. In anoth­er study, [researchers] sent sur­veys to the IRB chairs [insti­tu­tion­al review boards] at mem­ber insti­tu­tions of the Nation­al Asso­ci­a­tion of Children’s Hos­pi­tals and the Office for Pro­tec­tion From Research Risks.

Six­ty-six per­cent of these insti­tu­tions used paid par­tic­i­pants, and there was wide vari­a­tion in pay­ment prac­tices across the sites (rang­ing from $1 to $1000 in cash and $500 in sav­ings bonds). Many of the insti­tu­tions in the Weise et al study (42%) used a com­bi­na­tion of incen­tives and/or pay­ments for both the chil­dren and par­ents. [2]

CPS Violates Parental Consent and Freedom of Speech

Isaiah Rider suffers from a rare condition called neurofibromatosis. When his mother took him to a hospital in Chicago that specializes in his condition, they ended up taking custody of him over the objections of his mother. Is Isaiah part of a drug trial? More on Isaiah Rider.

Isa­iah Rid­er suf­fers from a rare con­di­tion called neu­rofi­bro­mato­sis. When his moth­er took him to a hos­pi­tal in Chica­go that spe­cial­izes in his con­di­tion, they end­ed up tak­ing cus­tody of him over the objec­tions of his moth­er. Is Isa­iah part of a drug tri­al? More on Isa­iah Rid­er.

There are two fac­tors that nor­mal­ly lim­it child par­tic­i­pa­tion in med­ical and drug com­pa­ny research. The first is the require­ment for parental con­sent. Chil­dren nor­mal­ly can­not par­tic­i­pate unless a par­ent gives writ­ten con­sent. The sec­ond is the nor­mal right that peo­ple have to pub­li­cal­ly speak out in sit­u­a­tions where par­ents and their chil­dren are being coerced and com­pelled to par­tic­i­pate in drug com­pa­ny experiments.

We would expect that these two con­strain­ing fac­tors would keep chil­dren safe from becom­ing unwill­ing par­tic­i­pants in drug research. How­ev­er, there are sit­u­a­tions in which state agen­cies are able to avoid both of these con­straints and force chil­dren to become human guinea pigs.

The net­work of state oper­at­ed child pro­tec­tive ser­vice agen­cies (CPS) rou­tine­ly cir­cum­vent the rights of par­ents and chil­dren, and give per­mis­sion for physicians/researchers to force chil­dren to par­tic­i­pate in drug com­pa­ny experiments.

Chil­dren who are in the fos­ter care sys­tem and who are under the con­trol of Child Pro­tec­tive Ser­vices are eas­i­ly tar­get­ed for invol­un­tary inclu­sion in drug exper­i­men­ta­tion. Ide­al­ly, even if chil­dren are under CPS con­trol, their nat­ur­al par­ents should retain the right to give con­sent for med­ical treat­ment for their chil­dren whether it is rou­tine or experimental.

In prac­tice, how­ev­er, once CPS steps into a family’s pri­vate life and takes chil­dren out of the home and places them in fos­ter care, then parental over­sight regard­ing the health­care of their chil­dren is rou­tine­ly vio­lat­ed. Because these cas­es are involved in State Juve­nile or Fam­i­ly Courts (as opposed to Civ­il Courts), records are sealed and kept secret, sup­pos­ed­ly to pro­tect the children.

CPS Collects Federal Funds for Trafficking Children

Tonya Brown with Adopted Son Christopher, who had a rare form of Leukemia. Doctors and CPS took Christopher away when she disagreed with the doctors over his treatment.Story here.

Tonya Brown with Adopt­ed Son Christo­pher, who had a rare form of Leukemia. Doc­tors and CPS took Christo­pher away when she dis­agreed with the doc­tors over his treat­ment. Sto­ry here.

There is mon­ey to be made and lots of it! When­ev­er a child enters state CPS con­trol, fed­er­al fund­ing flows into that state. It is in the best inter­est of state bud­gets to bring chil­dren into the CPS sys­tem and to keep them there as long as pos­si­ble. States have a large incen­tive to take chil­dren and sev­er parental rights and put chil­dren up for adop­tion. Adop­tion brings even greater mon­ey into state bud­gets. The flow of mon­ey into CPS bud­gets helps main­tain the jobs of CPS workers.

The Alliance for Human Research Pro­tec­tion tes­ti­fied to the U.S. Con­gress about the flow of mon­ey into state bud­gets. They reported:

In 2004, the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment pro­vid­ed more than $7 bil­lion in ded­i­cat­ed funds for child pro­tec­tion. The bulk of these funds (almost $5 bil­lion) sup­port­ed chil­dren who had been removed from their homes. [3, 4]

In 2007 Joseph Doyle, an eco­nom­ics pro­fes­sor at MIT’s Sloan School of Man­age­ment, pub­lished a study which tracked at least 15,000 kids in fos­ter care from 1990 to 2002. It was the largest study of its kind at that time.

Although fos­ter care is meant to be a tem­po­rary arrange­ment, chil­dren stay in care for an aver­age of two years, and there are cur­rent­ly over 500,000 chil­dren in care (US  Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices 2005). Rough­ly 60 per­cent of fos­ter chil­dren return home; 15 per­cent are adopt­ed; and the remain­der “age out” of fos­ter care (Fred C. Wul­czyn, Kris­ten Brun­ner His­lop, and Robert M. Goerge 2000). Three quar­ters of these chil­dren live with sub­sti­tute fam­i­lies, one-third of which are head­ed by rel­a­tives of the chil­dren. These fam­i­lies are paid a sub­sidy of approx­i­mate­ly $400 per month per child (Child Wel­fare League of Amer­i­ca 1999), and states spend over $20 bil­lion each year to admin­is­ter these child pro­tec­tive ser­vices (Roseana Bess et al. 2002). [5]

CPS and Medical Kidnapping

Chaunell Smith was taken away from her family by CPS after her mother questioned her treatment. Was her custody battle an attempt to cover up medical malpractice? Story here.

Chaunell Smith was tak­en away from her fam­i­ly by CPS after her moth­er ques­tioned her treat­ment. Was her cus­tody bat­tle an attempt to cov­er up med­ical mal­prac­tice? Sto­ry here.

CPS takes con­trol over all aspects of the lives of chil­dren. CPS sev­ers con­tact between par­ents and their chil­dren when par­ents don’t do what CPS demands, and will give per­mis­sion for fos­ter chil­dren to par­tic­i­pate in drug exper­i­ments. This is done even when the drug tri­als may be life-threat­en­ing. This is done, so it is said, to pro­tect the chil­dren, but such “pro­tec­tion” destroys the fam­i­ly unit, trau­ma­tizes chil­dren, and fre­quent­ly results in per­ma­nent harm to children.

The process that results in CPS seiz­ing chil­dren and plac­ing them in fos­ter care begins with alle­ga­tions of parental neglect or harm against their chil­dren. It is not unusu­al to find that such alle­ga­tions are with­out truth. Even so, CPS and the fam­i­ly court sys­tem may refuse to return chil­dren to their par­ents. Some­times, after many months or even years, chil­dren are returned after the exper­i­men­ta­tion is com­plete. But in many oth­er sit­u­a­tions, chil­dren are sim­ply put out for adop­tion. In these cas­es, unproven alle­ga­tions against par­ents can result in per­ma­nent loss of chil­dren with­out any oppor­tu­ni­ty for future con­tact. [6]

Par­ents, who have done noth­ing wrong, find them­selves with­out their chil­dren, and they have no recourse to get them back once they are adopt­ed by others.

CPS Does Not Help Families, But Destroys Them

The lofty goal that CPS once had many decades ago to strength­en dys­func­tion­al fam­i­lies and restore chil­dren to a safe and lov­ing envi­ron­ment with their bio­log­i­cal par­ents or with close rel­a­tives is long gone. Today, CPS does not fix fam­i­lies, rather, it destroys fam­i­lies in order to pro­vide pedi­atric sub­jects for clin­i­cal drug tri­als, to pro­vide desir­able chil­dren for adop­tion, and to keep fed­er­al dol­lars flow­ing into the state CPS budget.

Chil­dren are even more like­ly to be kid­napped by CPS work­ers for med­ical exper­i­ments when they have rare dis­eases. Such chil­dren are high­ly prized sub­jects for exper­i­men­ta­tion. This hap­pened in a nation­al­ly pub­li­cized case that was exposed in 2013. Justi­na Pel­leti­er was abduct­ed by offi­cials at Boston Children’s Hos­pi­tal and sub­ject­ed to dis­abling drug therapies.

Watch these 3 reports here:

As a result, 32 mem­bers of the US House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives cospon­sored leg­is­la­tion in 2014, which was enti­tled “Justina’s Law.” The pro­posed leg­is­la­tion was intend­ed to End Exper­i­men­tal Med­ical Research on Chil­dren Seized by CPS. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, the pro­posed law nev­er even made it out of the House sub­com­mit­tee. The pro­posed law lan­guished and died with­out action by Con­gress. (See: “Justina’s Law” Seeks to End Exper­i­men­tal Med­ical Research on Chil­dren Seized by Child Pro­tec­tion Ser­vices.)

Justina Pelletier was just One of Many Children Abducted for Medical Research

Justi­na Pel­leti­er was not an iso­lat­ed exam­ple of CPS abuse. Sim­i­lar abduc­tions and med­ical exper­i­men­ta­tion have been tak­ing place through­out the Unit­ed States since the late 1980s.

Georgia Senator Nancy Schaefer. Crusader against CPS before her murder.

Geor­gia Sen­a­tor Nan­cy Schae­fer. Cru­sad­er against CPS before her murder.

The late state house sen­a­tor from Geor­gia, Nan­cy Schae­fer most like­ly gave her life in exchange for bring­ing CPS spon­sored med­ical abuse to light. [7] She pub­licly exposed many cas­es of med­ical kid­nap­ping, which involved CPS work­ers in numer­ous states.

Con­gress­woman Schae­fer lost her Sen­ate seat in Geor­gia as a result of her speak­ing out, but states it was some­thing “worth los­ing” for stand­ing up for the rights of par­ents who were hav­ing their chil­dren kid­napped by CPS. She and her hus­band were found mur­dered in their home in 2010. You can read her report on CPS from 2007. (Sen­a­tor Nan­cy Schae­fer: Did her Fight Against CPS Child Kid­nap­ping Cause her Mur­der?)

Nan­cy Schae­fer describes the attack that is being waged against chil­dren for the pur­pos­es of drug exper­i­men­ta­tion and adop­tion. She points out how such state spon­sored child abuse is ulti­mate­ly an attack on the sov­er­eign­ty of par­ents to make deci­sions for their fam­i­ly with­out coer­cion and manip­u­la­tion from state agen­cies and the fam­i­ly court sys­tem. Nei­ther of these orga­ni­za­tions is oper­at­ing to pro­tect the fam­i­ly struc­ture. They are oper­at­ing under a new eth­ic, which is to do what is right for the child – and to ignore what is best for the entire family.

Chil­dren are now seen as autonomous indi­vid­u­als whom the state must pro­tect from par­ents. The rela­tion­ship between par­ents and their chil­dren is no longer val­ued and pro­tect­ed. Rather, par­ents are seen as poten­tial offend­ers who are con­sid­ered guilty of any charges that are brought against them. The wide range of par­ent­ing styles which was once per­mit­ted in our soci­ety is no longer val­ued. CPS work­ers, Fam­i­ly Court judges, and the author­i­ty of the state are now deter­min­ing what is nor­mal, and any par­ent who dis­agrees with them is sub­ject to retal­i­a­tion against their fam­i­ly and parental author­i­ty. Every­thing is based on what the state thinks is “best for children.”

It’s Now All about “What is Best for the Child” – Not the Family

Homeschool children being removed from their family by force by CPS and sheriff deputies. Story here.

Home­school chil­dren being removed from their fam­i­ly by force by CPS and sher­iff deputies. Sto­ry here.

As report­ed by Steven R. Isham M.A., L.B.S.W, in a recent arti­cle pub­lished by Health Impact News and MedicalKidnap.com, chil­dren who are seized by CPS and placed into long term fos­ter care do very poor­ly when com­pared to oth­er chil­dren. Fos­ter care is not usu­al­ly a safe refuge for dam­aged chil­dren, which allows them to heal. Rather, fos­ter care per­pet­u­ates the abu­sive and neglect­ful pat­terns in the lives of many chil­dren, which sets them up for long-term fail­ure as adults.

Steven Isham reveals that for­mer fos­ter chil­dren rarely become pro­duc­tive cit­i­zens who are able to take care of them­selves. He indi­cat­ed that by age 25, 61 out of 100 for­mer fos­ter chil­dren will be unem­ployed, 24 out of 100 will be home­less, 64 out of 100 males will be incar­cer­at­ed 32 out of 100 females will be incar­cer­at­ed, and only 3 out of 100 will have been able to com­plete a four year col­lege degree. [8]

See also: Fos­ter Care Chil­dren are Worse Off than Chil­dren in Trou­bled Homes – The Child Traf­fick­ing Business

U.S. House of Representatives Investigates Medical Trials of Foster Children

Phil Crane, right, meets with Pres­i­dent George W. Bush and Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Bill Thomas of Com­mit­tee on Ways and Means. Image Source.

In 2005, a hear­ing with the title “Pro­tec­tions for Fos­ter Chil­dren Enrolled in Clin­i­cal Tri­als” was held by the U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives. The Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Resources of the Com­mit­tee on Ways and Means, inves­ti­gat­ed whether ade­quate safe­guards were in place to pro­tect fos­ter chil­dren from being forced to par­tic­i­pate in drug studies.

The alle­ga­tion that they were inves­ti­gat­ing involved clin­i­cal drug tri­als on AIDS drugs that were con­duct­ed dur­ing the peri­od from the late 1980s through 2001. In part they were look­ing back at the past and ask­ing if there were abus­es. They were also won­der­ing whether there were any inap­pro­pri­ate actions tak­ing place in more recent years.

The tes­ti­mo­ny could eas­i­ly be divid­ed into two camps.

The first camp could be called the pro­fes­sion­al camp. It con­sist­ed of U.S. Health and Human Ser­vices admin­is­tra­tors, pedi­a­tri­cians, pub­lic health researchers, and CPS admin­is­tra­tors. The sec­ond camp could be called advo­cates for injured chil­dren. This sec­ond camp con­sist­ed of rep­re­sen­ta­tives from var­i­ous children’s advo­ca­cy groups, bio­log­i­cal par­ents of fos­ter chil­dren who were tak­en by CPS, and var­i­ous oth­er indi­vid­u­als who were con­cerned about exploita­tion and forced exper­i­men­ta­tion on children.

In short, the pro­fes­sion­al camp did not believe there was a prob­lem. They believed the use of exist­ing insti­tu­tion­al review boards (IRBs), which reviewed all exper­i­ments involv­ing human sub­jects, would pre­vent abuse of chil­dren in fos­ter care. They also believed that oth­er ran­dom reviews con­duct­ed by the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment would keep researchers from behav­ing unethically.

On the oth­er hand, the camp that was advo­cat­ing for parental rights and the pro­tec­tion of fos­ter chil­dren told a very dif­fer­ent sto­ry. They described med­ical abuse. They described indi­vid­ual events, and sys­temic prob­lems, and called for reform of the CPS system.

Mem­bers of the con­gress are very busy peo­ple. They do not sched­ule hear­ings on poten­tial­ly con­tro­ver­sial top­ics unless there is already suf­fi­cient evi­dence to war­rant the inves­ti­ga­tion. Some­times hear­ings are held to empha­size a prob­lem to raise aware­ness in prepa­ra­tion for their action. In oth­er sit­u­a­tions, hear­ings are sched­uled and wit­ness­es are care­ful­ly select­ed to qui­et a polit­i­cal­ly hot sit­u­a­tion, which could bring embar­rass­ment or lead to alle­ga­tions of crim­i­nal wrong-doing.

The sub­com­mit­tee invit­ed cer­tain wit­ness­es to speak to them and to answer ques­tions. All of the wit­ness­es were from the pro­fes­sion­al camp of gov­ern­ment admin­is­tra­tors, physi­cian researchers, and CPS admin­is­tra­tive staff. Invit­ed wit­ness­es were all direct­ly involved in reg­u­lat­ing drug exper­i­ments or respon­si­ble for con­duct­ing those exper­i­ments. Advo­cates for par­ents and chil­dren were not invit­ed to speak, but were per­mit­ted to sub­mit writ­ten tes­ti­mo­ny. [9]

Congress Knows Children are being Abused in the CPS System

Wally Herger – U.S. House of Representatives from California’s 2nd district. Chairman Subcommittee on Human Resources of the Committee on Ways and Means. In office January 3, 1987 – January 3, 2013. Image Source.

Wal­ly Herg­er – U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives from California’s 2nd dis­trict. Chair­man Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Resources of the Com­mit­tee on Ways and Means. In office Jan­u­ary 3, 1987 – Jan­u­ary 3, 2013. Image Source.

When the Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Resources of the Com­mit­tee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives met to exam­ine this prob­lem, Chair­man Wal­ly Herg­er, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive from Cal­i­for­nia made this statement:

Over the last 18 months, this Sub­com­mit­tee has heard hear­ings about a num­ber of issues affect­ing kids in the Fed­er­al, State child wel­fare pro­grams, and this issue is like many of them: It has the poten­tial for being explo­sive. The child wel­fare pro­gram in the rich­est, most pow­er­ful coun­try in the world is, and has been, often an abysmal failure.

Now, we don’t need proof of more of that. We can give you all kinds of exam­ples of it. We know about kids los­ing their lives in the child wel­fare sys­tem. Prac­ti­cal­ly every State leg­is­la­ture every year deals with one case or anoth­er, and every­body wrings their hands, and the prob­lems go on. The kids are some­times locked up and some­times starved under the super­vi­sion of the agen­cies. We know the chil­dren have been used with­out prop­er super­vi­sion for drug test­ing. [11] (empha­sis added)

The first wit­ness to tes­ti­fy before the House sub­com­mit­tee was Dr. Don­ald Young, M.D., U.S. Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices, Prin­ci­pal Deputy Assis­tant Sec­re­tary for Plan­ning and Eval­u­a­tion. He pro­vid­ed exten­sive tes­ti­mo­ny regard­ing gov­ern­men­tal over­sight. Dr. Young con­clud­ed his remarks by stating:

We con­tin­ue to address chal­lenges posed by the threat of HIV/AIDS and are com­mit­ted to basic and clin­i­cal research to strength­en the nation’s abil­i­ty to cope with this infec­tious dis­ease. The pro­tec­tion of human sub­jects, includ­ing chil­dren, in clin­i­cal tri­als has been and will remain a top pri­or­i­ty for HHS. HHS is firm­ly com­mit­ted to the pro­tec­tion of the rights and wel­fare of every indi­vid­ual who par­tic­i­pates in human research con­sis­tent with sound eth­i­cal stan­dards and reg­u­la­to­ry requirements.

Lat­er in the hear­ing, Dr. Young was asked if any changes were need­ed in regard to fos­ter chil­dren and their par­tic­i­pa­tion in drug exper­i­men­ta­tion. Dr. Young stated:

We are not aware of any changes that we believe need to be made. If they are iden­ti­fied, we will be very hap­py to con­sid­er them and make a deci­sion as how best to pro­ceed. We share with you the con­cern about the ade­quate pro­tec­tion of fos­ter chil­dren. At the same time, the oppor­tu­ni­ty to let them par­tic­i­pate and get the advan­tage of clin­i­cal research, if that is theirs and their guardian’s decision.

Advocates for Parental Rights Blow the Whistle on Drug Trial Abuses

The tes­ti­mo­ny pro­vid­ed by advo­ca­cy orga­ni­za­tions, par­ents, and con­cerned pro­fes­sion­als told a very dif­fer­ent sto­ry. Most were not inter­est­ed in dis­cussing the past AIDS drug tri­als, but were nar­row­ing in on what they saw as cur­rent abus­es in 2005.

Their tes­ti­mo­ny exposed a pat­tern of fos­ter care abuse that has con­tin­ued to wors­en over the past ten years. The abuse now has to do most­ly with forced exper­i­men­ta­tion on fos­ter chil­dren with psy­chi­atric drugs, or the treat­ment of chil­dren with very rare diseases.

Impor­tant tes­ti­mo­ny was giv­en by rep­re­sen­ta­tives of Ablechild.org. Sheila Matthews stated:

I am the Nation­al Vice Pres­i­dent and Co-founder of Ablechild.org, a non-prof­it nation­al par­ent orga­ni­za­tion that works on edu­cat­ing the pub­lic on the issues of informed con­sent and the right to refuse psy­chi­atric “treat­ment”. Our orga­ni­za­tion is very con­cerned with the out­come of this hear­ing because we hear direct­ly from par­ents vic­tim­ized by the traf­fick­ing of their chil­dren into clin­i­cal drug tri­als while in state custody.

Ablechild has doc­u­ment­ed cas­es of chil­dren who have been placed on drugs, com­plete­ly unaware that they are par­tic­i­pat­ing in a clin­i­cal drug tri­al, and with­out know­ing that they have the right to “opt out” of par­tic­i­pat­ing. The fact is, the State holds the respon­si­bil­i­ty of pro­vid­ing informed con­sent to par­ents and chil­dren, and lacks any pro­ce­dure to pro­tect and safe­guard this right.

Our orga­ni­za­tion points out the prob­lems that result­ed from strate­gies designed to tar­get and exploit these chil­dren. The Con­necti­cut Advo­cate report­ed these result­ing prob­lems in its June 5th, 2001 arti­cle, “Study Calls for Review of Psy­chi­atric Drugs Pre­scribed to Kids.” With­in this news sto­ry, the authors of a new study ques­tioned why 396 chil­dren under 4 years old cov­ered by Med­ic­aid were pre­scribed psy­chi­atric drugs. Some of these chil­dren were less than 1 year old.

A clear con­flict of inter­ests exists between the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal indus­try and the exper­i­men­ta­tion occur­ring on chil­dren with­in state cus­tody. This fact is clear­ly demon­strat­ed by work­shops spon­sored by the phar­ma­ceu­ti­cal and biotech­nol­o­gy indus­tries designed to opti­mize strate­gies for drug devel­op­ment and tri­als in children.

Glo­ria Wright, also from Ablechild.org, added these com­ments to the sub­com­mit­tee in a sep­a­rate letter:

As a grand­par­ent and a mem­ber and offi­cer of Ablechild, a 501© 3 orga­ni­za­tion, I wish to bring to your atten­tion our cry for the pro­tec­tion of human rights of fos­ter chil­dren across America!

Our orga­ni­za­tion fre­quent­ly hears from par­ents across the nation who implore us for assis­tance in the mat­ter of the clin­i­cal trial/experimental drug­ging of their chil­dren while in state cus­tody and in fos­ter care. These chil­dren have been placed on clin­i­cal tri­al drugs with­out a legal advo­cate respon­si­ble for safe­guard­ing their health, or their life. As minors these chil­dren are unable to opt out of these tests/experiments, the par­ents have been denied their right to dis­sent and there obvi­ous­ly are no pro­ce­dures in place to safe­guard the rights of the children.

State­ment of Linn Asplund, a par­ent from Water­bury, Connecticut:

Thank you for con­sid­er­ing my tes­ti­mo­ny. When my son was 10 years old, he was attend­ing Wash­ing­ton School in Water­bury, CT. He start­ed hav­ing prob­lems in the begin­ning of third grade, Sep­tem­ber 1999. He was being picked on and bul­lied by the oth­er chil­dren. His grades start­ed suf­fer­ing and he too start­ed hav­ing dis­ci­pline prob­lems. This bul­ly­ing was brought to the school’s atten­tion, but it still went on. The prin­ci­pal sug­gest­ed a PPT. I agreed and at the first PPT I agreed to have him test­ed. I was then told he was “LD” (Learn­ing Dis­abled), but it was not that bad.

Next they told me they want­ed him to see a psy­chol­o­gist for a psy­cho­log­i­cal eval­u­a­tion, I agreed. I obtained a copy of the eval­u­a­tion. My son told the doc­tor that he had no friends at school. He liked it bet­ter at home and would wake up repeat­ed­ly at night with thoughts of how to quit school. By this time Dr. Abra­mavich said my son was psy­chot­ic and need­ed to be med­icat­ed. I refused. The next thing I knew, DCF (Depart­ment of Chil­dren and Fam­i­lies) was at my door telling me the school said my son has spe­cial needs that need to be tak­en care of. I still refused the psy­chi­atric drugs. I brought him to “child guid­ance” and was told that he was a nor­mal child.

After sev­er­al vis­its from DCF I still refused to drug my son. On March 16th 2000, I found court papers on my doorstep. In them my hus­band and I were charged with abuse and neglect and were informed that DCF was going to take our son from us. Lat­er that day a social work­er and police offi­cer arrived and took him away.

Two weeks lat­er, DCF placed him in Water­bury Hos­pi­tal where Dr. Edwards gave my son Hal­dol and Attavan–mind alter­ing drugs not approved for use in chil­dren. A few days after this, Dr. Men­nessen put him on 100 mg of Well­butrin a day; also not FDA approved for use in chil­dren. When I asked Dr. Men­nessen why he was giv­ing my son this drug with­out my con­sent, his reply was “we need a num­ber of cas­es to get it FDA approved.” (empha­sis added)

Conclusion: CPS and Doctors are Kidnapping Children for Medical Research

Images from a few of the stories we have covered at Health Impact News and MedicalKidnap.com.

Images from a few of the sto­ries we have cov­ered at Health Impact News and MedicalKidnap.com.

It is hard to deter­mine the exact num­ber of clin­i­cal drug tri­als that are cur­rent­ly in process in the Unit­ed States, or to deter­mine how many chil­dren are in such tri­als. This prob­lem was iden­ti­fied at the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive hear­ing in 2005, and it still remains a prob­lem ten years later.

If data from Europe can be used as a yard­stick to com­pare the involve­ment of chil­dren in clin­i­cal stud­ies, then the scope of drug test­ing on chil­dren has increased dra­mat­i­cal­ly since the 2011 data, which was pre­sent­ed at the begin­ning of this article.

The Euro­pean Union Clin­i­cal Tri­als Reg­is­ter cur­rent­ly dis­plays 25,527 clin­i­cal tri­als, of which 3,662 are clin­i­cal tri­als con­duct­ed with sub­jects less than 18 years old. [10]

The CPS sys­tem is set­up in such a way that its activ­i­ties with spe­cif­ic fam­i­lies are secret. They hide behind con­fi­den­tial­i­ty laws to pre­vent pub­lic over­sight. They threat­en par­ents with per­ma­nent loss of their chil­dren if they speak pub­li­cal­ly. The fam­i­ly court sys­tem adds its author­i­ty to demand that par­ents remain silent. All the while, fam­i­ly after fam­i­ly is threat­ened and bro­ken. Chil­dren are brought into drug exper­i­men­ta­tion pro­grams, and oth­ers are pro­vid­ed for the adop­tion busi­ness, which brings even more mon­ey into state coffers.

CPS inten­tion­al­ly does not place chil­dren with fam­i­ly mem­bers, because the chil­dren bring in greater income to the state when they are placed in fos­ter care home. CPS often acts quick­ly to put chil­dren up for adop­tion, because the cash pay­ments that the state will receive are sub­stan­tial. In short, the vio­la­tion of parental rights is a mon­ey mak­ing propo­si­tion for state gov­ern­ment. The mon­ey per­pet­u­ates the CPS sys­tem, and allows abuse to hap­pen in the name of “pro­tect­ing” children.

Physi­cians are required by law to report to CPS any sit­u­a­tion that looks like child abuse or med­ical neglect. This is a tick­et for CPS to inves­ti­gate, seize chil­dren, meet their quo­tas, and start bring­ing mon­ey into the state bud­get. Since Amer­i­can cul­ture has been trained to idol­ize and even wor­ship the judge­ment of physi­cians, then most par­ents have lit­tle pow­er to fight both the judge­ments of CPS and the med­ical estab­lish­ment. The Fam­i­ly Court sys­tem works hand in hand with CPS and physi­cian rec­om­men­da­tions, and gives lit­tle respect to the desires of parents.

Chil­dren with rare dis­eases, espe­cial­ly rare genet­ic dis­eases, are very vul­ner­a­ble to CPS med­ical kid­nap­ping and abuse. If par­ents don’t agree with a doctor’s treat­ment plan, then the doc­tors can noti­fy CPS that the par­ents are neglect­ing their chil­dren by not doing what the doc­tor rec­om­mends. Once this hap­pens, par­ents lose the right to make inde­pen­dent deci­sions for their children.

Once con­trol over a child’s life is tak­en by CPS and the med­ical care sys­tem, then parental rights are ignored. Par­ents are not usu­al­ly con­tact­ed to obtain per­mis­sion to allow their chil­dren to par­tic­i­pate in drug tri­als. If they are con­tact­ed, and refuse to give per­mis­sion, then they will be ignored and may have future con­tact with their chil­dren denied. The parent’s health insur­ance com­pa­nies can be billed for treatments/services that par­ents did not approve. Pay­ments can even be made for drugs giv­en to chil­dren that have not been approved for use with chil­dren by the USFDA.

In a let­ter writ­ten by Sharon Schuldt to the House com­mit­tee that exam­ined clin­i­cal drug test­ing on fos­ter chil­dren, she gave us a seri­ous warn­ing. She wrote:

There was hor­rif­ic dis­re­gard for human­i­ty that took place in World War II Ger­many, some of which start­ed out being direct­ed toward the weak and vul­ner­a­ble, in orphan­ages and hos­pi­tals, but then was direct­ed to mil­lions who lost their lives in the con­cen­tra­tion camps. A soci­ety does not just lose their regard for human life overnight. It is a step at a time down­ward and soon that soci­ety slips fur­ther and faster down­ward. Many vowed, “Nev­er Again.” We in the U.S. can­not and should not be allow­ing access to our chil­dren for med­ical research. There is no argu­ment that jus­ti­fies it!

Watch these 3 reports here:

Resources
[1] Carl L. Tish­ler, PhD, Natal­ie Staats Reiss, PhD; “Pedi­atric Drug-Tri­al Recruit­ment: Entice­ment With­out Coer­cion,” Pedi­atrics, Vol. 127 No. 5, May 1, 2011, pp. 949 ‑954, doi: 10.1542/peds.2010–2585. http://pediatrics.aappublications.org/content/127/5/949.full

[2] IBID.
[3] “Pro­tec­tions for Fos­ter Chil­dren Enrolled in Clin­i­cal Tri­als,” Hear­ing before the Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Resources of the Com­mit­tee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, First Ses­sion of the One Hun­dred ninth Con­gress, May 18, 2005, Ser­i­al No. 109–8. http://gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-109hhrg36660/html/CHRG-109hhrg36660.htm
[4] “Report Expos­es Why Cor­rupt CPS Agen­cies Sel­dom Place Fos­ter Chil­dren with Fam­i­ly Mem­bers,” MedicalKidnap.com, 5/6/2015. http://medicalkidnap.com/2015/05/06/report-exposes-why-corrupt-cps-agencies-seldom-place-foster-children-with-family-members/
[5] Joseph J. Doyle, Jr., “Child Pro­tec­tion and Child Out­comes: Mea­sur­ing the Effects of Fos­ter Care,” Sloan School of Man­age­ment, Mass­a­chu­setts Institute
of Tech­nol­o­gy, 2007 (Study)
[6]  “A His­to­ry of Med­ical Kid­nap­ping at Phoenix Children’s Hos­pi­tal,” MedicalKidnap.com, 10/14/2014. http://medicalkidnap.com/2014/10/14/a‑history-of-medical-kidnapping-at-phoenix-childrens-hospital/
[7] “Sen­a­tor Nan­cy Schae­fer: Did her Fight Against CPS Child Kid­nap­ping Cause her Mur­der?” Health Impact News, 2015. http://healthimpactnews.com/2015/senator-nancy-schaefer-did-her-fight-against-cps-child-kidnapping-cause-her-murder/
[8] “Is Fos­ter Care “In the Best Inter­est of the Child”?” MedicalKidnap.com, 5/9/2015. http://medicalkidnap.com/2015/05/09/is-foster-care-in-the-best-interest-of-the-child/
[9] “Pro­tec­tions for Fos­ter Chil­dren Enrolled in Clin­i­cal Tri­als,” Hear­ing before the Sub­com­mit­tee on Human Resources of the Com­mit­tee on Ways and Means, U.S. House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives, First Ses­sion of the One Hun­dred ninth Con­gress, May 18, 2005, Ser­i­al No. 109–8. http://gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CHRG-109hhrg36660/html/CHRG-109hhrg36660.htm
[10] IBID.
[11] Clin­i­cal Tri­als Reg­is­ter, Retrieved 5/15/2015. https://clinicaltrialsregister.eu/ctr-search/search;jsessionid=Y2ZFZbnI53-Xs10DdRlPUPD54hjV1kBA5iOcUrr3WwPJKbGpTfHV!-3122046

 

 
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