Sometimes a second opinion in abuse cases is needed. A panel of Florida lawmakers agreed today (Thursday) officials should consider whether a child’s injuries are really the result of abuse, or if they could stem from a rare medical condition. Here's the story behind a bill known as Patterson’s Law.
In 2022, Michael Patterson's children were removed from the home he shares with his wife Tasha.
“Too often, rare medical conditions are mistaken for signs of abuse, leading to heartbreaking separation and irreparable harm to families,” he said.
Patterson says that’s what happened to his family. When his twin boys were just a matter of weeks old, the Pattersons were accused of child neglect due to injuries the boys had already incurred. But even after the children were removed, Tasha Patterson says, the twins kept getting injured.
“Those repeated fractures after they were removed led to doctors placing them on special handling precautions, Vitamin D supplementation, formula changes and five months of physical therapy -- measures that finally helped them and prevented any further injuries -- and for that I thank God,” she exclaimed.
It turns out that Tasha has a rare medical disorder and so do her sons.
“Later we discovered that my twins and I have Ehlers-Danlos syndrome as well as metabolic bone disease," she said. "I was placed on medications during pregnancy that contributed to their weakened bones. Despite this exonerating evidence, our rights -- our parental rights -- were terminated.”
Two and a half years later, the twins and their older half-brother are still not allowed to live with their parents. The Pattersons have spent all their savings in efforts to prove their innocence and get their children back.
They recently spoke in favor of a bill by Broward County Democratic Senator Barbara Sharief, which would allow a second opinion by an expert in cases like theirs. The Pattersons say that the Child Protection Team at the Florida Department of Children and Families made a tragic misdiagnosis in their sons’ case.
“DCF and the court relied on the CPT provider, who had less experience than the multiple physicians that we had, who concluded that this was not abuse," she said. "Including our own child abuse pediatrician, the founding father of child abuse pediatrics, Dr. Eli Newberger reviewed our case and concluded that this was medical and not abuse.”
“It has been an uphill battle to undo the damage that was done by the department’s Child Protection Team.”
That’s attorney Valentina Villalobos, who has represented both parents and children in dependency issues. She says child protection teams, while well-intentioned, can’t possibly be experts in all the conditions they encounter.
“In the Pattersons’ case, the Child Protection Team doctor, in a later deposition after presenting damaging testimony against the Pattersons, admitted to having virtually no knowledge about Ehlers-Danlos. In fact, the CPT doctor, the key witness against the Pattersons, answered, quote, ‘I don’t know” 113 times to questions about medical explanations other than abuse that could have explained the injuries.”
Sharief’s bill would allow an accused perpetrator of abuse, abandonment or neglect of a child to request a medical examination of that child by a licensed physician or advanced practice registered nurse who routinely provides medical care to pediatric patients.
The bill also requires the requested examination to be paid for by the alleged perpetrator or as otherwise covered by insurance. It requires a child protective investigator who has begun an investigation into a report of child abuse to tell the parent being investigated that he or she has the right to ask for a medical exam for these purposes.
