Child Taken Away from Parents for Medical Reasons Dies in Foster Care

WREG News Channel 3 in Memphis has reported on the story of an 11-month-old child who died while in custody of the Department of Child Services (DCS). DCS had reportedly removed the child, along with his 2-year-old sibling, from the home of their parents because they suffered from "digeorge syndrome", which limits delay of essential body functions. DCS had judged that the parents did not have "sufficient training" to properly care for their children. So the two children were placed in foster care. They were to be returned to their parents in October, but the father reportedly lacked a one-hour course. The father died in a car accident in early December. The 11-month-old child died while in foster care in November. Paramedics reportedly found the child in the foster home with a "wet wipe" stuffed in his mouth. We report these stories on Health Impact News, because medical tyranny is increasing in the United States, and these stories are not as rare as you might think. All across America, children are being taken away from their parents for differences in opinion about medical treatment, or because the State believes they can raise children better than parents. The choice of parents to choose their own medical care for their children is increasingly being taken away all across the country. While protecting children from situations where they are in danger is a legitimate concern, the system in place today is too often corrupted by financial incentives, or arrogant medical personnel overstepping their bounds of authority and forcing their beliefs and values on those unable to resist or fight back.

To Silence Political Dissent, IRS Issues New Rule to Censor Free Speech on Health Issues

ANH-USA could be targeted—along with your right to political representation. In May 2013, the IRS was caught illegally discriminating against Tea Party groups applying for 501(c)4 nonprofit status. In the wake of the scandal, the IRS worked to eliminate illegal censorship of political dissent—by attempting to legalize it. On Black Friday, under cover of a day when no one follows the news, the IRS issued proposed rules to severely restrict the activities of 501(c)4 nonprofit organizations such as ANH-USA. These rules would place strict limitations on speech, eliminate your voice in the political process, and put consumer advocacy nonprofits like ANH-USA under a gag order, leaving powerful private interests and their government allies free to operate in secret. In short, the new IRS rules are an egregious violation of the First Amendment. Without 501(c)4s—organizations that pool the resources of many like-minded individuals—the only remaining political influences will be the huge industries (Big Pharma, Big Agro, and Big Biotech included), unions, and other special interests that can afford to make enormous contributions and hire expensive lobbyists. The IRS has no business in politics. Tell the agency to rescind this political gag order and protect the right of political dissenters and organizations that represent individuals like you!

Doctor Verbally Assaults Parent in Restaurant for Choosing Not to Vaccinate

Hardcore pro-vaccine proponents would have us believe the issue of vaccine safety and effectiveness is a closed issue. To them, there is no neutral ground. You are either an evangelist for vaccines or a threat to society with no middle ground in between. To merely raise questions is to be labeled as anti-vaccine and a threat to society. Just ask Katie Couric, who dared to allow some people on to her show to tell their story about how they were damaged by the Gardasil vaccine. Even though Couric stated that she was pro-vaccine and had her daughters vaccinated, it didn't matter. She was attacked viciously in the mainstream media, forced to apologize, and this week it was announced that her popular daytime show would not be renewed. Pro-vaccine doctors are threatened by the truth of vaccines, because they can't stand the thought that they might be responsible for permanent disabilities or even deaths as a result of their beliefs in vaccines. In the story below, one doctor got so upset over hearing a private conversation in a public restaurant over vaccines, that he confronted the father of a vaccine-damaged child and cursed him out in public. This parent did not back down, however, and the doctor probably got more than he bargained for.

Florida City Evicts Widow and Threatens to Take Away her Home for Living “Off Grid”

A Florida woman who is a widow, has no mortgage, and is up-to-date on her taxes has been served eviction papers on her home, with threats of the government seizing it. Her crime: she lives off the grid and does not purchase municipal services such as water and electricity. They condemned her home and declared it "unihabitable" due to International Law, even though they never entered the home to examine it.

Family Still Has No Answers from Police Who Shot and Killed WWII Vet in Nursing Home for Refusing Medical Treatment

John Kass of the Chicago Tribune reports this week that the family members of John Wrana, who died in his nursing care facility after police shot him with multiple rounds of bean bags from a shot gun, still have not received any explanation as to why he was killed. In July of this year (2013), we reported on this incident in Park Forest, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago. John Wrana was 95 years old and a World War II veteran. When paramedics showed up to transport him to a hospital to treat his urinary tract infection, he refused to go. The paramedics then called the police, rather than ask the nursing home staff to help. When the police arrived, they were equipped in full riot gear. Mr. Wrana got around with a walker and was reportedly sitting down at the time. He still refused to go to the hospital. Police claim he had a long shoe horn that he was wielding. The police then tasered him with a taser gun. Mr. Wrana still refused to go. Police then took out a shot gun and shot him multiple times in the abdomen with bean bag rounds. John Kass of the Chicago Tribune, who has done a great job covering this story, found out later that such tactics by the police had not been used in over 10 years. The police claim Mr. Wrana had a butcher knife, but such a knife was never found, and the staff and other residents claim they never saw him with a knife. It has been nearly 6 months since this happened, and the police are still "investigating" the incident. No explanations, no findings, no charges, no one held accountable. I think they owe the family an explanation.

FDA Moves to Eliminate Medical Foods

There’s still a small window to make the FDA listen to reason. “Medical foods,” by the federal government’s definition, aren't simply a diet plan prescribed by a doctor. They are foods that are specifically formulated and processed for a sick patient and are intended to meet specific nutritional requirements for the management of a disease or condition. The FDA has recently issued an updated draft guidance that drastically limits the number of conditions that medical foods can be used to manage. Under the new guidance, producers of medical foods will either have to reformulate their products to go through the drug approval process (which can cost billions of dollars) or market them as dietary supplements (which would severely limit the claims their products could make, depriving practitioners and consumers of valuable health information). By making the “buy-in” for the medical industry affordable only to Big Pharma, small businesses and start-up innovators will be kicked out of the industry, drug companies will reap the rewards of yet another FDA-sponsored monopoly, and consumers will be left to deal with the ramifications of limited, more expensive options.

DNA Testing: Do You Have a Right to Test Your Own DNA? FDA Says No!

There’s a reason your government is whittling away at your healthcare options and driving costs out of control—and not a good one. America spends over $2.6 trillion a year (18% of our GDP) on healthcare. At the same time, government is tightening the regulatory reins on nutritional and natural methods to support health—an approach that isn’t lowering healthcare spending, but raising it! On November 22, the FDA sent a warning letter to 23andMe.com to stop its inexpensive ($99 per test) “do-it-yourself” genetic testing service for health screening and ancestry purposes, because consumers could be “misled” and harm themselves by “self-treating.” The FDA’s stance on DIY genetic testing could very well drive up healthcare costs. Besides premiums being raised on those forced to report DNA results to insurance companies, in-office testing is far more expensive. As tests are priced anywhere from $300 to $3,500, this could significantly add to the overall cost of healthcare. The FDA’s true message is clear: because individuals can’t be trusted to make sound health decisions, they don’t have a right to private information on their own DNA.

Reason Magazine Abandons Libertarian Principles: Openly Advocates Forced Vaccination

One aspect of the police state that is particularly bothersome is forced drugging. We see this manifest in a variety of situations, usually involving children whose parents question their doctors or want to pursue alternative health care solutions. Being a complicated and emotional issue, many people end up siding with the courts in pursuit of mandatory medication. While this position is to be expected from the average statist, it is somewhat alarming when a well-known and respected publication like Reason Magazine comes out in favor of forced mass-drugging of the population, or as it was gently termed, “coercive vaccination.” These ideas, promoted under pseudo-libertarian shroud, cannot go unrebuked. Reason is a 45-year old magazine, traditionally promoting the libertarian cause, and has published a lot of thoughtful and compelling work over the years. Yet, it seems that there is a faction of the staff that is promoting a contentious view of “liberty” when it comes to certain topics regarding science. One blogger, with the consent of a sympathetic editing staff, is so adamant about promoting the consensus of mainstream scientists that he believe that it should be mandatory for all. He argues in no uncertain terms that he not only believes that coerced medicine is libertarian, but that there is no libertarian argument for declining a vaccine. Coercion doesn’t line up with any Libertarian Party plank that I’m aware of, nor does it stand up to actual libertarian logic. The fact is that coercion is what happens when statists can’t win in a battle of ideas. I hope that Reason will reevaluate whether its current strategy of militant vaccine promotion is in line with its mission statement. Until then, we will be calling out advocates of compulsory medicine as the police state pushers that they are.

U.S. Supreme Court Orders Obama Administration to Explain Why They Want to Deport German Homeschool Family

After fleeing persecution for homeschooling in Germany in 2008, the Romeike family was granted asylum by Immigration Judge Lawrence O. Burman in 2010. The Obama administration revoked their asylum in 2012 and the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed the administration’s position saying that Germany was merely enforcing a general law regarding truants. HSLDA appealed to the Supreme Court on October 10, 2013. The Supreme Court ordered Attorney General Eric Holder to respond in writing to Home School Legal Defense Association’s petition on behalf of the Romeikes. “The government initially waived its right to respond, apparently thinking that Romeike v. Holder wasn’t worthy of the Court’s consideration,” Mason said. “Clearly someone in the Supreme Court disagrees. " In a separate recent case, an immigration judge ruled that Obama’s uncle could stay here even though he came to the United States illegally.

Florida Judge Orders Homeschool Children to Attend Public School

The right for parents to educate their children as they desire is under attack. As we have reported previously, homeschooling is growing seven times faster than public schooling, and the U.S. government is progressively taking actions to restrict it. Parents are increasingly keeping their children at home to educate them, avoiding government intrusion into their family lives, which includes mandatory vaccinations, toxic school meals, and questionable educational materials among other things. Having access to the nation's children is an economic necessity for the distribution of vaccines and government subsidized food provided to the schools. As public school enrollments decrease, it causes economic hardship on pharmaceutical companies and large commodity processed food corporations. Prejudice against homeschooled children is still prevalent, as can be seen in this recent case in Florida, where a judge ordered homeschooled children to attend public school. The children had been appointed a guardian by the court in a visitation dispute between their divorced parents. While neither parent had any issues with the children being educated at home, the guardian and judge acted independently and decided for themselves what they deemed best for the children, and ordered them to start attending a public school, even though both parents were committed to raising them Catholic.