An increasing
number of parents are reporting that paediatricians at a teaching hospital
in a particular city in the North of England are again using the Reflex
Anal Dilatation test as a means of examining their children for sexual
abuse.
RAD gained
notoriety when it was used by two paediatricians in Cleveland, also in the
north of England, in 1987 and led to a nightmare of pain and suffering for 121
children and their families. Organised gangs of social workers and police have
again descended on families and removed children solely on the basis of a
medical report and without carrying out a full assessment of the families and
their circumstances, a practice that was deeply deplored by the Report by the
Public Inquiry into events in Cleveland and conducted by Justice Butler-Sloss.
The Butler-Sloss
Report did not make any pronouncement regarding the use of RAD in those cases
but it became known that RAD is not a reliable method of identifying sexual
abuse of children as it can also indicate other illnesses in children such as
severe diarrhoea or constipation, and is extremely painful, degrading, and
distressing for the children involved. There is no scientifically conducted
research to support the use of RAD, there are no clinically conducted trials
to confirm its validity, and no record of its use to obtain statistics of the
numbers of false positives. It is therefore a matter of serious dispute in the
medical profession as to whether RAD has any validity or utility.
One of the
children involved in the Cleveland Child Abuse Scandal recently described her
ordeal as follows. She was only four years old at the time.
“We were taken to a foster
family overnight and taken to hospital the following morning. It was here that
I first met Dr Marietta Higgs. She was the first person there I remember
seeing. My clothes were forcefully removed and I was told to kneel naked on
the bed with my bottom in the air and my head down on the bed. I felt Dr.
Higgs pressing my buttocks apart and she looked for what seemed like forever.
Even at such a young age I felt very uncomfortable, and embarrassed, and
wondered why anyone would want to be looking at my bottom. It actually hurt
too. Dr. Higgs made no attempt to be gentle, and for those few moments I felt
like a piece of meat! I felt violated!
When Dr. Higgs moved on to
examine my brother I could hear him screaming and screaming and when Dr. Higgs
had finished my little brother ran off down the ward screaming, still with no
clothes on, and had diarrhoea all down the ward. I could see my parent’s in
deep distress, their hearts breaking, watching my brother suffering like that.
He was only eighteen months old.”.
Parents are left to comfort their
children afterward and to try to explain to their hysterical children why they
did not protect them from such horrendous examinations.
So how and why do doctors inflict
such abuse and suffering on children and subject them to such inhumane and
degrading treatment, which is of course a serious violation of their human
rights ?.
As the RAD test is an unsound and
unsafe method of detecting sexual abuse, the only possible other explanation
is that these doctors are engaging in such atrocities for their own perverse
and deviant pleasures. It would probably give some paedophiles immense
perverted pleasure to examine the anus and genitals of small children in this
way and to inflict pain and distress on them whilst doing so yet be safe in
the knowledge that they would not be prosecuted for carrying out what they see
as their professional duties.
When these matters reach the
Courts, it will be interesting to see if the doctors are closely questioned on
their practices, or whether like other medical experts in the recent past,
they are able to convince the Courts that they were acting in the best
interests of the children and that their methods were justifiable, albeit
highly questionable.
ByCharles
Pragnell
5 September 2005
Diploma in Social Work and Letter of Recognition in Child Care
Expert Witness – Child Protection
and Social Care Consultant
and Child/Family Advocate.
Please read...
Petition answered with Spin and Sophism
The Silence of the Media Lambs!
Doctors in a Dilemma
Are you an `Appropriate’ person?
Childrens Plan
State Terrorism
The Seriously Unhealthy State of Paediatrics
RAD – the Return of a Nightmare
Persecution of Children and Families
Why I am Petitioning the Prime Minister
Vaccines and Child Abuse Accusations
Why did Sally Clark Suffer and Die?
Perverse Reversal of Child Custody
Child Protection in Kangaroo Courts
Fabricated and induced illness in Children
A History of Man’s Inhumanity
A System out of Control
Forced Adoption
Related Article:
The
women who went through an ordeal beyond belief
Daily Mail 24th February 2007
