Baby-Seizing Is a Recurring Theme in Lawrence County (don't eat poppy seeds before birth...)

[The Straight Story]

Baby-Seizing Is a Recurring Theme in Lawrence County

PITTSBURGH (CN) - Another new mother has convinced a federal judge to advance claims against social workers who allegedly seized her newborn baby and kept the child in their custody for months because eating poppy seeds caused her to fail a drug test.

The latest case is strikingly similar to claims being considered by another judge in the same court. Both lawsuits name Lawrence County Children and Youth Services (LCCYS) and hospital operator Jameson Health System as defendants, as well as individual case workers.

Eileen Bower says her nightmare began after she registered a false-positive on a morphine screening because she ate a pasta salad with poppy seeds moments before going into labor. Three days after he was born on July 13, 2009, Brandon Brothers II became a ward of the state, having been "forcibly removed" from the arms of his crying mother, according to the mother's lawsuit.

Bower says child services and the hospital conspired to seize newborns if their mothers tested positive on compulsory, hypersensitive drug screenings that are apt to produce erroneous results if the mother ingests certain foods, like poppy seeds.

http://www.courthousenews.com/2011/11/18/41584.htm

[athenasatanjesus]

1. Did they learn nothing from Elaine Benes?

[Webster Green]

2. The "war on drugs" is truly insane.

It's very sad that Obama has chosen to ramp it up.

[madrchsod]

4. winding down the war in iraq and gearing up in the usa....

[lumpy]

3. This is truly heartbreaking, a mother seperated from her

newborn is tragic. Damn the powers that be that would allow such a thing to happen.