Articles

When a sudden, unexplainable change occurs in your child’s health, an accurate diagnosis and treatment can make all the difference. This is especially true in the case of autoimmune disorders known as PANS (Pediatric Acute-onset Neuropsychiatric Syndrome) or a subset of PANS that is associated with strep infection known as PANDAS (Pediatric Autoimmune Neuropsychiatric Disorder Associated with Streptococcal Infections).

Some pediatricians are trained to determine whether kids’ injuries are accidental. Their assessments can be subjective—but they’re often accepted as fact. And when they’re wrong, parents can needlessly end up in jail.

For young children, an innocuous sore throat could be a sign of PANDAS (pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders), a condition that a Solana Beach-based doctor in California has been centering his practice around.

Jaxen Steimlosk, 4, of North Yarmouth has lived with serious health problems for most of his life. But officials accused his mother of medical child abuse and tried to assume custody.

Dr. Eli Newberger, a Boston pediatrician who is a leading expert on medical child abuse, reviewed Jaxen’s case and wrote in a report that the family was “grievously harmed” by Maine’s investigation.

“Never previously have I witnessed such a rush to judgment, a defamatory campaign against a mother and her family in a community,” wrote Newberger, who was hired by the Steimlosks’ attorney, Beth Maloney, and was prepared to testify on their behalf. “The paucity of interest in seeking the truth of the matter is jaw-dropping.”

“It’s a disease from hell.”

That’s how Marnie Deschenes describes the illness that struck her oldest son just before his 8th birthday.

“He just started to rage like a caged wild animal,” said Deschenes as she recalls the day in June, 2013 when — as the family was out running errands — she witnessed a sudden and dramatic shift in the little boy’s personality.

Critics say powerful pediatrician too quick to diagnose child abuse, traumatizing families.

“They made us feel like we were monsters,” said a Florida mother who temporarily lost custody of her 4-month-old son based on a doctor’s report.

ALTHOUGH RARE, IN SOME cases a strep infection can precipitate or worsen symptoms of mental illness. Known as pediatric autoimmune neuropsychiatric disorders associated with streptococcal infections, or PANDAS, symptoms typically appear in kids between age 3 and puberty, according to the National Institute of Mental Health.

In 2007, Carlo Carandang, then an attending physician at a hospital in Halifax, Nova Scotia, saw a most unusual patient: an 8-year-old boy who had recently adopted some strange beliefs, all while losing 18 pounds. The boy thought that nurses were “evil,” and that he could inject other people with his fat cells simply by walking past them.

A middle school student with special needs in Bellingham, Washington, was shocked to discover that his desk had been moved out of the classroom and into a bathroom.