April is Child Abuse Prevention Month, a time to reaffirm our commitment to protecting children and ensuring our child welfare system works as it should. This session, I passed HB 47: Specific Medical Diagnoses in Child Protective Investigations, to strengthen our child protection system while ensuring families are protected from wrongful child removals caused by medical misdiagnoses. HB 47 is narrow in scope and addresses a serious but specific problem – medically complex children.
During committee hearings, we heard from parents whose lives were turned upside down after bringing their infants to the ER for care. Diana Sullivan brought her 11-week-old daughter to the ER for a swollen thigh, she was accused of abuse, and her infant and children with no injuries were removed from her care. It took her 19-months of separation from her children and paying $300,000 in legal fees to obtain a second opinion. That second opinion confirmed that her daughter had Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, a condition referenced in the initial Child Protection Team report but not fully investigated. Sara Michler faced a similar ordeal. Wrongly accused of shaken baby syndrome, she spent 11 months and nearly $100,000 fighting to regain custody of her child, missing irreplaceable milestones along the way. These stories highlight an important truth: medically complex children require medically informed investigations. A child wrongfully removed from a loving home suffers real harm. Certain medical conditions, including Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, osteogenesis imperfecta (brittle bone disease), rickets, and vitamin D deficiency, can cause symptoms that mimic signs of abuse. Under current procedures, when a child is found with unexplained injuries, parents do not have a clearly defined right to seek a second medical opinion after a removal. Parents deserve that right.
HB 47 is narrow in scope and strengthens, not weakens, child protective investigations. The bill authorizes a parent or legal custodian, after a child is removed, to request a second medical opinion and establishes clear timelines for that review. It creates a structured process for addressing conflicting diagnoses and requires the Department of Children and Families to promptly request a review of relevant medical records when a qualifying condition is identified.
Child Protective Investigators play a vital role in keeping Florida’s children safe. This legislation ensures that when medically complex conditions are involved, we incorporate appropriate medical expertise and due process into the process. No one should be afraid of a second opinion. Protecting children means getting it right.
