The Child Protection eNewsletter

Pediatricians call ABC show "irresponsible"…

The nation's largest pediatricians' group said ABC should cancel the first episode of a new series because it perpetuates the myth that vaccines can cause autism. Read More ABC's new drama, "Eli Stone," debuts on Thursday. It features British actor Jonny Lee Miller as a prophet-like lawyer who in the opening episode argues in court that a flu vaccine made a child autistic. When it is revealed in court that an executive at the fictional vaccine maker didn't allow his own child to get the shot, jurors side with the family, giving them a huge award.

But, said Dr. Renee R. Jenkins, president of the influential American Academy of Pediatrics, "A television show that perpetuates the myth that vaccines cause autism is the height of reckless irresponsibility on the part of ABC and its parent company, The Walt Disney Co." "If parents watch this program and choose to deny their children immunizations, ABC will share in the responsibility for the suffering and deaths that occur as a result. The consequences of a decline in immunization rates could be devastating to the health of our nation's children," Jenkins said in a statement.

Scientists generally believe that genetics plays a role in causing the disorder; a theory that a mercury-based preservative once widely used in childhood vaccines is to blame has been repeatedly discounted in scientific studies.

The academy released the text of a letter Jenkins wrote on Friday, addressed to Anne Sweeney, president of Disney-ABC Television Group. In the letter, Jenkins writes that many viewers "trust the health information presented on fictional television shows, which influences their decisions about health care." Jenkins noted that erroneous reports in the United Kingdom linking the measles vaccine to autism prompted a decline in vaccination and the worst outbreak of measles in two decades.

Greg Berlanti, a co-creator of the show, said the episode is fictional but designed "to participate in what is a national conversation" about a controversial subject. He said the boy who plays the autistic child has autism, but that the show's producers have no connection with advocates involved in the autism debate.

"We would be deeply upset" if parents opted against vaccination because of the episode, Berlanti said.

Band director's two-year relationship with student leads to multiple charges…

There are new allegations that a Lancaster County, Pennsylvania band instructor had sexual conduct with a student inside a school. Read More

Todd Sheerer, 29, faced more charges from three additional police departments. The band instructor from Warwick High School spent nearly three hours in court, partly because there is so much paperwork involved in this case. In all Sheerer is charged with six counts of corrupting minors from five different police departments.

Lititz police say, "She and Sheerer met in the band room and the backstage wardrobe changing room of Warwick High School and kissed intimately." Also police say, "Sheerer instructed her verbally or by written notes to wear certain clothing to school and asked her to flash him. These acts occurred inside the band room when the two were alone."

The alleged inappropriate relationship came to the attention of authorities on the afternoon of January 18, according to court documents, when a Manheim Township policeman, responding to an anonymous call, found the couple in a restaurant parking lot. Read More Sheerer and the young women were in the back seat of the car parked behind a local restaurant, according to the affidavit.

The couple met in parking lots of a garage, restaurant, quarry, hotel and a housing development, according to a Warwick Township Police affidavit.

Sheerer is the director of the high school marching band, symphonic band and jazz ensemble, as well as the middle school concert and jazz bands. He also teaches music at both schools.

States cracking down on pedophile teachers…

Heeding a steady drumbeat of sexual misconduct cases involving teachers, at least 15 states are now considering stronger oversight and tougher punishment for educators who take advantage of their students. Read More Lawmakers say they are concerned about an increasingly well-documented phenomenon: While the vast majority of America's teachers are committed professionals, there also is a persistent problem with sexual misconduct in U.S. schools.

When abuse happens, administrators too often fail to let others know about it, and too many legal loopholes let offenders stay in the classroom. Advocates include governors, education superintendents and legislative leaders.

"We've got to be on a bully pulpit with our school districts," said Missouri State Representative Jane Cunningham. The Republican's legislation would eliminate statutes of limitation for sexual misconduct, allowing victims to come forward and bring charges against abusers no matter how many years had passed since the crime.

The ideas emerging in state capitals come at a time when U.S. media have been reporting steadily on individual cases, along with more in-depth examinations of the problem.

A nationwide Associated Press investigation published in October found 2,570 educators whose teaching credentials were revoked, denied, surrendered or sanctioned from 2001 through 2005 following allegations of sexual misconduct. (There are roughly 3 million public school teachers nationwide.) Experts who track sexual abuse say those cases are representative of a much deeper problem because of underreporting.

In New York, Governor Eliot Spitzer supports automatic suspension of teachers convicted of sex crimes, which now requires lengthy hearings. In Maine, Governor John Baldacci hopes to share the names of abusive teachers with other states, which a 1913 confidentiality law there prohibits. In Florida, Governor Charlie Crist endorsed federal legislation proposed by U.S. Representative Adam Putnam, a Florida Republican, to create a national databank of abusive teachers, a hot line for complaints and federal funds for state investigators.

Some states are looking to increase penalties, expand background checks or broaden their ability to police charter schools for abuse, like Indiana, Massachusetts and Utah. Kentucky and South Carolina are considering making it illegal for teachers to have sex with older students.

Several states are tackling a major problem -- the loopholes that allow problem teachers to move from one school district to another, or from one state to another. The AP investigation found that what education officials commonly call "passing the trash" happens when districts allow a teacher to quietly leave a school, or fail to report problems to state authorities, or fail to check with state authorities before hiring a teacher, among other glitches. In eight states, legislators are pursuing changes to close those gaps, including California, Colorado, Florida, Minnesota, Missouri, Virginia, Washington state and West Virginia.

In other news…

A Utah retailer of family-friendly tapes and DVDs -- Hollywood films with the "dirty parts" cut out of them -- has been arrested for trading sex with two 14-year-old girls. Read More Orem police say Flix Club owner Daniel Dean Thompson, 31, and Issac Lifferth, 24, were booked into the Utah County jail on charges of sexual abuse and unlawful sexual activity with a 14-year-old. CBS Station KUTV in Salt Lake City reports that the shocking discovery came when a mother found a $20 bill in her daughter's room last week and questioned her about where the money came from. The girl confessed that she and a friend had been paid for sexual favors by an older male.

Police faced a difficult if not impossible task as they tried to stop the spread of pornographic video and photos of two high school girls, images that were transmitted by cell phone to dozens of the girls' Pennsylvania classmates and then to the wider world. Read More District Attorney James B. Martin said at least 40 Parkland High School students believed to have received the images would not face prosecution as long as they show their phones to police by Tuesday to ensure the images have been erased. But students at the school said the distribution was far more widespread. "Most people got it and kept passing it along for fun to everyone in their phonebook," said Jon Gabriel, 16, a junior who said he received and deleted the images. A state trooper was sent to the school Thursday and will return for two more days to ensure that images were erased from the cell phones of students whose parents got letters from prosecutors. The letter explained what had happened, set a deadline for erasing the images and asked the parents to sign consent forms. Martin said students who fail to comply by the deadline could be prosecuted in juvenile court for possession of child pornography. One of the girls in the pictures is shown engaging in a sex act with an unidentified boy, Martin said. The other girl took and transmitted a photo of her bare breasts, he said.

The true scale of a suicide epidemic among young people in a small town was revealed yesterday. Read More As well as the seven deaths linked to social networking websites, a coroner revealed that a further six had also died within a year. (See Volume 6, Issue 7) The astonishing rate of hangings in Bridgend, South Wales, has terrified parents in the area and one secondary school has been placed on 'suicide watch' after pupils appealed for help. "There are 12 young men and one young woman involved and all were found hanged in the area in the last year."

A 15-year-old Florida girl's MySpace page has been hijacked and defaced with sexually explicit and hateful content, Tampa Bay affiliate FOX 13 reported, raising questions about security on Internet networking sites and what is being done to improve it. Read More The teenager, who identified herself to FOX 13 only as "Becky," believes her page was taken over by a group of former friends. She says she can no longer access the page or take it down, even though it still bears her name. Becky's mother says she has contacted MySpace, but has yet to hear from anyone or receive any help. She warned other teenagers to protect themselves from similar attacks by remaining vigilant and keeping their passwords to themselves. (See eGuide Volume 1, Issue 2 for more tips on MySpace.)

The discovery of four girls' decomposed bodies in their mother's home January 9th started an avalanche of calls to D.C.'s Child and Family Services Agency, with child abuse and neglect referrals up nearly 400 percent, officials said. Read More City leaders are eager to make sure all abuse or neglect cases are carefully checked out to avert another tragedy like the case of Banita Jacks, who is accused of killing her four daughters after CFSA missed opportunities to intervene. (See Volume 6, Issue 3.) But there is a danger that the jump in hot line calls may create unmanageable caseloads for investigators, according to Judith Meltzer, deputy director of the Center for the Study of Social Policy. She monitors CFSA's progress on a court-ordered reform plan that stems from a nearly 20-year-old lawsuit. Following high-profile cases, Meltzer said, there's also a tendency to act too quickly to take children away from their families. "In other states in the months that followed ... workers got scared, judges got scared. There can be an overreaction," Meltzer said. Before the Jacks case, CFSA received 36 calls a day to its 24-hour referral hot line. Since January 13, the average call volume has climbed to 140 a day, agency spokeswoman Mindy Good said. A significant portion of the hot line referral increase has come from school staff. During the week before the tragedy, 32 hot line calls were made by school staff, Good said. The following week the number rose to 132.

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