Michael Volpe Investigates Podcast the Impromptu: Episode 69 an Interview with Jared and Megan Bass
Michael Volpe Investigates Podcast the Impromptu: Episode 69 an Interview with Jared and Megan Bass
Jared and Megan are living every parent's nightmare; North Carolina DSS has deemed Jared a child abuser, and they refuse to do the medical test necessary to exonerate them.
Jared and Megan Bass are living every parent’s nightmare.
They have a new born son- a week old at the time of the interview- but he has an older sister, who will not likely see.
The older girl was born in October 2021.
That’s because the Department of Social Services (DSS) in Wilkes County, North Carolina, has taken her, placed her with Megan’s estranged half sister and her half sister’s husband.
I reached out to Wilkes County DSS and to Michael Sampson, Megan’s sister’s husband, but neither returned my messages.
Jared is accused physically abusing his young daughter, and Wilkes County DSS is convinced he did it.
Over a three week period starting in January 2022, their young daughter, less than four months at the time, showed to hospitals with three unexplained bruises and breaks.
First, it was a bruise- about the size of a nickel Megan told me- underneath her tongue.
The doctors concluded that it had to be child abuse.
She was sent home anyway, but in the next couple weeks, their young daughter presented with a fractured rib and a broken arm.
One of the breaks occurred while their young daughter was staying with Jared’s parents.
Jared was still blamed because he and Megan stayed over at his parents periodically.
Jared became the primary suspect because Megan was finishing school and he was the one in contact with his daughter primarily during this period.
Child Protective Services- which investigates these matters- could not determine exactly how or when the abuse happened, but they were sure it was abuse.
Their daughter was taken February and placed with Megan’s half sister.
She has not had any more breaks since.
It seems cut and dry, except, Wilkes County District Attorney filed and then dismissed child abuse charges.
Their office did not respond to a message I left.
More than that, Megan, Jared, and their entire extended families insist this is not child abuse, but it is a rare disease called Osteogenesis imperfecta or brittle bone disease.
They’ve taken her to some of the best hospitals in North Carolina: UNC Medical Center and Brenner’s, which is affiliated with Wake Forest.
These doctors have experience in these matters, and in fact, they looked into and ruled out brittle bone disease.
As Jared and Megan explained, their daughter was tested for the three primary variants of brittle bone disease: she tested negative.
Megan said there are over three hundred variants, and DSS refuses to authorize a test for the less common variants.
Since the girl was now in DSS custody, the Bass family had no power to force a test.
Jared explained that they were told the test was too expensive.
As I learned in preparation for this story, CPS has become notorious for misdiagnosing brittle bone disease for child abuse.
I spoke with Terri LaPoint, who previously worked for Medical Kidnap, and she provided me with six stories she previously did, where brittle bone disease was misdiagnosed for child abuse.
Here is part of one.
The stories read much like what is happening to the Bass family now: unexplained injuries in very young children, the parents have no history of violence, but the hospitals and CPS quickly determine that it is child abuse.
There’s more: Jared and Megan told me that their daughter displayed some of the symptoms of brittle bone disease: curved spine, blue sclerae, and difficulty all came up in early medical records.
All three are symptoms of brittle bone disease.
There’s more. Terri told me that child abuse pediatricians (CAP) are often involved in misdiagnosing brittle bone disease for child abuse.
CAPs have received a fair amount of negative scrutiny, primarily from Mike Hixenbaugh, at NBC News, for misdiagnosing child abuse. Here’s part of one story.
Other Children’s Wisconsin physicians said they also brought concerns about the practices of child abuse specialists to hospital leaders in recent months, according to interviews with more than a dozen members of the medical staff. But the physicians said no action was taken.
The doctors described an “out of control” child abuse team that is too quick to report minor injuries to authorities and that is too closely aligned with state child welfare investigators.
Three of the physicians recalled being pressured by some child abuse pediatricians to alter medical records in order to sway the outcomes of Child Protective Services investigations, removing passages where they had initially reported having little or no concerns about abuse, though there’s no evidence that happened in Cox’s case.
For more than three years, authorities in the state of Washington considered Dr. Elizabeth Woods one of their go-to experts in cases of suspected child abuse, often relying on her medical opinions to determine when to take children from parents or file criminal charges.
But this winter, Woods left her position as the director of the child abuse intervention program at Mary Bridge Children’s Hospital in Tacoma, and last month she was removed from the small roster of doctors who provide expert medical reports to the state’s child welfare agency, hospital and state officials confirmed. Some area prosecutors have also been sending letters to defense lawyers disclosing that Woods’ credibility as an expert witness has been called into question.
These changes follow a KING 5 and NBC News investigation from one year ago that revealed that Woods, 39, provided false information while testifying under oath about why she never received key training to become certified as a child abuse medical expert. The investigation also examined four cases in which child welfare workers took children from parents based on Woods’ reports — including some in which Woods misstated key facts, according to a review of records — despite contradictory opinions from other medical experts who said they saw no evidence of abuse.
One of the CAPs featured in Terri’s stories was Susan Thomas.
However, about 15 minutes later, doctors came in to tell her that the x-rays showed several other fractures, including a fresh clavicle break, and a fracture of the tibia and rib fractures in various stages of healing. She was stunned.
Many parents in similar situations have reported to Health Impact News that their first instinct when hearing news like this is to ask themselves who could have hurt their child. Holly is no different. As doctors and police questioned her, Holly says that she and her mother at first thought that, maybe, Daylan’s father could have hurt him, especially since doctors said that many of the fractures were older. She had left him months earlier, alleging that he had been abusive to her. She had never seen him abuse their children. However, in light of her son’s condition, she wondered if he could have hurt Daylan when he had cared for the kids while she worked.
Holly also asked the doctors if anything else could have caused the fractures. She asked to see the x-rays and records, but they refused her. She asked for doctors to run blood work to see if there could be a medical condition. Child Abuse Specialist Dr. Stacy Briggs, now Stacy Thomas, assured her that blood work was run and came back negative. Holly says that she is supposed to have all of his medical records by now. However, Holly reports that she can find no record of any such tests being run.
Experts in radiology, neurology, orthopedics, and other specialties regularly assert that there are a myriad of medical conditions which mimic child abuse. However, numerous families have reported, and medical and court documents confirm, that once a Child Abuse Specialist labels a child as being abused, doctors frequently stop looking for other possible explanations for the child’s condition. The children are then funneled into the Child Protective System, triggering the release of federal funding to the state.
Thomas was the secondary CAP in their case, Jared and Megan told me.
Since beginning their ordeal with DSS, Jared primarily has been put through a series of hoops: parenting classes, anger management, and group therapy.
Furthermore, they are paying child support for their daughter’s care.
Megan even said that DSS made it clear to her that if she left her husband she could get her daughter back. She has refused.
DSS has engaged in several bizarre practices as well. For instance, a therapist told Jared that it was required that he be labeled with something, so she diagnosed him with adjustment disorder with anxiety, due to the DSS ordeal.
{In North Carolina, CPS does the investigation and it’s turned over to DSS when a child is taken.}
In another, the therapist tells Jared he must get treatment, even though she doesn’t believe he needs it.
In a third, the therapist admits that the DSS ordeal is what caused Jared’s disorder.
As you can tell from the video, Jared and Megan have a newborn: a precious little boy only seven days old, as of the taping of the interview.
Now, they are in danger of losing him as well.
Within a day of his birth, CPS was called. That’s expected, given the previous substantiated finding.
Since, they told, they have faced pressure and threats, and they have been given four safety plans.
Currently, Megan is required to monitor Jared at all times, and her father must live with them.
THESE THREE LETTER AGENCIES ARE DESTROYING GENERATIONS OF AMERICAN FAMILIES! Medical Kidnap is real. In the dependency/foster care courts, case workers with a "Child Abuse Team" join forces and are sizing newborns at an alarming rate from innocent American mothers, who have done absolutely NOTHING to harm their children.
The "Child Abuse Team Doctors" on hospital staffs, submit their feelings and hunches to a Judge. In the case above seems the "Team" are not experts in genetic bone disorders. Often parents will bring in peer reviewed, medical experts in their fields of practice to contest the diagnosis of the "Abuse Teams." Those expert medical witnesses submit to the judge their CVs, knowledge, skill, education, experience and training in their specialized field of practice. Too often judges ignore exculpatory evidence offered by more qualified experts in favor of these "Abuse Teams", who don't know what they are doing. So many children and their families have been harmed by this process!
In the Bass case, the parents contend #1 their infant likely has a rare genetic disease, #2 the hospital is not releasing the records the parents need to identify the testing the "Abuse Team" did to identify their infant's medical condition and #3 The "Abuse Team" has been notified of a special test that would pin point the genetic disorder of their infant, #5 BUT, that special test has been denied by the hospital staff! #6 Seriously?WHY?
CPS is set up to seize children into a money making industry that will not begin until the parents are accused and the child is in the custody of strangers. In 2014, bipartisan Senate Hearings found that Health and Human Services sends $83,000.00 per year, per child to the states once the children are seized and in out of home congregant care! Senator Wyden said, "Those number are astounding!" Sen Wyden worked to keep children at home with the parents, if CPS is involved. That in Senator Wyden's mind was safer for children and a savings to the taxpayers. 8 years later, it is said the yearly rate for each seized child is much higher from HHS. Children don't see that money, they are lucky to have Cup O'Noodles for dinner. In AZ we identified 460 contractors making money off the backs of foster children.
Medical Kidnap is a trend in Children's Hospitals across the country. The Hospitals are incentivized by Child Protective Services to help them seize children. Contracts between Phoenix Children's Hospital, and AZ Child Protective Services/DCS have been identified and published in social media. An impromptu interview of 20 families sitting in the waiting room of Phoenix Children's Hospital in mid May this year: Every adult in the waiting room who brought their child to PCH, was accused of child abuse. They were told, their stories didn't line up. They were told their descriptions of illness or injury of their child was consistent with abuse, Mike, every single adult, 20 of them accused of abuse!