diagnosis from a physical condition to a stress-related mental illness - a psychiatric disorder that causes sufferers to feel pain, although there is no physical cause.

Doctors and hospital psychiatrists wield such power that merely suggesting that a patient's problems are more psychiatric than physical paves the way for the hospital to call in the state child-protection agency. Once medical child abuse has been alleged, the state agency is legally obligated to investigate all complaints. Unfortunately, as the Boston Globe points out:

"Many parents and their advocates complain, however, that the state agency, because of its lack of in-house medical expertise and its longstanding ties with Children's, is overly deferential to the renowned Harvard teaching hospital."

When Justina's parents, Lou and Linda Pelletier, challenged the diagnosis by insisting on a secondopinion, they were told that they could not take her from the hospital and were promptly escorted out of the hospital by security. Four days later, a judge awarded custody of Justina to the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families (DCF).

"They came in, and they said we cannot take Justina out of the hospital. They called DCF," says Linda Pelletier, Justina's mother.

Justina Pelletier’s sisters: From left to right, Julia, Jennifer, and Jessica.

"It is kidnapping," says Lou Pelletier, "We don't even know what they are doing to her. No one will tell us about her treatment. They have kidnapped her, taken her off medications that worked and left her to suffer in pain."

Ironically, the Pelletiers say Boston Children's accused them "overmedicalizing" their daughter before taking her from them and