DEARBORN — There are certain types of children who are at
high risk for abuse and neglect: children of drug-addicted parents, children of
parents who have themselves been abused, and children of parents who have some
sort of mental disorder.

Nowhere on this list created by the American Academy for
Family Physicians is being Arab American or Muslim. But these are the reasons
that Zainab Al-Nawami believes her two children, ages four and one, were taken
from her and her husband after her daughter Rouqaya, 2, died March 26, 2010,
from what doctors have since determined was a virus in a child with compromised
liver function who had received four vaccines all at once from their family pediatrician
three days earlier even though the child was obviously ill at the time.

According to Al-Nawami, Rouqaya had been sick on March 23,
2010, and they took her to her pediatrician, Dr. Basel Khatib, for a check-up.

“She had a fever and diarrhea and she wasn’t well. Her
father took her,” Al-Nawami said. 
According to Khatib’s office notes that day, he performed a very cursory
examination that included crossing off two lists of individual symptoms that
should have been checked before vaccination administration with two strokes of
the pen. Then he proceeded to administer four vaccines.

The father returned home with the child and she appeared no
better.  At one point through her
crying she asked for a bottle. Her father laid her down on the sofa in the dining
room within sight of Zainab, who went into the adjoining kitchen to prepare the
bottle. The father, Munther Al-Rubea, said he was going to a neighbor’s home to
visit someone who had come in from overseas.  Before he got very far away from the house, he heard Zainab
scream for him to come back. “Suddenly Rouqaya had started making strange,
choking-like sounds,” Zainab tearfully recalls. “I turned in time to
see her fall from the couch. I ran to check on her and her eyes were rolling back.”
She called 911 and the ambulance took Rouqaya to Oakwood Hospital.  Her father went with her. The doctors
asked Munther whether Rouqaya had pneumonia. Apparently she did but the
pediatrician hadn’t told him this. Tests at Oakwood Hospital revealed a brain
bleed. Rouqaya was transferred to Children’s Hospital in Detroit, where she had
surgery to relieve the immense pressure on her brain. She never regained
consciousness and remained on life support until March 26, when she died.

Both at Oakwood and Children’s hospitals, physical abuse of
the child was suspected. The massive brain damage was not consistent with a
fall from a sofa. First considered was Shaken Baby Syndrome.  The Dearborn Police Department was
called and arrived before Zainab had had time to get to Children’s where she
learned her daughter had been taken. 
The couples’ other two children were taken by Children’s Protective
Services. The parents were overwhelmed with what was happening to their
daughter.

“We had no idea what was going on. I don’t speak English
well and my husband almost speaks none,” Zubaida said.

At autopsy, Assistant Wayne County Medical Examiner Dr.
Francisco Diaz classified the death as a homicide, although there was no
evidence of abuse. The child didn’t have neck injuries that would be consistent
with SOS, nor any external signs of trauma and no scalp fractures that would
have accompanied trauma to the head.

Immediately upon Rouqaya’s death, social worker Nashoose
McCants called a Team Decision Making Meeting, where what to do about the
family’s other children was discussed. Their notes state that “neither
parent was available,” as though the parents were not interested in
attending, the reality being that they had just lost a daughter and were
otherwise consumed with the crisis.

When they did get to a hearing, they thought they were
attending to get their children back, but when they arrived, they discovered it
was a termination hearing.

Although neither parent has been charged with anything,
hearings drone on at the Lincoln Hall of Justice at a snail’s pace. It has now
been one year and two months since Zainab and Munther lost their three
children.  Thankfully, the other
two children, Fatima, 4 and Sukana,1, are staying with Zainab’s mother, who
lives not far from the apartment where Zainab and Munther now live, not being
able to bear staying in the same house where their daughter died. Zainab is
allowed to be with her children during the day but cannot spend the night with
them.

In the interim, Washtenaw County Medical Examiner Dr. Bader
Cassin, has testified in the hearings that trauma could not have produced the
amount and type of brain damage that caused Rouqaya’s death.  He said the child’s injuries were
consistent with a virus. Dr. Diaz admitted that the brain was so damaged that it
took two weeks for them to prepare it for testing. This also is not consistent
with SBS.

Dr. Cassin said he found evidence of a virus in the child’s
brain and also a damaged liver, which could have accounted for the bleeding in
the brain. “The first doctor, Dr. Diaz, didn’t mention any of this and Dr.
Cassin said he should have seen it,” Zainab said. ” It was there in
her blood tests.  Cassin said that
the vaccines Rouqaya got could also have caused the bleeding in her
brain.”

Perhaps even more significantly, telephone testimony from a
Dr. Harold E. Buttram in Pennsylvania revealed five reasons why the injuries
sustained by Rouqaya were not inflicted. He said that Shaken Baby Syndrome has
been discredited by bioengineers working for the auto industry.  To inflict the amount of trauma that
would cause cerebral hemorrhage would sever neck muscles and bones first.
Secondly he said there was no significant surface head injury either in
external bruising or internal scalp hemorrhages  that one would expect to see in inflicted trauma. Thirdly,
he noted that the child had blood tests which showed a prolonged bleeding time
and evidence of liver dysfunction. Had the appropriate tests been done at
autopsy, he said, they would have confirmed that the child died of a bleeding
disorder. He further attributed the liver dysfunction to inappropriate care by
the child’s pediatrician, who for one thing never dose-adjusted her vaccines to
allow for the fact that she was a premature birth.  Fourthly he said that children’s vaccines can and frequently
do cause brain hemorrhages. And finally, large studies have proven that
vaccines should never be given to ill children, as was done in this case.

Rehab Amer, who went through a similar travesty of justice
with the state’s foster care system 25 years ago, has been accompanying the
parents to court. “Dr. Bader Cassin testified that the death should not be
classified a homicide because there is no evidence of inflicted trauma or abuse
on this child,” Amer said. “There is evidence that this child was ill
and was given a vaccination or she might have a liver disease. Wayne County
Assistant Medical Examiner Dr. Diaz didn’t do the proper tests to prove the
real cause of the death.”

The Amer Act was passed into state law last year after the Amers
had their children unlawfully removed from their custody after the accidental
death of her son Samier. For Amer, Al-Nawami’s case is reminiscent of her own.

“They are doing to her the same thing they did to
me,” Rehab said. 
“Al-Nawami was offered the chance have her children returned, if
she were to  plead guilty in the
case of her daughter’s death.”

“They medical examiners said there was no evidence of
abuse,” Amer said. “So why are her children not with her? Why are
they targeting her? It’s like the Department of Human Services aren’t concerned
about what is best for the kids, but they are more concerned about proving
themselves right. They are ignoring the evidence.”

“My rights are being terminated before the trial is
over. I don’t understand it,” Al-Nawami said, her young face full of
sorrow. “My two daughters are staying with my mother. I can see them
during the day, but I have to go home and sleep at night. I can’t sleep near
them.”

A hearing is scheduled May 19 at 1:30 pm in the chambers of
Judge Jerome Cavanaugh at Wayne County 3rd Circuit Court.