UF’s Child Protection Scandal Deepens: Resignation of Child Abuse Pediatrician Highlights Jacksonville’s Record of Shattering of Innocent American Families.
Article Summary
Knox & Dully’s Controversial Diagnoses: Hasty child abuse diagnoses in cases such as the Sullivan family's 2023 ordeal at Wolfson Children's Hospital, which led to the wrongful removal of 3 children for 19 months. They misdiagnosed a swollen leg as deliberate abuse & are said to have withheld contrary evidence; a judge later ruled it was a medical condition, not malice. CPT incentives & funding tied to family separation.
Family Impact: Mom shares that they exaggerated claims to portray the family as monsters & “stole irreplaceable milestones”; similar patterns emerged from pedatricians’ prior roles in other states, where testimony was overturned & staff fled abusive leadership.
Role and Ties: Dully, closely linked to Knox & the Child Protection Team (CPT) as medical director, is said to have provided untruthful testimony & hidden evidence in the 2022 federal complaint ABCD v. DeSantis regarding the Williams family.
Case Example: Infants Lil R. and R.W. were removed in 2017 after fractures were mislabeled as abuse; Fractures, common for a wide variety of reasons in infants, are complex. Dully insisted on abuse despite evidence of Osteogenesis Imperfecta (genetic brittle bone disease) confirmed by withheld GeneDX tests showing a LEPRE1 mutation, leading to family separation & sibling scattering.
Systemic Accusations: This particular complaint alleges they fabricated abuse narratives, withheld exculpatory evidence, and favored non-relative adoptions by insiders over kinship placements, violating federal laws & turning child protection into a predatory scheme.
Ongoing Lawsuits & Pattern: Dully is a defendant in suits like Lawshe v. Hardwick (2024, civil rights violations) & Vuppu v. National Youth Advocate Program (2025, disputed removals); these share patterns of ignoring genetic, birth-related, accidental, & other important explanations for children’s injuries, weaponizing medicine to shatter innocent families.
Article
Resignation by Knox, Civil-Rights Litigation for Dully: Why Florida’s “Child Protection Team” Pediatrician Model Needs Clinical Standards & Oversight Now
In a blistering blow to Florida's already beleaguered Jacksonville child protection practice, Barbara Knox, the disgraced head of the University of Florida's Child Protection Team (CPT) in Jacksonville, has finally been forced out amid a torrent of allegations that paint her as a tyrannical bully whose leadership endangered vulnerable children. Knox's resignation, effective August 15, 2025, comes on the heels of a damning human resources investigation that substantiated claims of rampant intimidation and unprofessional conduct—marking her third such exit from a forensic pediatrics role since 2019. But as the dust settles on Dr. Knox's toxic reign, her underling’s past emerges to new scrutiny: Dr. Kathleen Dully, a key player in the CPT who worked directly alongside Knox, stands accused in multiple lawsuits and cases of peddling false diagnoses of abuse in kids that have ripped apart perfectly loving families under the guise of "protecting" them.
Knox's downfall began with explosive reports from nine anonymous CPT employees who blew the whistle in January 2025, describing a "hostile and unprofessional" environment where bullying and retaliation ran rampant. Witnesses painted a picture of a leader whose compromised judgment obstructed the CPT's mission, damaging its reputation, and, according to staff, jeopardized child abuse investigations. One former employee, Jacqueline S., recounted being silenced. Another, Alyssa P., slammed the probe for failing to capture the full extent of Knox's unchecked terror, which turned a team with the power to tear families apart over unsubstantiated allegations into a "living hell.
Uncovering the Loving American Families Literally Torn Apart
Compounding the workplace horrors were controversial medical opinions in high-profile custody battles, where her hasty abuse diagnoses tore families asunder. Take the Sullivan family: In 2023, Diana and Corey Sullivan rushed their infant daughter to Wolfson Children's Hospital in Jacksonville for a swollen leg, only to have this office of pediatricians spearhead accusations of deliberate abuse. This nightmare led to the removal of their three young children—including long prayed-for IVF-born twins—for 19 agonizing months, during which the Department of Children and Families (DCF) pushed to terminate parental rights. A judge eventually reunited the family, ruling the injuries stemmed from an undiagnosed medical condition, not malice. Diana Sullivan, reacting to Knox's resignation, seethed with righteous fury: "She took milestones from me that I'll never get back," decrying how Knox exaggerated claims to make the family sound like monsters. Similar echoes resound from Knox's past stints in Wisconsin and Alaska, where courts overturned rulings based on her testimony, and entire staffs fled her abusive oversight.
Yet Knox didn't operate in a vacuum—enter Kathleen Dully, whose close ties to Knox and the CPT amplify the scandal. Deeply embedded in the team, Dully has been implicated in perpetuating the same overreach that defined Knox's tenure. In a bombshell federal complaint filed in 2022 (ABCD v. DeSantis), Dully is called out as the CPT medical director who delivered untruthful testimony in the Williams family's termination of parental rights (TPR) trial. The case involved infants Lil R. and R.W., removed in 2017 after fractures were mislabeled as abuse at Wolfson Children's Hospital. Dully's testimony fueled the fire, insisting on physical maltreatment despite mounting evidence of Osteogenesis Imperfecta—a genetic brittle bone disease confirmed by withheld GeneDX testing showing a pathogenic LEPRE1 mutation. This bombshell, buried until 2022, proved the fractures were medical, not malicious, yet Dully's lies helped sever the children from their devoted parents and relatives, scattering siblings and inflicting irreversible trauma on a tight-knit American family. The complaint accuses the system, with Dully at its core, of fabricating abuse narratives, withholding exculpatory evidence, and prioritizing non-relative adoptions by insiders over loving kin—violating federal laws and turning child protection into a predatory racket.
Dully's trail of destruction doesn't stop there. She's a named defendant in at least two ongoing lawsuits that scream pattern and practice. In Lawshe v. Hardwick (filed 2024 in Florida's Middle District), plaintiff William Lee Lawshe sues Dully alongside UF trustees and others, with motions hinting at civil rights violations tied to bungled child welfare interventions. Similarly, in Vuppu v. National Youth Advocate Program (2025), pro se litigant Rajasekhar Vuppu targets Dully amid a roster including Wolfson, UF Health, and DCF, in a case redacted for minors' names but reeking of disputed child removals. These suits, combined with the ABCD revelations, expose Dully as a serial offender whose eagerness to cry "abuse" has condemned innocent parents to hellish battles, all while ignoring alternative explanations like genetic conditions or accidents.
This isn't mere incompetence—it's a vicious crusade that weaponizes medicine against families. Misdiagnoses, often rubber-stamped under Knox's regime, have shattered countless loving homes, branding devoted parents as monsters and dooming children to unnecessary foster care trauma. In cases like the Williamses, where genetic proof of innocence was suppressed, Dully's actions invite additional questions. How many more innocent lives will be ruined before accountability and transparency?