Casey Kasem's Daughter Battles "Silent Epidemic"

Kerri Kasem, the daughter of famed radio disc jockey Casey Kasem, is getting a crash course in lobbying.

She is crafting and proposing a bill in California that would allow adult children to petition probate courts to obtain an order granting visitation rights to ailing parents. Now, she wants to take her fight straight to Capitol Hill.

“This is a silent epidemic,” Kasem says in a phone interview.

Kasem and her siblings were involved in a bitter court battle with their stepmother to gain control of their father’s medical decisions when the “American Top 40” host died last month at age 82. Kasem claims, along with some of her siblings, her father’s family and best friends were all “kept away” from him. Although things have “settled down” since her dad’s death, Kasem acknowledges there was “so much drama” in the radio veteran’s final months.

“It’s not just a celebrity cause,” Kasem says, “This is happening to people all over the country. … I’m receiving hundreds of letters. … The letters keep coming in with stories, horrific stories, of people that have been blocked from their loved ones.”

The current laws in states across the country are “kind of working against the person who’s ill, and working against the family, and working against the person’s wishes,” she argues.

“There’s nothing right now on the books that allows a judge to say, ‘Let’s send a court-appointed attorney out to the ailing individual and ask if they want to see their kids.’ ”

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Kasem's Daughter Goes After "Silent Epidemic"