E LAINE W HITFIELD S HARP, TLC ‘98

This is part of a book currently being written by Elaine Whitfield Sharp. Copyright by Elaine Whitfield Sharp, July 2004. Permission to publish given to The Warrior.

Evil events are rarely committed to paper. The history of child abuse inherent- ly involves pain inflicted in the dark and behind closed doors, providing us with only the barest of facts. We know that royal children were poisoned and mur- dered for convenience or for their crowns and that the ancient Greeks dis- posed of handicapped children at birth. We hear words like “beaten,” “burned,” “raped,” and “exploited,” but these do little to reveal the enormous tragedies for which they are mere codes.

Today, there is a vast infrastructure of child protective services (CPS) in America. It is funded by billions of federal and state tax dollars. History has been turned on its head. Instead of children being ‘seen and not heard,’ or having no right of survival at birth, children are now revered as precious, as our modern day mocking birds. The entire ‘village’ is involved in their protection and welfare.

28 THE WARRIOR • Fall 2004 welling in the village are child protective services (CPS) THE PRISM OF THE PAST: professionals, pediatricians and others committed to THE ALARMING HISTORY OF CHILD ABUSE stomping out child abuse. The history of child abuse D Read between the lines of the Florence phone book and you will plays a valuable role in helping to form the professional self- images of CPS and medical professionals. History helps them find the human face of child abuse: Hundreds of people with identify the demons and mobilize for the mission. An apprecia- the last name, “Innocenti.” The name means “innocents” and it tion of the present comes through the prism of the past and fos- was given to each child who was rescued in one of the early bat- ters camaraderie between colleagues who share the vision. It is tles to fight the war against child abuse. the grist of the CPS culture. In the 1500’s, liberal-minded, Florentine men helped them- selves to the local slave women—mostly from Africa—and But, there’s a dark side to this culture. The multi-billion dollar fathered hundreds of unwanted children. The babies were rou- annual budget keeping this community alive also encourages tinely murdered at birth because the mothers could not care for overzealous investigation and, with that, millions of false reports them. and accusations of child abuse every year. Powering the ‘indus- try’ of false accusation are mandatory reporting laws requiring As a humanitarian alternative to this local wave of infanticide, professionals who regularly come into contact with children to in 1491 the wealthy Florentine Medici family (of Vatican fame) report suspected abuse. And the standard for ‘suspicion’ or even sponsored an orphanage for the newborns. A mother who could ‘reasonable cause’ is low. False accusations are particularly preva- not keep her baby now had a choice. Typically, a mother dis- lent in cases of so-called shaken baby syndrome (SBS). The list guised her baby as a bundle of laundry and took it at dark of professionals now legislatively mandated to report has through the narrow, winding streets of Florence to the House of expanded. Failure to report suspected abuse may put a person in the Innocents. There she placed the child on a ‘wheel’ that was the dock and subject them to civil liability. much like a lazy Susan—half inside the sanctuary behind a small door and half outside the building. This wheel served as Money, another familiar villain, also lurks on the landscape. the method of anonymous delivery. A mother signaled the Some professionals may be encouraged to find ‘abuse’ because arrival of the baby with a knock on the door before fleeing into they have government grants to look for it. The result is that the night. On hearing the knock, the sisters religious, who ran alleged child abuse, especially of the SBS variety, may be not the the orphanage, turned the wheel around 180 degrees, took the most probable diagnosis, but instead the most profitable. baby in, raised and educated the boy or girl, and arranged for What follows are some snap shots from the world of child abuse each child to be trained in one of the many trades then bur- recognition and prevention professionals. Understanding the geoning in Florence. roots of this culture is one way to prepare for cross-examination Each child took as its surname “Innocenti.” Today, there are sev- of child protection and medical witnesses who were part of a eral pages of “Innocenti’s” in the Florence phone book, all medical emergency that has evolved into a criminal child descendants of that great humanistic experiment more than half abuse case. a millennium ago. The babies had been saved by an act of social

Florence Phone Book: Hundreds of children were saved by a humanitarian experiment in Florence, Italy during the Renaissance. Beginning in 1491, instead of being murdered at birth, newborns were taken to the House of the Innocents where they were raised by the sisters religious and taught a trade. Today, hundreds of the orphans’ descendants live in Florence where their names can be found in the city’s telephone book.

THE WARRIOR • Fall 2004 29 THE HOUSE OF THE INNOCENTS

to stand back from the treatment. A loyal champion of all boys, everyday experience of his descriptions of maltreated children confronting the battered stemmed from a desire to remedy evils or neglected child and to that he had found in London and its sub- reflect on the wider issues urbs. Dickens’ gave these victims of of what has been present- tyranny and oppression a voice in his ed to us as a single inci- novels. On hearing this voice, Londoners dent in time.”1 were deeply affected and were stirred to a storm of indignation and protest. We rejoin history at the Schools, work-houses, and other public work-houses of Victorian institutions were subjected to rigorous England. These were a per- examination, resulting in several closings version of institutions like and tremendous improvements. the House of the Innocents. Although Dickens’ goal was partly Orphaned children were accomplished, the war against child abuse sent to these Hell holes. had a long road ahead. Moved by the stories of chil- dren who were starved and Meanwhile, across the Atlantic, thou- beaten in these places, sands of homeless children scraped out Charles Dickens created a grim existences and often died on the storm of indignation and streets of New York and other cities. By outrage when, based on the 1850, in , alone, there lives of real boys, he wrote were an estimated 30,000 orphans on the stories like “Oliver Twist.” streets. In response in 1853 Charles Orphaned at birth, Twist Loring Brace, a young, Yale-educated the- House of the Innocents terra cotta and glazed medallion: was put into a work-house ologian, formed the Children’s Aid A child symbolically seeks the charity of Florence’s rich in this with other boys where he Society (CAS). In what was to become medallion by Andrea della Robbia. From 1463-66, Robbia was forced to work. Meals the beginning of the modern-day foster made 10 such medallions to decorate the arches of the House consisted of one small bowl movement in the U.S., the CAS shipped of the Innocents, (Ospedale degli Innocenti), built by of gruel, and no more. some 120,000 children out of the city on Brunelleschi and funded by the Medici family as a refuge for “Orphan Trains,” initially to farming The emaciated boys began newborns who were abandoned there in lieu of being killed. families in the Midwest and West and, as to plot a rebellion of sorts the Orphan Train Movement grew, to 45 and drew straws for who states, Canada and Mexico. Even so, reform from the ultimate act of child would ask for more at the next meal. The America’s homeless orphans and abused abuse: murder. short straw fell to Oliver and so, the next children remained mostly voiceless and But this type of Renaissance humanitari- day, he approached the an idealism was slow to spread. work-house master and Infanticide and other forms of physical, uttered what is perhaps the sexual and emotional abuse had been most famous of Dickens’ going on since the advent of Man. No lines: “Please, sir, I want laws or programs would or will ever put some more!” an end to this. The ancient Egyptians Oliver was severely beaten, used to punish mothers who murdered cast out and sold by the their newborns by making them hug the work-house to a local corpse for 72 hours. In 1917, of 5,000 undertaker for five English illegitimate children born in Chicago, pounds. Beatings and star- 1,000 disappeared without a trace. The vation continued there Victorians stuffed their babies down sew- until, one night, Oliver ers, clogging the city’s system. Today, the stole into the darkness— news of war and conflict is punctuated by only to fall into the hands stories of dead babies left in public toilets, of the Artful Dodger. garbage cans and dumpsters. (You’ll have to read the book to find out what The lessons of history are used in child becomes of Oliver.) Oliver Twist: "Please, sir, I want some more!" This is perhaps maltreatment books as case studies of the most famous of Charles Dickens’ lines. The author’s descrip- what to look for today. Wrote the editors Dickens’ stories were mile- tions of boy life in Victorian England caused a wave of protest of one such text: stones in raising social con- against, and reform of the miserable conditions in which young sciousness about child mal- “The historical perspective allows us children were forced to live.

30 THE WARRIOR • Fall 2004 THE HOUSE OF THE INNOCENTS largely ignored by mainstream, middle- class America for the next two decades. Fast-forward to 1874 when child abuse issues briefly took center stage in the American media. The plight of Mary Ellen Wilson, a crusade-inspiring case in New York City, sparked the creation of the early child protection movement in the . Mary Ellen, a nine-year-old orphan, was regularly beaten and berated by her foster mother. A charity worker who was boarding in the same house wanted to help Mary Ellen escape her misery, but there were no government agencies to intervene. The charity worker turned to the American Society for the Prevention of (ASPCA) which, based on the premise that a child was part of the animal king- dom, sought and obtained a writ of habeas corpus removing Mary Ellen from the abuser’s home. Mary Ellen’s foster mother was convicted of assault and battery and sentenced to one year of Orphan Trains: In 1850, there were some 30,000 orphaned, homeless and hungry children on the hard labor. streets of New York City. This emergency sparked the creation of the Children’s Aid Society (CAS) in 1853. Over the next few years, the CAS shipped some 120,000 of these children on ‘Orphan Outrage over Mary Ellen’s case resulted Trains’ to farming families in the Midwest, the West and to places as far away as Canada. Today, in the organization of the New York descendants of the Orphan Train movement keep in touch by e-mail and the Internet. Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children in 1874. In 1875, the New York state legislature enacted a statute lected children in danger of becoming newly-developing X-ray technology. The that “authorized cruelty societies to file delinquent.” Stomping out physical distinction between visible and invisible complaints for the violation of any laws abuse was to take second place behind the injuries had been created in the field of affecting children and required law need to fill bellies. As it did so, the role of child abuse. the SPCC’s gradually diminished. enforcement and court officials to aid It is part of the alarming history of med- agents of the societies in the enforcement THE SPECTER OF INVISIBLE ABUSE: icine that Caffey assumed, without reli- of these laws.” In doing so, that state leg- FROM MISSION TO MONSTER able-scientific proof of causation, that islature created the first statutory child Jaspers’ confession to shaking the babies protective services system in the United Historically, the signs of physical cruelty in her care was all that was needed to States. to children were perceived as visible, “prove” that the intracranial bleeding By 1905, there were more than 400 pri- only: bruises, burns, obviously broken they had was, in fact, caused by shaking, vate charitable societies to prevent cruelty bones, or ‘pattern injuries,’ such as, belt alone. Neither the medical examiners nor to children (SPCC’s). The SPCC’s buckles and whip welts. But in 1956, Caffey excluded the possibility of impact assumed the primary role in handling radiologist John Caffey, M.D., believed or other possible causes of the bleeding in child-abuse complaints that, if founded, he had discovered a new form of ‘invisi- the Jaspers’ baby cases. ble abuse’: whiplash shaking, later to be they referred to the courts for action. Although it was to be shown in 1987, called “shaken baby syndrome” (SBS).2 It and again in 2003, that shaking, alone, The Great Depression brought with it a was in that year that a nursemaid, could not cause intracranial injuries, the shift in child-welfare priorities from pre- Virginia Jaspers, confessed to shaking SBS diagnosis slowly became more preva- venting physical abuse to providing food, some of the babies for whom she had lent over the next three decades.3 clothing and shelter for poor and father- cared. less children. Supplying these necessities The diagnosis received a lot of publicity Japsers’ story made Newsweek and other became the hot issue under the Social from C. Henry Kempe, M.D., who in national media. Jaspers’ victims had Security Act of 1935. Through this 1962 published an article, “The Battered intracranial bleeding, that is, bleeding statute, Congress attempted to create a Child Syndrome,” in the Journal of the between the skull and the brain. This social welfare system for “the protection American Medical Association (JAMA). type of bleeding could only be seen with and care of homeless, dependent and neg- That article contributed to changing the

THE WARRIOR • Fall 2004 31 THE HOUSE OF THE INNOCENTS entire landscape of child protection. those who worked in the health care and Public awareness of intentionally inflicted Harnessing the increasing institutional child protection fields. Other categories child head injury continued to increase as power of the American medical establish- of professionals who regularly came into Kempe, Caffey and others beat the drums ment, Kempe called for physicians to contact with children—clergy, teachers, of this newly-discovered form of ‘invisi- look for and to report to child protection school nurses, dentists and more— ble’ child abuse. Even so, between the authorities the parents of “battered chil- became mandated reporters. 1960’s and early 1970’s, SBS was still a dren”—those with intracranial bleeding comparatively rare diagnosis. That was Shaking, alone, as a cause of child brain and retinal hemorrhages—in order to about to change. injury was not scientifically challenged protect them from further injury. The sci- until 1987. It was shown to be a false entifically-unreliable theory was that if AN EMPIRE IS BORN hypothesis.5 But, in the climate of the bleeding could be seen on an X-ray, the early 1970’s, many physicians eager to In 1974, the federal government took a cause—violent shaking—could be identi- serve the legitimate cause of child abuse leadership position in child abuse when fied. (This is like saying that a psychiatrist prevention, diagnosed scores of so-called Congress enacted the Child Abuse who views the skull on an X-ray, or the 6 SBS cases. Prevention and Treatment Act (CAPTA). brain on CT, MRI or PET scans, can determine the cause of mental illness even Under CAPTA, “the term ‘child abuse in the absence of organic brain disease.) and neglect’ means, at a minimum, any recent act or failure to act on the part of Recognition of so-called SBS was—and a parent or caretaker, which results in still is—part of the declared war against death, serious physical or emotional child abuse prevention. Kempe and harm, sexual abuse or exploitation, or an Caffey theorized that when a child had act or failure to act which presents an intracranial bleeding and bleeding behind imminent risk of serious harm.”7 That the eyes in the layers of the retina (retinal broad definition pulls many within hemorrhages), this meant only one thing: its net. they had been violently and intentionally shaken. Their legacy persists. Fast forward The statute was designed to raise aware- to a July 2004 TV news story, typical of ness about child abuse and to create a scores like it. The TV news reporter led: nationwide child protective services sys- tem on a state-by-state basis. In the past Physical child abuse is hard to look 30 years, Congress has used CAPTA as at. But what if a baby has no marks? the main funding vehicle to pump bil- What if they look perfectly healthy, lions of dollars annually into state coffers but come into the doctor’s office, to build a child-protection-services infra- clinic or emergency room vomiting? structure. It is now a mighty force with Dr. Rachel Berger, Children’s which to be reckoned. Hospital of Pittsburgh…. It could be that they have reflux, it THE MONSTER UNDER THE BED: could be that they have the flu, but it MANDATORY REPORTING could be that they have a brain In order to drink at CAPTA’s trough, injury . . . . If you return a child to states had a number of obligations, an environment where he or she was including a requirement that they enact injured, there’s a high likelihood that Mary Ellen Wilson (before and after). As tougher mandatory reporting statutes. the child will come back and be re- related by the New York City Museum, “The With all that money at the end of the car- 4 injured or be killed. startling child abuse case of Mary Ellen Wilson rot, they did. All 50 states now have Recognizing “shaken baby syndrome” spawned the formation of the New York statutes that not only increase the states’ and preventing it was the major focus of Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to power to intervene in cases where child the child abuse protection community Children (NYSPCC). Hearing of the plight of abuse is suspected and remove children developed in response to the writings of a child living in the Hell's Kitchen area of on an emergency basis, but which further Manhattan, social worker Etta Angell Wheeler Caffey and Kempe. Beginning in 1962, broaden the net of those who are man- enlisted the assistance of (of the several groups drafted model child-abuse- dated to report and provide a broader American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty reporting statutes that mandated health definition of child abuse. to Animals -- NYSPCA), who acted in the care workers who see or suspect physical belief that children should be afforded the same In some states, mandated reporters who abuse, such as so-called SBS, to report it protection as animals.” The NYSPCA fail to report their suspicions of abuse to the authorities. By 1967, every state obtained a writ of habeas corpus to rescue may be criminally prosecuted. had a statute. Mary Ellen from her cruel stepmother who was Mandatory reporting statutes in some In the following years, mandatory report- later sentenced to one year of jail and hard states, such as Alabama and California, ing statutes cast their net far beyond labor. (Photo from NYSPCC.) authorize fines of up to $1,000 and up to

32 THE WARRIOR • Fall 2004 THE HOUSE OF THE INNOCENTS six months in jail for those who fail to any other physical evidence of shaking, Alabama spent more than $65 m ($12 m report. Failure to report may also subject most of the 5,000 to 6,000 people in federal dollars). California spent $1.3 a mandated reporter to civil liability. charged with causing SBS every year billion ($42 m federal). Florida spent must surely be in the group of those who $329 m ($19 m federal). Massachusetts Predictably, with a larger number of peo- are falsely accused.11 spent more than $101 m ($11 m federal). ple now mandated to report, a broader Wyoming spent almost $4 m ($1.3 m definition of child abuse, large amounts THE VILLAGE federal). of funding at stake, coupled in some states with the fear of criminal prosecu- The oldest federal agency dedicated to The Children’s Bureau also awards grants tion and/or civil liability, reports of child fighting child abuse is the Children’s on behalf of the Department of Justice abuse have more than quadrupled since Bureau. It is part of the Department of (DOJ) that administers the Children’s 1974. Health and Human Services (HHS), Justice Act. The awards are made, for under the Administration for Children example, not only for research to recog- MANDATORY REPORTING and Families, Administration on nize child abuse, but also to state and MEETS JUNK SCIENCE Children, Youth and Families. county prosecutors for the training of assistant attorneys general and district Almost three million reports of suspected The Children’s Bureau budget for Fiscal attorneys in how to effectively prosecute child abuse were made in 1999. Of those, Year (FY) 2004 was $6.7 billion. Of that, accused child abusers, including cases of 1.8 million were investigated and of those a whopping $2.5 billion was funneled to alleged SBS. Funding is also awarded to less than half were substantiated.8 While the states in grants for various child abuse hire expert witnesses to testify against the the protection of those unfortunate chil- programs for protection and prevention, accused, including SBS experts. dren who had been abused or neglected which includes recognition. Many, many was necessary, the flip side of those num- millions of that go directly to a vast The National Clearing House on Child bers tell another sorry story. A good por- bureaucracy of programs focused on one Abuse and Neglect which along with the tion of more than half of the people target: finding child abuse. In 2002, for Children’s Bureau is under the HHS’ investigated for child abuse and/or neg- example, in just one genre of grants, some Administration for Children and lect were falsely or mistakenly accused. $81 million was awarded to states for Families, provides guides on how to get With a population of about 280 million, child abuse “recognition.” And, we grant money to CPS and medical profes- this means that in 1999, alone, as many haven’t even begun to talk about the sionals, “community-based organiza- as one in 300 people in America may mandated state matching requirements. tions” “public and non-profit agencies,” have been the victim of false accusations As has been the pattern over the last 30 “universities,” “service providers,” “train- of child abuse and/or neglect. years, many of the federally funded state ers” and “researchers helping to protect children.” It is one of those modern facts of and local programs organized to recog- Orwellian life that mandatory reporting nize child abuse heavily emphasize find- Regularly announcements are made in of ‘invisible’ abuse still occurs even ing cases of so-called SBS.12 the Federal Register that the Children’s though that form of alleged abuse—SBS Every year, each state matches multi-mil- Bureau is seeking grant proposals from without spinal cord injury—has been sci- lion-dollar federal funding in partnership public or private agencies to study how to entifically refuted. budgets for preventive and primary care recognize child abuse. Grants are avail- able to departments within state CPS It is another fact of Orwellian life that the of children. For example, in FY 2002, right hand of the government does not know what the left hand is doing.9 For example, the National Institutes of Health (NIH), under HHS, defines “shaken baby syndrome” as resulting specifically in “TBI [Traumatic brain injury] and spinal cord injury.”10 Even though a scientific experiment has proved SDH’s cannot be caused by shaking, alone, and even though NIH’s official position is that real cases of SBS include spinal cord injuries, those who are trained and paid by the government to find SBS cases, and those who are under the gun to report it, are not taking any chances. The majority of SBS cases reported in the medical literature or currently being pros- ecuted do not involve spinal cord injury. Children During Great Depression: Feeding, clothing and sheltering children were at the top In the absence of spinal cord injury or of the child abuse agenda during the Great Depression. Child abuse issues were mostly put on the back burner until the 1960’s.

THE WARRIOR • Fall 2004 33 THE HOUSE OF THE INNOCENTS agencies, to private child advocacy organ- Next Issue: Every year the federal, ENDNOTES izations, or to individuals studying for state and local governments pump their doctorates. The types of grants 1 Hobbs, CJ, Hanks, HGI, Wynne, available and the organizations to which billions of dollars into programs JM, Child Abuse and Neglect , A they are awarded are limited only by the designed to help an army of social Clinician’s Handbook, Churchill- imagination—and the Children’s workers and doctors find child Livingstone, Harcourt Brace, 1991 (2nd ed). Bureau’s stated “research agenda.” abuse. Inasmuch as the prospect of 2 Caffey first wrote about some cases of In any given case of so-called SBS, it’s money may encourage some children who had intracranial important to get as much information as physicians and some who work in bleeding and broken bones in 1947. possible about the background of the the child-abuse-prevention com- He continued to study and write State’s medical and child protective serv- munity to find what they are look- about the topic throughout the ices witnesses, especially those who 1950’s and 1970’s. played a role in the evolution of the med- ing for to justify continued fund- ical case into a criminal case. ing or to study the area to obtain 3 In 1987, that assumption was proved false when a biomechanician experi- Naturally, physicians and child protective initial funding, it is useful to sup- enced in the science of traumatic services professionals testifying in crimi- plement criminal or civil discovery brain injury (TBI) together with neu- nal child abuse cases are dedicated to with information obtained under rosurgeons created a model baby, put stomping out child abuse. But, if these the federal and/or state freedom of an accelerometer on its neck, and had witnesses have been involved in training some burly Penn State football and/or research that manifests a clear bias information acts (FOIA) and the players shake the model as hard as in favor of the existence of SBS (without Internet to get a fuller picture of they could. The result was that the spinal cord injury) as a real diagnosis, and witnesses’ backgrounds and likely ‘shakers’ were unable to create the if they also failed to seek to study or orientations. Knowing where to forces needed to cause intracranial understand any of the known mecha- send FOIA requests and what to bleeding. The experiment also nisms of head injury, then it’s important showed that to cause intracranial to get that information for cross-exami- ask for requires an understanding bleeding, or what is medically nation to demonstrate the bias that may of the basic federal, state and local termed, “subdural hematomas” be the only reason your client is in the funding trees and the types of (SDH’s) and “subarachnoid hemor- dock. This is where research on the grants and awards that are avail- rhages” (SAH’s), there had to be Internet and requests under state and fed- impact. Impact forces were found to eral freedom of information acts can help able. The sequel to this article will be 50 times greater than those a you find facts that you can use for cross- cover that topic. q human being could generate by examination. shaking the model. For a fuller dis- cussion of this study, see “The Elephant on the Moon,” Part I of the three-part series published in The Warrior. Virtually the same experi- ment was repeated and validated again in 2003, and in the March 2004 issue of the Journal of Neurosurgery, the lead neurosurgery experimenter from the 1987 model- baby-shaking experiment, agreed that because the evidence for shaking is not complete, that the term should not be used to describe the cause of intracranial injuries in babies. J Neurosurg. 100:574-75, March 2004, “Neurosurgical Forum,” “Letters to the Editor,” regarding, “Rotational Injury,” Prange, MT, Coats, B, Duhaime AC, et al, Penetrating X-rays Were Used to Find ‘Invisible Abuse’: The scientifically-unreliable “Anthropomorphic simulations of claim made by Caffey, Kempe and others was that if intracranial bleeding was seen with an falls, shakes and inflicted impacts in X-ray, the cause of this bleeding – violent shaking – could be identified. This is like saying infants,” J Neurosurg., 99:143-150, that if a psychiatrist views a patient’s skull on an X-ray, or the brain on CT, MRI or PET July 2003. scans, they can determine the cause of mental illness or insanity. Copyright by Sidney Harris, 2004. Reprinted with Permission. 4 Medical Reporter Marilyn Brooks,

34 THE WARRIOR • Fall 2004 THE HOUSE OF THE INNOCENTS

Money Matters: Expert witnesses testify in 2003 before a Congressional subcommittee to sustain and increase the huge federal budg- et for child abuse protection and prevention. The Children’s Bureau is the main federal agency that signs the checks to the states and to a long list of private child protective services organizations under the amended 1974 Child Abuse Prevention and Protection Act (CAPTA). The annual budget of the agency was $6.7 billion in 2004. Over the past 30 years, and to date, a significant portion of that has gone and still goes to programs to train and encourage child protective services and medical professionals to recognize child abuse, including so-called “shaken baby syndrome” (SBS). This cre- ates the risk that SBS may sometimes be diagnosed not because it is probable, but because it is profitable. Some people believe that this financial incentive compounds the problems already caused by mandatory reporting of suspected child abuse by contributing to the more than one million unsubstantiated child abuse reports and the large number of false child abuse accusations every year.

The Pittsburgh Channel, Action Avenue to investigate a tip that the a procedure for speedy expungement News, “Healthcast,” WTAE-TV, people there were dealing drugs. of records of those who were accused Channel 4, July 22, 2004, 5 PM. The They did not find any drugs, but but found to be without fault. But, news story also discusses the develop- they did find nineteen children, most once accused of SBS, because physi- ment of a blood test to detect brain under five years old, all huddled on cians and CPS workers believe it is a injury. bare mattresses. The children were real diagnosis, there is no hope of 5 Fn 4, Id. wearing little but soiled diapers and expungement for that segment of the dirty underwear, and two of them 6 42 USC § 5102, et seq., as amended. population of the falsely accused. shared meat off a bone with a dog. Although CAPTA’s amendments 7 42 USC § 5106g(B)(2). DCFS had received several com- reflect sensitivity to the colossal plaints about the plight of the 8 Opening Statement of Rep. Peter problem of false accusations of child Hoekstra (D-Mich), Chairman of the Keystone Kids and had failed to investigate. One might say the abuse, there are no corresponding Subcommittee on Select Education, grants for criminal defendants before the U.S. House of Keystone Kids were "lucky" After all, some children die as a result of CPS accused of SBS (or any other form of Representatives, Committee on child abuse). So much for one of Education and the Workforce, failures to investigate. Doctors and CAPTA’s stated purposes—to keep Subcommittee on Select Education, CPS professionals are all too aware of “CAPTA: Successes and Failures at these kinds of cases. Cases like these families together. Preventing Child Abuse and create a systemic and, often, an indi- 12 Also high on the list are cases of Neglect,” August 2, 2001. vidual tension. Physicians and CPS sexual abuse and Munchausen workers are concerned not to falsely 9 Over reporting and over-zealous Syndrome by Proxy. In this claimed accuse anyone and, in doing that, risk “factitious” disorder, parents are said investigations are only half of the tearing apart families they would to make their children sick to get story. The flip side is that some cases rather help to preserve. of alleged reported child abuse are attention for themselves. not properly investigated or followed 10 NIH Consensus Statements for the up. Children who are in danger slip Rehabilitation of Persons with Thanks is due to Susan Kelly, author of “The through the cracks and suffer terribly Traumatic Brain Injuries, 1998, Oct. Boston Stranglers,” for her incredibly aggressive as a result. The Keystone Kids in 26-28; 16(1): 1-41, NIH Consensus and thorough research which helped me get Chicago were victims of the failure of Development Panel. started on the funding trail, to Jan E. Leestma, M.D., for his balanced view of child abuse pre- the Illinois Department of Children 11 Given the magnitude of the problem vention culture and its problems of under- and Family Services (DCFS). In that of false accusations of child abuse, reporting and over-reporting, and most of all to case, Chicago police officers entered CAPTA amendments in the past Ayub K. Ommaya, M.D., for first inspiring me an apartment at 219 North Keystone decade require states to have in place to write about the topic of SBS.

THE WARRIOR • Fall 2004 35