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Texas Child Protective Services has appealed to the Texas Supreme Court to reverse the lower court's decision to return the Mormon kids to their families. The Supreme Court justices are working on it over this Memorial Day weekend. Let's hope they do the right thing and return the children. This has been an example of CPS going wild. It's one thing to protect children; it's another to scoop them up from their families without justifiable cause.

Comments

[Stephen Herman, M.D.]

You bet there is! The "Munchausen-By-Proxy Syndrome is used by CPS, as well as doctors and other health care professionals, too often, from my experience. If a quick survey of medical conditions fails to find a cause of, say, failure to thrive, then the next level is often the MBP Syndrome. It's common now to set up surveillance video recorders in the child's hospital room, to "catch" the mother harming the child.

HOWEVER, the syndrome DOES exist! I have been involved in cases where a mother continually made her baby sick by adding large amounts of salt to her formula. When the baby was in hospital, personnel caught mother putting a salt solution in the baby's IV! Another mother gave her child drugs that made him have seizures.

So, the syndrome is real and well-described. However, it is over-diagnosed by personnel anxious to find a cause of a child's illness.

What to do? It's very important to train all health care personnel about the care needed before this diagnosis is made. It is a diagnosis of exclusion and should only be considered when every possible medical avenue has been explored. Otherwise, CPS will jump to yank the child from his/her family. And once that happens, once the child becomes a ward of the state, it's often a long time before a return to the family.

[Carol Soderquist]

Dear Dr. Herman,
I agree with you that there is a need for CPS personnel to undergo training about analytical query and to learn more about the consequences and harm, sometimes irreparable harm to children ripped from their families.
In my opinion, there has been an increase in the number of cases involving medical personnel unable to identify the cause of a disorder (often a feeding disorder), prematurely identifying the child’s symptoms as "non-organic" or even blatantly accusing the parent of Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP), prior to having exhausted all possible hypotheses.
Have you seen an increase in medical personnel failing to apply the scientific method prior to ruling out all possible theories?

[Stephen P. Herman, M.D.]

CPS is justified in intervening when they have good evidence that a child is in danger. Sometimes they do have some credible evidence, but lots of times - from my experience anyway - they move too quickly. Maybe if they received better training and higher pay, the field would attract more qualified CPS workers. Seems here the CPS declared the whole compound "one family" but that's just their point of view. If they have evidence of individual cases of child abuse or neglect, then, sure, they should move in. To me, the concept of "breaking" is so very abusive. As to your last question, yes I DO believe the other siblings should be removed and evaluated. Watching a sister or brother targeted for abuse is terrifying for a child. That's abuse in itself.

[Carol Soderquist]

Dear Dr. Herman,
When do you think the State (CPS)is justified in intervening in families that are grooming children in practices considered to be abusive? Carolyn Jessop, escaped the FLDS after being married at age 18 to a 50 year old man and having 8 children. She describes a pattern and practice of the FLDS, where mothers were isolated and encouraged NOT to bond with their children. Instead, children were raised by other wives or tended to by children of other wives. Ms. Jessop describes an extremely abusive practice, called "breaking". The child is spanked until it cries and then submerged in water. I don't know if Ms. Jessop said this occurred as some twisted tenant of FLDS, or only in the home she was in, nor do I know anything about Ms. Jessop's veracity. I mention this only as I see the underlying conflict that CPS was up against, but also understand the legal grounds for the appellate court's decision. CPS made the only viable argument they could in justifying the removal of all 450+ children-- that FLDS functioned as one large family.
Do you believe that in a typical family setting, where one parent has targeted and abused one child, and the other parent has failed to protect, where the siblings of the abused child have watched and learned that the physical and/or sexual abuse of a child is acceptable, that all of the siblings in the home should be removed?