Reply #13: Another article, link...

[uppityperson]

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/latestnews/stories/050108dnmetcps.b440e1cf.html

Dozens of youngsters swept by the state from a polygamist sect suffered broken or fractured bones in the past, some when children were "very young," Texas' top protective services official said today.

Carey Cockerell, head of the Department of Family and Protective Services, the parent agency of Child Protective Services, told a Senate panel that medical exams of the 463 youngsters removed from the sect discovered that 41 had previous bone breaks or fractures."Several of these fractures have been found in very young children," Mr. Cockerell testified before the Senate Health and Human Services Committee. He did not specify their ages.

Mr. Cockerell said some individual youngsters experienced more than one bone break or fracture. He did not elaborate. At least initially, senators heeded Committee Chairwoman Jane Nelson's request they not ask questions about the April 4 raid and child removals so as not to jeopardize the ongoing legal investigation.
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Of course there are children who have had a broken arm or a broken leg, he said. "But to this magnitude – the picture they’re painting is very misleading," Mr. Jessop said. "It will never be able to be backed up with any facts." According to the Web site of the Seattle Children’s Hospital, about half of all boys and a quarter of all girls break a bone sometime during childhood.

Mr. Cockerell also disclosed new details about difficulties the state had in keeping track of the children at makeshift shelters it set up in San Angelo this month. He said it tried three different times to have each youngster and mother wear a wristband but some were tampered with. Also, he said some mothers switched children, and some exchanged clothes with one another, changing their own and the children's appearances. He said the sect’s mothers are use to "sharing motherly duties, including breast feeding."