“almost all of the kids I helped return to parents are happy and well.”

September 26, 2018 7:56 AM

Michael Holick, a renowned scientist turned expert witness, relies on his own controversial theory to help alleged abusers avoid prison and regain custody of the babies they were accused of harming. CW: child abuse, description of physical injuries.

Dr. Holick on vitamin D:

“I sometimes wonder,” Dr. Holick has written, “did the dinosaurs die of rickets and osteomalacia?”

posted by jeather (29 comments total)

Holick regularly diagnoses children with EDS without seeing them in person. “I already know on the phone they have EDS,” he said, adding that he questions the parents about potential symptoms. “I almost don’t have to ask. I know the answer.”

That sounds, uh, a tad problematic
posted by BungaDunga at 8:03 AM on September 26, 2018 [36 favorites]

I was dubious, too, when I read the headline and saw a blurb on social media, but Holick is testifying specifically about broken bones, rather than other forms of child abuse.

I mean, if you're thinking that Holick is being irresponsible here, then it's also good to remember that child protection simultaneously often does little to protect some children while destroying the lives of some parents and families.
posted by JamesBay at 8:09 AM on September 26, 2018 [4 favorites]

ugggghhhhh having seen tiny kids have scary falls on hard floors/collisions with car doors/etc and have x-rays indicate no fractures, and having briefly cared for a baby who went into foster care over neglect and a deliberately broken thigh, no no no no no, I'd suggest we throw this motherfucker in the sea but that's ecologically irresponsible.
posted by bagel at 8:16 AM on September 26, 2018 [11 favorites]

"child protection also fails to protect children" is some bullshit, like, no shit it does, it is racist and sexist and classist and generally deeply flawed, doesn't mean other entities hurting kids is okay.
posted by bagel at 8:18 AM on September 26, 2018 [25 favorites]

doesn't mean other entities hurting kids is okay.

Not sure if you're replying to me, but I agree with this. Who wouldn't?
posted by JamesBay at 8:19 AM on September 26, 2018

It's amazing how something can be both often missed as a cause (or at least component) of some people's ill health while simultaneously being overly emphasized with other patients.

All the testing seems unnecessary in most cases anyway. It's one of those situations where it's perfectly valid for a doctor to say "those symptoms could all be from a lack of vitamin D, take a supplement for a month and see how you feel". That unwillingness to rely on professional experience without confirmation from testing for relatively minor health complaints certainly isn't helping healthcare cost..
posted by wierdo at 8:20 AM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

"In all the cases he has worked on, Holick has never concluded that a child was being abused."

That, right there, is pretty hard evidence to me that his whole thing is dangerous bullshit. I mean, really? Every single case he's looked at was a misunderstanding? What are the odds...
posted by stillnocturnal at 8:23 AM on September 26, 2018 [53 favorites]

JamesBay, it sounded to me like you're defending this fucking monster, which certainly looks from here like being pro-hurting-kids as long as the government doesn't remove them from bio parents. it's a popular view - but I am here because the government removed me from my bio parents, so I take this extremely personally.

the idea of this "expert" sending toddlers back to parents who re-injure them is horrifying and enraging.
posted by bagel at 8:29 AM on September 26, 2018 [13 favorites]

I have an acquaintance who has EDS for reals, and I'm feeling vicarious rage for her this morning. One of the problems she constantly struggles with is people not believing that she's disabled, because unless she's wearing a neck brace from a recent dislocation, she looks not just healthy but preternaturally healthy — one of the effects of her version of the condition is having perfectly clear, almost translucent skin that looks exactly like the ad industry's idea of gendered-female youthful vitality. And so she's continually got strangers angrily shouting at her for parking in handicapped spaces, and so forth, because "OBVIOUSLY there's NOTHING wrong with her."

SO NOW she's got to deal with the EXTRA problem of some super shady doctor giving out fake EDS diagnoses in order to cover up child abuse, giving the world the impression that her condition is some made up excuse used by monsters.
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 8:39 AM on September 26, 2018 [26 favorites]

So far, his theory is not supported by the scientific literature,
posted by benzenedream at 9:04 AM on September 26, 2018 [11 favorites]

I went back and forth on posting this, but: I saw this guy testify. His arrogance and holier-than-thou attitude comes across so strongly even through video. He belittles all other experts. It’s not just that State’s Expert Jane Doe is wrong, it’s that the field of child abuse doesn’t exist. And a 137 page report is just the “overwhelm them with a mountain of bullshit” approach. It’s engineer’s disease- I know about vitamin D so I know about everything else, too. This guy gave up his soul years ago.
posted by kerf at 9:07 AM on September 26, 2018 [20 favorites]

There was a brief moment reading the article where I almost believed him. It would make sense that people self-select to call him. He's the expert with regard to this rare disease, parents who are innocent and know they are would jump through all the hoops to find him.

It's that 100% that he claims that's so damning. He should have some people who came to him where it wasn't that disease, but another. Or parents who were lying, and he said, "no, this is actually abuse."

If it were even 2/3 of the folks who visit him who receive that diagnosis, it'd be plausible. But holy shit, he's a fucking fraud who just hates CPS more than he cares about children. He shouldn't be fired, he should be prosecuted.
posted by explosion at 9:11 AM on September 26, 2018 [21 favorites]

Forgot to mention: his opinion is also always that the child’s pediatrician, who is not a State’s expert, is also wrong, an idiot, and so on.
posted by kerf at 9:15 AM on September 26, 2018 [7 favorites]

One of my family fosters, and they had a child who was bounced between them and the birth family a few times. With foster family: no bruises. Birth family: bruises. Like clockwork. One of the reasons that it took so long for them to be permanently removed was the report of this renowned doctor from America, who suggested that the timing of bruises etc was coincidental. That's got to be this guy, right?
posted by threetwentytwo at 9:18 AM on September 26, 2018 [15 favorites]

> ...a renowned scientist turned expert witness, relies on his own controversial theory...

It's rare for a scientist to be both controversial and renowned. Either their work is recognized as fundamental, or as fringey.
posted by at by at 9:18 AM on September 26, 2018 [6 favorites]

Renowned by defense attorneys for being a reliable stooge, maybe.

Fuck this guy.
posted by tobascodagama at 9:20 AM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

It's easy to diagnose all the kids with whatever he wants if he doesn't even examine -- or meet! -- the kids but bases it on at least one parent saying they have flexible joints.
posted by jeather at 9:20 AM on September 26, 2018 [3 favorites]

> That unwillingness to rely on professional experience without confirmation from testing for relatively minor health complaints certainly isn't helping healthcare cost..

Are you ready to risk having your livelihood destroyed when you get sued for malpractice and don't have every action meticulously justified by objective fact because you relied on 'professional experience'?
posted by I-Write-Essays at 9:26 AM on September 26, 2018

> It's rare for a scientist to be both controversial and renowned. Either their work is recognized as fundamental, or as fringey.

He's renowned in the area he actually did research in. He's leveraged that status to give him cover for his fringe shit. it's not exactly a rare pattern...
posted by Reclusive Novelist Thomas Pynchon at 9:26 AM on September 26, 2018 [10 favorites]

He wrote atop one such message, “Does this sound like a mother who is abusing and neglecting her child?”

Is this just actual naivety or something else, I wonder.
posted by threetwentytwo at 9:26 AM on September 26, 2018 [14 favorites]

As someone with EDS, I can testify that sometimes it looks a lot like child abuse. I dislocated my elbow 7 or 8 times as a kid, and I don’t know what would have happened to me had my parents not been white and upper-middle class. On the other hand, not one kid he’s looked at is normal? And he can tell over the phone? Seriously? C’mon.
posted by vim876 at 9:43 AM on September 26, 2018 [14 favorites]

Oh my sweet christ:
'I almost dont have to ask, I know the answer..he has diagnosed himself with a sleep disorder...one he shares with Michaelangelo..He loves being the provocative bad boy'

yep because we all know at least a few loons who think hallucinating your own greatness allows you to make accurate diagnoses and being a bad boy is ethically unproblematic. Jesus.

We hear about the horror stories where things go wrong one way or another. What people dont realise is the huge amount of everyday concerns and straight cut abuse cases that would make your toes curl that just aren't reported at all, mostly as they are not heard in open court and often don't even get that far.

This guy is a narcissistic jokester fucking with childrens lives to pad his thin legacy.
posted by RandomInconsistencies at 10:00 AM on September 26, 2018 [18 favorites]

I knew someone with EDS also, and yeah, she had piles of dislocations -- but she did NOT have lots of broken bones. And my cousin used to dislocate his elbow or shoulder (I forget which) so regularly he could walk adults through fixing it if a parent was not around.

If these were all stories of kids with repeated dislocations, I'd find this much more believable. But it's not.
posted by jeather at 10:14 AM on September 26, 2018 [7 favorites]

So we can do diagnosis without meeting people?

Narcissist and sociopath. Next!
posted by howfar at 10:25 AM on September 26, 2018 [9 favorites]

Hey! I took a lot of the photos for this article. Great to see it posted on the blue.
posted by msbrauer at 10:31 AM on September 26, 2018 [27 favorites]

I know Occam's Razor is ironically a bit of a blunt tool, but come on.
posted by chavenet at 10:31 AM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Wow, this is appalling. I'm surprised that BU/BMC hasn't taken a stronger stance in booting him out.
posted by stillmoving at 12:53 PM on September 26, 2018 [1 favorite]

Every single case he's looked at was a misunderstanding? What are the odds...

Those kids are going to grow up. 10-18 years pass relatively quickly. We should start a support group for these children so they can bring a MASSIVE lawsuit to this guy in a few years.
posted by Tarumba at 1:14 PM on September 26, 2018 [7 favorites]

Apparently I have a lot less faith in CPS/DCF/whatever it's called in your state than most of you do.

Maybe it's because neither they nor anyone else intervened when I was getting the shit beaten out of me several times a week but were somehow quite concerned a decade later when I was a teenager because I skipped breakfast sometimes and somebody who wasn't privy to the entire conversation I was having with someone on the subject thought that meant there wasn't any food at my house and my parents were starving me. (That is by no means the only time I've seen them be bass ackward, merely the first!)

Forgive me if I can see the possibility that self selection and poor performance could easily lead to the doctor only becoming involved in situations where abuse is the less likely cause of injury. That said, I also think it's basically impossible that zero of the cases he's been involved with were actually cases of abuse.
posted by wierdo at 12:29 PM on September 28, 2018