Pubdate: Thu, 02 Mar 2017
Source: Toronto Star (CN ON)
Copyright: 2017 The Toronto Star
Contact:  http://www.thestar.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/456
Page: A12

ANSWERS, AT LAST

How could the program have been running for 10 years with so many
shortcomings?

For 2 1⁄ 2 years, a Star investigation has revealed scandalous
short

2 comings that shattered families and ruined reputations in the
now-defunct Motherisk hair-testing program at Toronto's Hospital for
Sick Children.

The stories led to provincial and internal reviews of the program that
tested hair strands for traces of drug or alcohol abuse.

Now the Star's Rachel Mendleson has confirmed the College of
Physicians and Surgeons of Ontario is investigating the founder and
former director of the discredited program, Dr. Gideon Koren.

The college won't provide details of the probe or when it was
launched, but it is long overdue. Too many questions have been left
outstanding about how the Motherisk program could have been run for a
full 10 years with so many alarming shortcomings that affected so many
child protection and criminal cases.

In fact, Koren and SickKids are named as co-defendants in several
lawsuits seeking damages on behalf of parents who claim they lost
custody of their children due to Motherisk's flawed hair tests.

The lawsuits come as no surprise. The provincial review concluded that
Motherisk's hair tests were "unreliable" and "inadequate for use in
the thousands of child protection proceedings across Canada and
handful of criminal cases in which they were submitted as evidence
between 2005 and 2015."

And SickKids' own investigation revealed that Motherisk had misled the
hospital for years about how it carried out its tests.

Meanwhile, an ongoing probe of thousands of child protection cases in
Ontario that relied on Motherisk testing for traces of drug or alcohol
abuse has so far identified 24 cases in which the hair tests played a
key role in the decision to remove children from their families.

Among the questions raised in the provincial review by Justice Susan 
Lang that the college would do well to consider when investigating Koren:

Why no one in the lab he created and oversaw had forensic training,
even though child protection cases were the "bread and butter" of the
lab's work.

Why the lab did not have the capability to confirm results from 2005
to 2010 with the so-called gold standard of testing.

Why the lab failed to inform children's aid societies and other
customers that the results were only preliminary.

It's time there were answers from Motherisk's founder and director.
The college's job now is to get them, and make them public.
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MAP posted-by: Matt