UTH ends it's relationship with Houston CAC

After the Colleen Taft fiasco, when a nurse was caught inappropriately gathering information from hundreds of allegedly assaulted children for use by the Harris County D.A.'s office, University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston decided to end it's 12 year cooperative relationship with the CAC. Insisting it had nothing to do with Taft's misbehavior, the University still pointed out that they had warned CAC about the problems with her examinations.
Although Rosenthal initially claimed that his office initiated the review, it was in fact begun by UT Dr. (Margaret) McNeese, one of the three UT pediatricians who also work at the CAC clinic, said that last September she, Dr. Rebecca Girardet and Dr. Sheela Lahoti became concerned that Taft placed more priority on collecting evidence for potential criminal prosecution than with making sure the children brought to the CAC were properly cared for.

After spending most of October reviewing Taft's work, they contacted the D.A.'s office. Taft was finally removed from the CAC but was allowed to continue on as a sexual assault examination nurse at Memorial Hermann, where she worked part time. Her interviews there also came under review.

"The CAC knew that (Taft) was part of the forensic nursing team at Hermann," said McNeese. "Because in conversations (with me) they discussed (Taft) and the forensic nurses at Hermann doing the night clinic. They truly wanted to continue the night clinic at the (CAC). And because of that, they were talking to Memorial Hermann and the forensic nurses at Memorial Hermann, (and) she was part of that team."

So who, we ask, was leading this massive review? Why, the Harris County D.A.'s office, the very institution that benefitted from Taft's 'faulty practices'. That's like allowing juicer baseball players to conduct investigations into illegal steroid use.

Are we really so stupid that we believe this agency, which had been winning cases based on Taft's misinformation and lies, would bring her dishonesty to light? Perhaps that's why, despite the 800 interviews that were examined, not a single complicit person was found. Taft was so good, that she managed to fool every other medical professional in the CAC, and  every attorney at the D.A.'s office that ever used her interviews as evidence?

If the Harris County D.A.'s office refuses to hire an independent firm to review each and every case that was processed through the Children's Assessment Center during Rosenthal's term, how can we be sure that hundreds of innocent men are not incarcerated?

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