holick has also been widely criticized by the physician community because of his testimony in criminal trials, defending accused child abusers by asserting that ehlers-danlos syndrome is a cause of non-traumatic fractures in infancy (rather than abuse). experts in ehlers-danlos syndrome, as well as pediatricians specializing in traumatic bone injury, refute holick's position, which is completely unsubstantiated by the medical literature. in over 300 criminal cases holick has never concluded that the child who suffered broken bones had been abused. in at least one case of a child who had suffered broken bones in which holick defended the accused parent, the child later went on to suffer severe brain injury, for which the parent has been indicted.