From May to October of last year, independent child welfare consultant Ed Cotton conducted a review of 1,352 child welfare cases handled by the Clark County Department of Family Services. He then delivered a report that was released to the public in December.

Or so we thought.

Mr. Cotton found 57 particularly egregious cases, including one in which a case worker opted not to call police after a 5-year-old boy, abused by his stepfather, was left covered with bruises. Asked why police were not contacted, the case worker said, "I don't know."

In a second case, no charges were filed even after a pediatrician expert documented Shaken Baby Syndrome in a child's death.

In a third case uncovered by Mr. Cotton, a 10-month-old child was removed from his mother, who was suspected of drug use, and placed with two aunts in succession. At the time of Mr. Cotton's review, the child had not been seen by a case worker since March 12, and both aunts' telephones had been disconnected. "It is unknown where the child is at this time," he reported.

In yet another example of less than stellar performance by the county agency, a case worker placed children taken away from a drug-using mother in the custody of their father, who has a history of sexually abusing minors. The case worker had not read the children's case file.

Why wasn't there an uproar when these reports was made public?

Because the eight pages detailing those 57 "worst cases" had been removed. Cut out. Censored. Hidden in a drawer.

"Were you asked by anyone in the department to take out or change anything?" Assemblywoman Susan Gerhardt, D-Henderson, asked Tuesday, when Mr. Cotton gave a presentation to the state-appointed Blue Ribbon Panel on Child Death Review for Southern Nevada.

"I wasn't told to take them out; I was asked to consider it" by Clark County Deputy District Attorney Mary-Anne Miller, Mr. Cotton said. He complied with Ms. Miller's request once he was assured that immediate action would be taken in any case where a child's safety was in question.

He added that at the completion of his review, he had doubts about the safety of more than one-third of the 1,352 children surveyed.

Clark County Department of Family Services Director Tom Morton told the panel Tuesday he couldn't answer questions about the welfare of the children mentioned in the report: "Under the specific direction of the district attorney, I've been asked not to comment on any part of the report that is not public."

Asked by members of the panel whether he had any objection to board members receiving the information in the censored eight pages, Assistant Clark County Manager Darryl Martin said, "I can't say you can or can't release the information," adding that Ms. Miller's motivation in excluding the material was to protect the privacy of the minors involved.

Oh please. And it was purely a coincidence that slicing out those eight pages of the report also had the effect of minimizing embarrassment for the bureaucrats involved? When it would have been perfectly possible to release the full report with only the children's surnames crossed out?

Besides, how many additional weeks or months have children been missing and in danger -- dying, for all anyone knows -- while this information stayed safely hidden from prying eyes? Wouldn't it be a bit more sensible to say, "Second only to moving as quickly as possible to protect their lives and safety, we rank the children's privacy as very important"?

This is hardly the first time Ms. Miller has been spotted advising public bodies how best to cover their butts and skirt the public's need to oversee how their business is conducted.

State authorities have reported that, between 2001 and 2004, some 79 suspicious child deaths in Clark County that may have involved abuse and neglect were not properly investigated.

No one is saying child welfare workers could have prevented every death. But surely there are modest organizational reforms that might have prevented 40, 20 -- even 10 -- of those deaths, without infringing parental rights.

Without the efforts of that courageous whistle-blower, we still wouldn't know how long the aforementioned 10-month-old (now 20-month-old?) has been missing -- or that he exists at all.

But darn it, we're sure he's relieved to know that someone went to bat, protecting his "confidentiality."