Testimony opened yesterday in a Butler County case that promises to be a battle among experts as the court tries to discern whether an Adams mother has concocted the symptoms of an obscure medical disease or whether her three children actually are sick.

The mother, 30-year-old Melissa Anne "Mannie" Taimuty-Loomis, has Munchausen's syndrome by proxy and has been lying about her children's symptoms, contended Dr. Basil Zitelli, chief of the pediatric diagnostic center at Children's Hospital in Oakland, the first and only witness to testify on behalf of Butler County's Children and Youth Services. The trial is before juvenile court master Joe Brydon.

The syndrome is a mental or personality disorder in which a parent, usually the mother, intentionally feigns or produces symptoms of illness in a child.

CYS removed the three Taimuty-Loomis children -- Ezra, 7, Adia, 5, and Symia, 20 months -- from their home on Sept. 2.

During cross-examination of Zitelli, the mother's attorney, Mildred Sweeney of Cranberry, and attorney Jennifer Gilliland Vanasdale of Pine, representing father Ron Taimuty-Loomis, referenced several medical documents that pointed to possible diagnoses of mitochondrial disease for at least two of the three children as well as for another child, Jonah, who died just shy of his third birthday in January 2001. He had been born with a variety of verified medical problems.

Mitochondrial disease is a medical condition in which the mitochondria -- the part of a cell responsible for energy production -- fail to work properly. It can affect any organ system and can produce symptoms ranging from poor growth to muscle weakness to development delays. It has no known cure and is difficult to diagnose.

Zitelli testified that doctors can be fooled by parents who are set on deceit, even fooled to the extent that they approve invasive medical procedures. Both Ezra and Symia had been treated with a half-dozen drugs and at one time had feeding tubes. Since they've been in foster care, the medicines and tubes have been withdrawn and the children are thriving, said CYS Solicitor Dan Houlihan.