(Amy Nicholson is chief film critic for L.A. Weekly.)
"With the wrong diagnosis, the innocent parents of a baby who dies can be put in jail."
A diagnosis of
Shaken Baby Syndrome was supposed to explain mysterious deaths in
babies without bone fractures, bumps, bruises or neck injuries. How did
they die? A theory arose that babies were under attack by loved ones.
For decades, doctors in the U.S., and dozens of other countries were
trained to look for three internal symptoms that experts claimed were
proof of a powerful shaking assault on a tiny child: brain swelling,
blood on the surface of the brain, and blood behind the eyes.
Well-meaning doctors were instructed that these symptoms could only
occur due to intense shaking—if a parent or babysitter said the child
had fallen or suddenly fell ill, that was a lie. Proponents of
the theory grew so powerful in political circles, where elected
officials were keen to show they supported helpless children, that laws
were passed across the U.S. requiring a doctor who spotted any of the
three symptom to alert authorities. Failure to report symptoms, even if a
doctor found the parents' explanation made sense, could result in
fines, civil lawsuits, or even jail time. We've been here before. The Syndrome
rewinds back to the 1980s when the big public panic on behalf of
children was Satanic Ritual Abuse, a Salem-like national frenzy in which
prosecutors and juries in big cities and small towns sent daycare
employees to jail for years for crimes as implausible as cutting off a
gorilla's finger while at the zoo, then flying the children over Mexico
to molest them. The media leapt on these accusations. Mass paranoia meant massive ratings for Geraldo, Oprah, 20/20 and
Sally Jesse Raphael, all of whom hosted fear-sowing TV episodes on the
devil worshippers obsessed with America's children. So, too,
did the doctors. “They medicalized Satan,” says Goldsmith. At the Rady
Children's hospital in San Diego, Dr. David L. Chadwick held a
conference to alert doctors, prosecutors and law enforcement officials
to symptoms that might prove a child had been ceremonially tortured. “[Doctors would] go into court and say, 'Yeah, she's got a Satanic Ritual Abuse notch in her hymen,” says Goldsmith. The Syndrome finds
evidence of Chadwick's physician colleagues, Robert M. Reece and Carole
Jenny, furthering the Satanic Ritual Abuse hysteria of that era,
writing and editing medical definitions in pediatric manuals alongside
bar graphs purporting to show the use of excrement in black magic. One
indicator of Satanic Ritual Abuse: children who are afraid of the dark.
The doctors' reports looked legitimate. But, as many duly ashamed news
outlets have long since reported, they weren't. “It was all
bullshit,” says Goldsmith. “[The National Center on Child Abuse and
Neglect was] forced to retract it all. But they got it publicized in
legitimate scientific publications.” In 1994, the National Center on
Child Abuse and Neglect released a report declaring that there was no
evidence Satanic Ritual Abuse ever existed. Yet, according to a Redbook survey taken that year after the report was issued, 70 percent of Americans continued to believe it was real. The consequences certainly were. Dozens of preschools endured accusations that they were centers for devil worship. In 1994, The New York Times
cited a survey of 11,000 psychiatric and police professionals who cited
more than 12,000 accusations of Satanic sexual abuse — in which not a
single investigator could substantiate a claim. Innocent childcare
workers lost their businesses, many did prison time or years in jail
awaiting bail. In the Los Angeles area, the family operators of McMartin
Preschool in Manhattan Beach spent seven years defending themselves in
criminal court and to a spellbound public. Los Angeles County
prosecutors spent $15 million going after the McMartin family for a long
list of Satanic horrors against small children, while the Los Angeles Times covered the case with a breathless fervor that implied the accused were guilty. “The mainstream media just completely fucked it up, like they've done with Shaken Baby Syndrome,” says Goldsmith. “The L.A. Times
did such a shitty job on McMartin that their media reporter [David
Shaw] later won a Pulitzer prize for exposing what a shitty job they
did.”.........Satanic
Ritual Abuse and Shaken Baby Syndrome are more similar than they sound.
In both cases, the expert speak for the victim. The discredited Satanic
Ritual Abuse cases proved that adults were able to pressure children to
swear to all sorts of falsehoods. (One child identified Chuck Norris as
his abuser.) The infants and toddlers who are alleged victims of Shaken
Baby Syndrome are either dead, or too young to explain what happened.
Thus a doctor's educated opinion becomes crucial—even if that doctor is
adhering to incorrect “proof” of abuse. Northwestern University
Law Professor Deborah Tuerkheimer estimates that approximately 95
percent of defendants are found guilty once formally accused of maiming
or killing babies through violent shaking, and that 1,000 people may be
in prison right now. Public belief in Shaken Baby Syndrome is so strong
that Congress has long deemed the third week of April National Shaken
Baby Awareness Week, and 18 states require hospitals to instruct new
parents about the threat to infants from Shaken Baby Syndrome. In The Syndrome,
Goldsmith reveals that the doctors who frothed up Satanic Panic moved
on to shape the next crisis. Chadwick, Reece and Jenny have all served
as advisors to, or on the board of directors of, the National Center on
Shaken Baby Syndrome in Farmington, Utah. They've defined new medical
terminology in medical books which they've promoted to doctors,
hospitals, and law enforcers. With hundreds of doctors following their
lead, Goldsmith's documentary argues, the three helped trigger a surge
of Shaken Baby Syndrome prosecutions — convictions now increasingly
discredited by multiple media investigations, outspoken scientists and
doctors, and attorney-led innocence projects that seek to free condemned
baby shakers from U.S. prisons. “When I put it all together, it was like being electrocuted,” says Goldsmith. “It's pretty damning.” .........Goldsmith hopes that by revealing the direct connection between doctors
involved in both the discredited Satanic Panic and Shaken Baby
Syndrome, her film can be a tipping point in efforts to correct the
hysteria before more innocent people are put in jail. “The lesson for
journalists is we need to question everything,” says Goldsmith. She
has help. Former State Medical Examiner of Kentucky Dr. George Nichols,
who used to testify in favor of Shaken Baby Syndrome, was quoted in an
exhaustive investigation in March by the Washington Post as
saying he would now testify for a reversal for all convictions in which
he was involved. Nichols called SBS, “a belief system rather than an
exercise in modern-day science.” And in 2013, Texas signed SB 344, the
country's first “Junk Science Writ,” to aid in the release of people
wrongfully convicted by now-discredited forensic science. (California
has since passed a similar law, which may help the California Innocence
Project's efforts to reopen unjust Shaken Baby Syndrome cases.) The
first prisoners set free by Texas were four women, all caregivers
prosecuted in 1994 for Satanic Ritual Abuse. For the San Antonio Four,
it took two decades for level heads to prevail. The parents and
babysitters currently battling questionable Shaken Baby Syndrome
accusations hope sifting the truth in their own cases won't take that
long."
The entire story can be found at:
The entire story can be found at:
http://www.laweekly.com/film/is-shaken-baby-syndrome-the-new-satanic-panic-a-new-doc-reveals-the-same-experts-behind-both-5481984
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