Bulletin: Dr. Waney Squier: U.K. (Aftermath 4); Human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith responds in 'The Guardian' to the head of the British General Medical Council's defence of its actions that "the decision had nothing to do with the legitimacy of shaken baby syndrome (SBS), but rather “her competence and conduct in presenting her evidence to the courts”....The response: "With respect, he is just wrong. At the hearing, Dr Squier was specifically forbidden from contesting the central issue at stake – whether SBS is a legitimate diagnosis. Along with an increasing number of others close to the subject, I believe it to be an unproven hypothesis, not science. So does one of the people who came up with the theory 50 years ago, a doctor now horrified at how it is being abused. If we are right, then the people who mislead the court (albeit perhaps unintentionally) are those who purvey an unproven theory as fact. And what is the greater ill – that Dr Squier should prevent people from losing their children or being sent to prison based on a hypothesis, or that other doctors should condemn a slew of innocent people (often, in the US where I practice, sending them to death row)?" (Must Read. HL);

"Niall Dickson, chief executive of the General Medical Council, disputes our conclusion that, in striking off Dr Waney Squier, the GMC acted as a latter-day inquisition (Letters, 22 March). He begins by saying that the decision had nothing to do with the legitimacy of shaken baby syndrome (SBS), but rather “her competence and conduct in presenting her evidence to the courts”. With respect, he is just wrong. At the hearing, Dr Squier was specifically forbidden from contesting the central issue at stake – whether SBS is a legitimate diagnosis. Along with an increasing number of others close to the subject, I believe it to be an unproven hypothesis, not science. So does one of the people who came up with the theory 50 years ago, a doctor now horrified at how it is being abused. If we are right, then the people who mislead the court (albeit perhaps unintentionally) are those who purvey an unproven theory as fact. And what is the greater ill – that Dr Squier should prevent people from losing their children or being sent to prison based on a hypothesis, or that other doctors should condemn a slew of innocent people (often, in the US where I practice, sending them to death row)? It is illogical to condemn Dr Squier for “cherrypicking” facts that are inconsistent with an unproven theory: if there are findings that call SBS into question, then that obviously casts doubt on the theory. And it is equally unrealistic to accuse her of lacking sufficient expertise in SBS: the very nature of forensic science (if it is science at all) is that experts do not spend their time training in anti-science. The charity where I work (Reprieve) has recently identified more than 100 people had been executed in the US based, in part, upon the application of a forensic pseudo-science that has belatedly been renounced by its main proponent, the FBI. Over Easter, it is worth pausing to question whether any of the dead prisoners will be resurrected. One day, I suspect we will accept that SBS is also pseudo-science. With Dr Squier now struck off, and all other experts afraid of entering a British courtroom, Mr Dickson must ponder how many parents and carers will be unjustly condemned in the meantime."
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2016/mar/25/science-shaken-baby-syndrome