QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Like the tribunal’s report, the published literature in support of shaken baby theory does not hold up under careful scrutiny."
POST: Dr. Waney Sqauier reinstated," by Sue Luttner on her Blog 'On SBS.' published on November 7, 2016.
GIST: "A British High Court judge has reinstated Dr. Waney Squier’s right to
practice medicine, in a decision that dismissed as “unsustainable” a
number of
findings by a tribunal appointed
by the General Medical Council (GMC) to investigate her testimony in a
series of shaken baby cases. A well respected pediatric and perinatal
neuropathologist, Dr. Squier has questioned shaken baby theory in the
medical journals and has testified to her opinions in court. After the
tribunal’s findings were issued last spring, the GMC
removed her from the medical registry. Justice Sir John Edward Mitting explicitly rebutted the tribunal’s
conclusions that Dr. Squier had acted dishonestly, noting at one point
that “her views were genuinely held.”.........The institutional insistence that Dr. Squier gave evidence outside
her expertise continues to strike me as ironic. In a tortured
qualification to his endorsement of that finding, Justice Mitting
recognized that medical specialists evaluating
the triad
would necessarily be expressing opinions outside their own disciplines,
but he still seemed to agree with the tribunal that Dr. Squier had
crossed a line.........I don’t understand how either the tribunal or Justice Mitting can
object to Dr. Squier’s expressing her opinions about short falls but
still accept the opinions of physicians who diagnose shaking injury, a
proposition that implies a level of biomechanical understanding not
included in anyone’s medical education......... Myself, I endorse Dr. Squier’s opinions about the lucid interval,
which I think are well supported by the published literature—please see,
for example, the letter to the
American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology from Dr. Robert W. Huntington III, on the
home page of this blog. After last week’s decision was released, including the restriction on Dr. Squier’s giving court testimony, intensivist and
shaken baby critic Dr.
Steven Gabaeff observed that even with the reinstatement, proponents
of shaken baby theory have achieved their goal of “suppressing defense
testimony.” If no one who doubts shaken baby theory is allowed to
testify, then accused parents have no chance to argue their innocence at
trial. Detective Inspector Colin Welsh from New Scotland Yard articulated
the suppression strategy in 2010 in Atlanta, Georgia, at the biannual
conference sponsored by the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome,
in a talk with the title “A National Co-ordinated Approach to Cases of
Non-Accidental Head Trauma in the UK.” According to attorney Heather
Kirkwood, who attended the session, Welsh reported that his team had
been facing a “systemic failure” of shaken baby prosecutions and the
primary cause was that “juries were being confused by defense
witnesses.” He recommended intense scrutiny and criticism of experts for
the defense, and he mentioned his partnership with NPIA, the
agency that filed the the complaint against Dr. Squier. Kirkwood later
made her notes public, along with a deposition that offered this summary
of Welsh’s presentation: “Shortly into the talk, I realized that the ‘national
coordinated approach’ referenced in the title of the talk was
essentially a description of the joint efforts of New Scotland Yard,
prosecution counsel, and prosecution medical experts to prevent Dr.
Squier and Dr. [Marta] Cohen from testifying.” For more about professional harassment of Dr. Squier, please see my blog postings “
Back Door Tactics Show Through” and “
When Pie in the Sky Turns Out to Be Dawning Knowledge.” On October 7 of this year, just before the appeal hearings opened, the
BMJ published a
letter of support for
Dr. Squier from more than 250 physicians, attorneys, and others
protesting that the GMC’s sanction was depriving patients of her skills
and expertise—if you have not yet done so, you can go to the
letter site and click the thumbs-up button to add your vote of support for Dr. Squier.........I am gratified that Justice Witting also recognized some of the many
objective errors in the tribunal’s report, and I am pleased that Dr.
Squier is allowed to practice again. I wish that someone at the GMC
would also read the report carefully and realize that the organization
has imposed professional sanctions based on a series of
misinterpretations and fundamentally flawed conclusions. In fact, I wish someone at the GMC would also read the shaken baby
literature carefully, because they would be forced the reach the same
conclusions as Dr. Squier and the team of Swedish scientists and
physicians who last month published their
review of the shaken baby literature, that is, that shaken baby theory has never been proven. For my personal analysis of the medical literature, please see
Shaken Baby Syndrome: Medico-Legal Miscommunication. Like the tribunal’s report, the published literature in support of shaken baby theory does not hold up under careful scrutiny."
