Thursday, May 13, 2021

Shaken Baby Syndrome (Part Three): Dr. Norman Guthkelch plays a central role in a commentary by Atlanta Journal-Constitution Senior Legal Affairs Reporter Bill Rankin headed, "Shift in shaken baby diagnoses began more than a decade ago."..."Society should be rightly shocked by any assault on its weakest members, wrote (Dr. Norman) Guthkelch, who died in 2016. But there have been “instances in which both medical science and the law have gone too far in hypothesizing and criminalizing alleged acts of violence in which the only evidence has been the presence of the classic triad or even just one or two of its elements.” Often, he added, “there seems to have been inadequate inquiry into the possibility that the picture resulted from natural causes.”


QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Society should be rightly shocked by any assault on its weakest members, wrote Guthkelch, who died in 2016. But there have been “instances in which both medical science and the law have gone too far in hypothesizing and criminalizing alleged acts of violence in which the only evidence has been the presence of the classic triad or even just one or two of its elements.” Often, he added, “there seems to have been inadequate inquiry into the possibility that the picture resulted from natural causes."


COMMENTARY: "Shift in shaken baby diagnoses began more than a decade ago," by Senior legal affairs reporter Bill Rankin, published by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution on April 23, 2021.


GIST: "The term ‘shaken baby syndrome’ originated in the early 1970s after a British pediatric neurosurgeon determined that a baby’s brain injuries could have been caused by violent shaking.


After publishing his findings in 1971, Dr. Norman Guthkelch began cautioning parents about the dangers of shaking their children.


By 1993, the American Academy of Pediatrics had formally endorsed the hypothesis. In 2000, the National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome was founded and began offering training to parents, childcare workers and social workers.


By then, many doctors and pathologists had begun looking for what was known as “the triad” in dead or injured babies to determine if they had been violently shaken.


The three primary symptoms were retinal hemorrhaging, brain swelling and bleeding on the brain. There also had to be an absence of another explanation for the trauma, such as a car accident or a fall.


In 2006, however, the National Association of Medical Examiners withdrew its position paper endorsing the triad. It later acknowledged that some diseases can produce symptoms that mimic those used to determine shaken baby syndrome.


The shift sparked enormous controversy across a number of medical fields. Many doctors and prosecutors held on to the shaken baby diagnosis, having seen so many legitimate cases.


Then, in 2012, Guthkelch published another paper raising concerns about it.


Society should be rightly shocked by any assault on its weakest members, wrote Guthkelch, who died in 2016.


But there have been “instances in which both medical science and the law have gone too far in hypothesizing and criminalizing alleged acts of violence in which the only evidence has been the presence of the classic triad or even just one or two of its elements.”


Often, he added, “there seems to have been inadequate inquiry into the possibility that the picture resulted from natural causes.”


The entire commentary can be read at: 

https://www.ajc.com/neighborhoods/gwinnett/shift-in-shaken-baby-diagnoses-began-more-than-a-decade-ago/PT55UHZHXFGENLBLSV3SIAMTMY/

PUBLISHER'S NOTE: I am monitoring this case/issue. Keep your eye on the Charles Smith Blog for reports on developments. The Toronto Star, my previous employer for more than twenty incredible years, has put considerable effort into exposing the harm caused by Dr. Charles Smith and his protectors - and into pushing for reform of Ontario's forensic pediatric pathology system. The Star has a "topic"  section which focuses on recent stories related to Dr. Charles Smith. It can be found at: http://www.thestar.com/topic/charlessmith. Information on "The Charles Smith Blog Award"- and its nomination process - can be found at: http://smithforensic.blogspot.com/2011/05/charles-smith-blog-award-nominations.html Please send any comments or information on other cases and issues of interest to the readers of this blog to: hlevy15@gmail.com.  Harold Levy: Publisher: The Charles Smith Blog;
-----------------------------------------------------------------
FINAL WORD:  (Applicable to all of our wrongful conviction cases):  "Whenever there is a wrongful conviction, it exposes errors in our criminal legal system, and we hope that this case — and lessons from it — can prevent future injustices."
Lawyer Radha Natarajan:
Executive Director: New England Innocence Project;
—————————————————————————————————
FINAL, FINAL WORD: "Since its inception, the Innocence Project has pushed the criminal legal system to confront and correct the laws and policies that cause and contribute to wrongful convictions.   They never shied away from the hard cases — the ones involving eyewitness identifications, confessions, and bite marks. Instead, in the course of presenting scientific evidence of innocence, they’ve exposed the unreliability of evidence that was, for centuries, deemed untouchable." So true!
Christina Swarns: Executive Director: The Innocence Project;