PASSAGE OF THE DAY: "The first book to cover the Shaken Baby Syndrome controversy in a collaborative approach, presenting evidence-based analyses from a multidisciplinary and global team of authors
- Investigates the claim that certain intracranial findings can alone (with no or minimal evidence of external trauma) be used as proof that shaking) has occurred and that this is an intentional (or knowing or reckless or negligent) and hence abusive act
- Covers the full range of topics and issues, including reviews of radiological and neuropathological findings in alleged SBS cases, some of their known medical causes, biomechanical and epidemiological aspects, police interrogation techniques and false confessions, cognitive biases, evidence standards in courts, and the challenges of overturning wrongful convictions;
- PUBLISHING DATE: JUNE, 2023;
- TO ORDER THE E-BOOK VERSION:
shaken-baby-syndrome-investigating-abusive-head-trauma-controversy
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A TASTE: (Excerpts from an introductory chapter written by astrophysicist Chris Brook who has described himself, as "a scientist with legal background, who is concerned about the way that science is misunderstood and misused in our criminal justice system.") Brook gets quickly to the point as he writes: "Retreating to ivory towers. Armchair experts. Pseudo-scientists. Nay-sayers. Non-believers. Biased. Denialists. Deceitful. Dishonest. Unethical. Evil. These terms have all been used to describe those who challenge the science behind shaken baby syndrome (SBS), those who challenge the way abuse of infants is ‘diagnosed’".
He adds: "The defence of the orthodox approach to SBS and the efforts to delegitimise and silence those with opposing views have gone beyond name-calling. Legal threats have been made to pressure editors to retract a properly peer-reviewed journal article that questioned an SBS diagnosis. An entire edition of an academic journal, which was to publish a debate by proponents and challengers of SBS, foundered after pressure was placed on the publisher. Experts have been charged with perjury or subjected to complaints to medical boards after testifying for the defence. They have faced censorship by medical associations. Workplace harassment and threats to employment have been endorsed and encouraged through calls for wholesale sackings and de-registration of doctors who question SBS orthodoxy.
Brook backs up his argument with numerous telling examples, including the stellar Louise Woodward case, in which he notes: "Subsequent to the trial, prosecution witness Dr Patrick Barnes changed his mind about SBS, having moved beyond the child abuse literature to look instead at the science of traumatic head injury written by specialists in those fields. This led to Barnes being included in an ‘axis of evil’ doctors who questioned the SBS orthodoxy, alongside defence witnesses from the Woodward case Leestma and Uscinski as well as others such as Dr Janice Ophoven and Dr John Plunkett."
In a section of his introduction headed, 'The Interface of Science, Law, and Medicine', he gives us insight into the difficulty courts have in understanding complex legal issues such 'shaken baby syndrome; explaining that: "It is not hard to understand how the court’s problem of lacking scientific expertise leads to the problem of reliance on credentials and authority. Nor is it hard to understand the potential for reliance on authority to become entrenched within fields of forensic sciences. It is therefore not entirely surprising that the science–law interface has long been so problematic."
Towards the end of his chapter, Brook outlines what he believes to be 'the biggest controversy surrounding shaken baby,' - making clear that it is not the name-calling, nor the retraction of articles, not the intimidation, complaints, and legal proceedings brought against those who question the SBS orthodoxy.
In his view: "The real controversy is that thousands of parents and caregivers throughout the world have been accused of abusing children, been convicted and given long jail sentences or even been sentenced to death, while thousands more have had their children removed from their care based on the testimony of highly credentialed medical expert witnesses who believe in the SBS orthodoxy, but who lack a scientific foundation for those beliefs."
Sadly, this is all too true.
This powerful point is evidenced by the far too many posts I have had to run on this Blog over the years on victims of a theory (a wrong one at that) which has been disguised as science and blindly accepted by far too many courts, with great suffering to individuals and families.
Indeed, I recently ran a post, at the following link, on Robert Roberson who awaits execution in Texas, following a conviction for based on the discredited syndrome.
https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/120008354894645705/2371165177930816873
My heading reads: "Robert Roberson: Texas; A lesson to be learned. A discredited 'Shaken Baby Syndrome' case: Important Development: Five amicus briefs - from scientists, physicians, retired federal judges and innocence groups - have been filed in the U.S. Supreme Court in support of this death row prisoner who has long claimed to be innocent of causing the death of his daughter."..."Mr. Roberson filed his petition with the Supreme Court on May 11th after the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals (CCA) denied his request for a new trial despite the presentation of new scientific evidence that soundly discredited the “shaken baby syndrome” (SBS) theory the prosecution had relied upon at trial. A 2021 evidentiary hearing had also presented compelling new medical evidence establishing that the victim, Mr. Roberson’s 2-year-old daughter, died of natural and accidental causes. Mr. Roberson, who received an execution date in 2016, has asked the Supreme Court to overturn the CCA’s decision. The amicus briefs filed today are authored by experts from a number of different disciplines."
As I wrote in a 'Publisher's Note' to this post: "A lesson to be learned from the (U,K,) Kathleen Folbigg experience. She was freed and pardoned after the United Kingdom courts (seemingly stuck far back in time) were shown to be utterly incapable of coming to grips with complex developments in science. As a result, an innocent mother was jailed as a serial killer of her four children. Will America make the same tragic mistake with Robert Roberson - a Texan facing execution as a result of the discredited junk science 'Shaken Baby Syndrome.'? One common denominator of both the Folbigg and Roberson cases is the public intervention of prestigious science-related organizations which refuse to stay silent in the face of forensic evidence entered in the courts to convict people, which sorely conflicts with their research and collective contemporary understanding of the scientific issues involved.'
- FYI: EDITORS:
- Keith A. Findley, University of Wisconsin, Madison
- Cyrille Rossant, University College London
- Kana Sasakura, Konan University, Japan
- Leila Schneps, Sorbonne Université, Paris
- Waney Squier, John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford
- Knut Wester, Universitetet i Bergen, Norway
