Shaken: A Diagnosis on Trial
Welcome to Sue’s web site on shaken baby syndrome (SBS). The subject is both tragic and unsettling, in more ways than one.
First, I must make clear that child abuse is a real problem: People do punch, slam, shake, and throw their children, with devastating results.
That said, more than a decade of research has convinced me that well-intentioned child-abuse experts working with a flawed model of a complex physiological condition are tearing apart benign families and sending innocent people to prison in unsettling numbers.
The widely accepted model of SBS suffers from two misconceptions:
- Timing of the symptoms. Classic thinking is that an assault violent enough to produce the symptoms of SBS would cause an immediate and dramatic change in the victim’s consciousness. Therefore, the adult caring for the child when the breathing problems and seizures begin is presumed to be guilty of assault. But time has provided documented cases of the symptoms’ emerging definitively only hours after the injury. See, for example, the letter below.
- Specificity of the symptoms. Although doctors outside the child-abuse arena are now recognizing more and more medical conditions that can mimic SBS, the three intracranial symptoms that define the condition can still result in conviction, even if the child shows no bruises, fractures, red marks, or other signs of an assault.
For a quick illustration of how an SBS diagnosis can go wrong, see the Prologue to this work. For article-length treatments of other cases, with a bit of the science woven in, see Cases on this site. For a partial outline of the book and a handful of sample chapters, see the Outline. Check out my Posts for a brief history of SBS and occasional news, and the Resources page for advice if you’ve been falsely accused of shaking or slamming a baby.
If you’re eager for a detailed academic treatment of the subject from an authority with great credentials, see Professor Deborah Tuerkheimer’s first law-review article on the subject. For a quick summary, see her New York Times op ed piece from the fall of 2010.
An example of medical professionals’ not recognizing the subtle symptoms of a fatal pediatric head injury across many hours of hospitalization:
The American Journal of Forensic Medicine and Pathology © 2002 Lippincott Williams & Wilkins, Inc. Volume 23(1), March 2002, p. 105 Symptoms Following Head Injury (Letters to the Editor) Huntington, Robert W. III M.D. Madison, Wisconsin, U.S.A. To the Editor: A recent proposed position paper regarding pediatric non- accidental abuse head injury would allege that we may depend on symptoms to appear immediately upon injury (1). I have a concern about that claim, which I will explain with the CASE REPORT A 13-month-old Hispanic girl was brought to the University of Wisconsin Hospital on the morning of September 18, 1999. The complaint was of vomiting that had lasted for 24 hours. She was described as irritable, sleepy, and vomiting. In our emergency room she was noted to have extensive bruises on the cheeks, chest, back, and arms; the mother attributed these to bites by a 3-year-old housemate. She was admitted and given intravenous fluids. She was sedated with pantothal followed by head computed tomography, which was negative. She was then admitted to the pediatric ward. The resident who saw her described her in the chart and in discussion as being fussy and clingy, but interactive and responsive. Because of the numerous bruises, the police were notified and took pictures. At about 2:00 the following morning, a nurse coming in to care for the child noted that she had decreased respirations. It was then shown that she was unresponsive and had a right dilated unreactive pupil with a sluggish left pupil. She was taken emergently to the pediatric intesive care unit, where she was intubated and given mannitol. A subsequent computed tomography scan showed very poor differentiation of the gray/white matter interface. A Codman catheter was placed and then replaced with a ventriculostomy tube after an intracranial pressure of 21 mm Hg was noted. On the evening of the day after admission, a cerebral blood flow study showed no cerebral blood flow. She was pronounced brain dead. In the interim, her mother had fled town and has not been found since. An autopsy was done on September 20, 1999. This showed hemorrhage in the left optic nerve sheath and left retinal hemorrhages as well as marked cerebral edema and thin widespread subdural hemorrhage. Diffuse axon injury was demonstrated with amyloid precursor protein antibody. My point is that the child did have some symptoms, but clearly the severe intracranial injury symptoms, which were confirmed on repeat computed tomography and autopsy, were delayed for several hours, during which time she was under our view and review in the hospital. Others have noted similar problems (2). Robert W. Huntington III, M.D. REFERENCES 1. Case ME, Graham MA, Handy TC, Jentzen JM, Monteleone JA. Position paper on fatal abusive head injury in infants and young children. Am J Foresnci Med Pathol 2001; 23: 112-22. 2. Gilliland MGF. Interval duration between injury and severe symptoms in non-accidental head trauma in infants and young children. J Forensic Sci 1998; 43: 723-5.
copyright 2011 Sue Luttner
Congratulations on your new blog, Sue! I am glad to see you publishing your research in this format. Best wishes for its continuing success!
Rosemary
Perseverance is everything. The history of medicine, and the history of our fine criminal justice system, afford many examples of dramatic reversal of previously well-established thinking. The tide is turning.
Jennifer
Dear Sue,
Good work.
Best regards,
Ed
Excited to follow this new blog – a unique subject that is worth considering. Never a good idea to only have one side of this kind of story – your perspective is refreshing and will no doubt be of benefit to many.
Hola, Sue! From drippy San Francisco. You’re off and running — more responses on your first day than I rec’d (6 or 7 to 1). This might well be a very good route to go, because of the power of the Web in pulling up your site when anyone enters the phrase. Best of luck. In the meantime, I have nose to grindstone in SF, but will send an email shortly re: a visit to PA.
Fenton
I like the emphasis on the Miscarriage of Justice.
The strong and laudable desire to protect children can unfortunately contribute to the effective lowering of the burden of proof and other legal protections that the accused are supposed to have in the US. The overconfidence and careerism of the medical profession in these cases certainly has helped wrongly convict innocent people.
SBS and other things I might be accused of make me reluctant to care for anyone else’s children.
Sue, I love your blog and that you continue to be most determined in helping to connect the dots in this tragic arena. You have given people your ears, your brains and a voice, and you are helping make people consider “a different” possible cause for what seems to be, and sadly often is, SBS. I will continue to follow your work here.
I remember the Falcon, but this is not the place for that comment. Except to recall “Ford has a better idea!”.
Very well presented.
Should be helpful universally.
This will roll.
You Rock, Joe
This is a good forum for your work, Sue!
Hi Sue,
Your blog is informative, factual and a compelling read. Thank you for taking the initiative. Best regards,
John
Good Luck on this new blog.
After the FALSE imprisonment of Sally Clark and Angela Cannings was brought home to the UK Government they have responded by LYING about investigating other MISCARRIAGES of justice and defend the medical, industrial world by prosecuting hundreds of possibly innocent parents and carers every year. At the moment they are still condemning around 250 such families EVERY year in England in SECRET courts.
One person who was badly treated was a MICHELLE DICKINSON who was given life in prison and to my knowledge has still been left to her fate.
Bringing up a child next to a nuclear plant is fraught with DANGER as seen this year at FUKUSHIMA.
But even though after Chernobyl the LYNCHING of Michelle got 17 awards to the police for their BIGGEST crime ever in the rural setting of a tiny village called SEASCALE. It never dawned on them that nuclear pollution does more than just cause LEUKEMIA. Sorry, they don’t even admit the obvious. No one ever dies if they work or live near nuclear facilities.
Hence the background to a terrible MISCARRIAGE of justice for this lady and loving mother.
In Japan we see the terrible health problems are of a wide and deadly nature.
With real abuse even a cynic like me can see the EVIL but for a lot of the time abuse is caused by the medical and industrial Big p’Harmers and not by those loving parents who take the blame for harm by others and even so harm by them is kept secret or delayed from getting to public knowledge.
They hide behind the fact that 100 per cent proof of vaccine harm or chemical harm is never possible while accepting zero percent proof of physical abuse as an open and shut case for the government prosecution teams.
In Fukushima, children are now bleeding (from nuclear rays) but this was and is taken as proof of child abuse in many if not all cases of falsely accused child battering.
Note: Michelle lived next door to SELLAFIELD.
Sue,
So glad you’re doing this. Plesae add me to your notification list(s).
Thank you,
LuAnne
Sue,
Bless you for all you are doing for those of us that were, are are, being falsely accused! People like you will make this injustice come to an end!
Add me to your list, please!
Kathy Hyatt
1999 was the year me and my husband were accussed. This devastates lives more than anyone could imagine. This is a Great Page! Please add me to your list!
Sue,
Looking forward to forthcoming notifications of your new additions to this welcome and intriguing blog!
Tammie
My soon to be brother in law was just convicted of SBS and he is far from a child abuser! I am a nurse and believe me I know child abuse exist but he was convisted by jury and there was SO much doubt! We are looking around now trying to find experts and someone willing to appeal this case. This happened in Ga.
Hi Karen
Write to me at johnfryer at orange.fr
I have made a study of such cases and with others got the Witch Hunting reversed.
So far with very little comeback to those who perjure for tens of thousands for no or very little work.
If you look at one famous case where someone was convicted the experts couldn’t even get the colour of the child correct.
This doesn’t stop convictions but does show that while it is good to convict the guilty it is so much nicer to convict the innocent. (Quote of several eminent Judges).
Do you note that nearly all SBS cases revolve around children under 6 months and this is the time the child resembles a pin cushion at the “WELL” centres.
Please continue to fight for those who have been unjustly accused.
Thank you for the support. It’s a tough arena.
You should be organizing a march on Parliament to present your case.Get Lisa B to help, you.
i have a 2 month old girl with two blood clots and a skull fracture. The doc is saying it is sbs but it simply cant be. Please help me find a cause before my husband gets wrongly convicted.
If you haven’t yet found the Resources page, check it out. I will send you an email off line. -S.
Hi
My Email
johnfryer@orange.fr
blood clots and skull fracture
Possible causes not criminal are plenty.
For example regard carefully all vaccines received and especially changes in head size before and after.
And of course crying, temperature changes, drugs taken as well.
Also possible lack of vitamins eg Vitamin C.
Thank you, John.
I have written a book about our experience of a false allegation of Shaken Baby that nearly led to the removal of our children in the UK. The book “When Truth no longer Matters” details what happened and the eventual correct diagnosis for our son.
I am working with Rioch Edwards-Brown, campaigner and founder of The 5%ers – a support group for wrongfully accused parents and we have set up an e-petition to try and get the UK Government to ensure there are better protocols to stop wrongful allegations and to stop abused children slipping through the net.
Any support would be gratefully received and your can sign the e-petition here:
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/39967
Thank you!
Thank you for writing. I’m trying to find a U.S. distributor of your book in paperback.
In the mean time, I’m going to paste here the url to your lovely web site, with information about ordering the book electronically or in Britain:
http://www.searchfortruth.co.uk/index.html
And here is the url for the Five Percenters:
http://www.sbs5.dircon.co.uk/
Best wishes
Hi there. I am currently on trial for this accusation so any support would be great. My case has been ongoing for 2 and a half years now
x
I’m so sorry you’ve been drawn into this tragic arena. There is a group in Britain called the 5%ers, formed to defend parents against unfounded accusations of abuse. I’ve been unable to find a web site for them, but I received another comment earlier this month from a parent in Britain who mentioned them. You can contact her through her web site at http://www.searchfortruth.co.uk/index.html
Best wishes.
Hi Sue, I really appreciate your web site. My son has now spent 5 years in prison for SBS. The child is fine with no problems. How could this have been SBS? Our case is in the Supreme Court right now, but up to this point we ave lost every appeal. I am convinced that they know that my son was innocent and they will not give us a break. The detective even said on the stand that he blamed Brandon within one hour of receiving the call. He actually set out to pin this on my son, not try to find out the truth. If you will give our web site out that would be great. It is supportbrandon.com
Thank you for writing, Linda. I’ve added his web site to my “Cases” page, at http://onsbs.com/cases/
If you would like to join a parent support group, and add Brandon to the document for mailings from members, check out the Facebook group at http://www.facebook.com/groups/60039803369/ or the Yahoo group at http://health.groups.yahoo.com/group/falsely-accusedofSBS/. You will only be able to see the cover pages at first, but you can submit a request to join, and once you’re accepted you’ll be able to see the postings.
Best wishes to Brandon. I’m so sorry.
Please help a father who was convicted and sentenced to Life in Prison for his 4mo old son’s death.
Here is the link to the story and any information that could be any help is appreciated. He is doing an appeal but needs any and all help that anyone could offer. Thank you!
https://www.causes.com/actions/1661910-help-free-michael-giovo-jr?utm_campaign=search_widget
I’m so sorry to hear of another family drawn into this tragedy. I’ve sent you a private email about available resources—-you can also see the Resources page of this blog.
Best wishes.