Bad news with the thinnest possible silver lining out of Florida.
On Sunday morning of this week paramedics were called to the home of an unresponsive 5-month-old in the suburbs of Orlando. The family said the little girl had vomited and quit breathing, but doctors have diagnosed her as a shaken baby.
The television news team interviewed a neighbor of the family and a passer-by at the hospital, conversations driven by the assumption that the diagnosis is correct. The on-line comments started with the usual berating of anyone who would do this to a child, but then two people with names I’ve not seen before posted cautionary notes, one citing general criticism of the theory and one suggesting vaccine reaction.
You can see the whole thing at:
http://www.clickorlando.com/news/29026667/detail.html
You have to click “Enable Comments” to see the comments.
For a scary experience, change the comment list order from “Newest First” to “Best Rating,” where the most popular post opens, “This is just another reason we need a licensing system to control
breeding…”
I don’t know what happened in this case, of course. The news reports mentioned only intracranial symptoms, and said the child is not recovering. My heart goes out to the family.
On Shaken Baby 