http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/328/7442/719#54638

Will anyone listen now? 26 March 2004 ---s m latta,

    
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Re: will anyone listen now?


Email s m latta


 It is long overdue these issues were raised. Shaken baby syndrome or is it
now known as shaken impact baby syndrome? was seen for what it is a lot of
opinion will very little scientific basis.

We are told it is made up of three medical signs. Retinal bleeding, brain
bleeding and fractures and or any other physical signs of abuse.

Retinal bleeding has long been known to be caused through many reasons one
of which is abuse. Birth trauma, hematological problems, short falls, lack
of oxygen are others but not all.

Bleeding to the brain, lack of oxygen, birth trauma,falls and abuse are
just a few reasons for this that are at present known. This is an area of
which a lot more investigation needs to be implimented prior to pointing
the finger of abuse. It is simply not known just how great a force of
shaking is required to caue bleeding to the brain.

Fractures- It is not know what force is required to cause fractures in
babies. In court we have heard by selfmade radiological court experts that
is is a force that amounts to the same as an adult standing or stamping on
a baby. Said many times but i have yet to find the scientifict or medical
papers to back this up. A number of clinical non abuse reasons can be found
for calcificaton on bones. It has been known that radiologists will say
that fractures cannot be caused through CPR and later have pathologists say
that this is possible (T Patel Trial). It has also been known that
radiologists will find fractures, parents charged, children taken into care
and then later it is found that there were in fact no fractures. Charges
dropped and children returned.

The simple fact is that there is simply not enough known about shaken baby
syndrome. Not enough to send people to prison off the back of it.

The protection of children is paramount, this must include the protection
of emotional well being, false accusations and the effects of this on a
family must also be taken into account.

Police, social services and the medical world need to look at each case
with open eyes. Medical history and family background must all be looked at
in detail prior to pointing the finger of abuse.

Is it helpful that training CD roms are used on how to prosecute parents
for SBS, these are used by social services and the police. This simply can
not be right, each case needs to be looked at. The death of a baby when the
parents can not explain why is no reason to think murder first rather than
anything else off of the back of the SBS thinking that can not back itself
up with science.

If other reasons are the cause of ill health or death then lets get some
funding into finding why, to avoid ill health or death.

Child abuse is a sad reality and this is not lost on me, i just think that
it is easy to say a set of symptoms are abuse when it is clear that
medicine still has many grey areas. The above are just three of them.

Competing interests: None declared