Shaken Baby and unsafe convictions
The great enemy of the truth is very often not the lie -- deliberate, contrived and dishonest, but the myth, persistent, persuasive, and unrealistic. Belief in myths allows the comfort of opinion without the discomfort of thought. John F. Kennedy 35th president of US 1961-1963 (1917 - 1963)
Friday, 18 May 2012
Dr Mark Peters the clairvoyant ..... following police orders
I then spoke with Dr Mark PETERS who was the on duty Paediatric Consultant that evening. He was on the Ward at this time. We discussed Jayden and his history and formulated a plan for his care before the shift began. Dr PETERS told me he believed the injury to Jayden's head was inflicted trauma and in his opinion the injury was unsalvageable, this term is used to describe fatal injuries and Dr PETERS believed that Jayden would die from the injury.
How the Metropolitan Police directed the treatment of Jayden Wray
The following day the 23r(J July 2009 (23/07/2009) I arrived at 7.45am (0745) for a day
shift. I was to be Jaydens dedicated Nurse for the shift supported by Sister xx
who was in charge of the PICU for the day. I took handover from the night shift, Nurse xx told me Jaydens vital signs, ventilation rate and that he was paralysed and
sedated. I was also informed that we were to do no cares. This is washing him or changing his
nappy due to a request from the Police the previous evening
Saturday, 5 May 2012
So big thick books saying shaking causes the triad make it true
The trial collapsed on Thursday the CPS offered no further evidence. Portsmouth. So there you have it folks the triad must be SBS because big thick books say so. FUCKWIITS and clearly this is scientific .... I do hope the police see the con, because this is no different to any othe type of fraud; pay the buy to lie, use moral panic to create the smoke screen and everyone falls for the confidence trick. Peters had the audacity to shake the defence barristers hand and stae he didn't understand why the case had been prosecuted in the first place ( witnessed and evidnced) Yet he wrote a report staing abusive trauma .... When are the cops going to realise eh ....?
PR (Peter Richards) you buy any paediatric text book it will refer to the brain stem (the triad) of indicative of injury, it has to be accepted it’s handed down in teaching, it is the mainstream view, there are a number of doctors who question whether the whole basis is right and therefore you could say it’s always been taught that way and become the mainstream opinion, because we can’t experiment on babies nobody really knows what happens in these circumstances so everybody has to be considered opinion rather than proven fact.
My note was that he said a basic textbook “even a big thick one” will refer to the triad as indicative of inflicted injury. This is handed down and basic understanding.”I don’t like the term triad”
Friday, 4 May 2012
Shaken Baby Sin-Drome Private Eye Jayden Wray
SHAKEN BABY SIN-DROME
MISTAKEN DIAGNOSIS: Baby Jayden Wray, who died aged
four months from complications linked to the brittle bone
disease rickets, caused by an inherited Vitamin D
deficiency – and not as a victim of Shaken Baby Syndrome.
THE death of baby Jayden Wray in 2009 from complications linked to rickets and the decision to charge his parents with murder exposed staggering incompetence and bloody-mindedness at the Met Police, two London hospitals, and among forensic pathologists and social workers at Islington council.
Jayden’s innocent parents were acquitted in December and the case prompted much media coverage. But what has escaped scrutiny is the role of the police in driving a prosecution which came close to ending in a massive miscarriage of justice.
A dependence on influential pathologists
Central to the scandal is so-called “shaken baby syndrome” (SBS). Following the deaths of Victoria Climbie and Baby P, police and social workers are terrified of taking the flak for another child protection failure. This has led to the automatic assumption that all small children with broken bones must be victims of abuse – and a failure to consider other possible causes.
The Jayden case revealed Knacker’s unhealthy dependence on a small number of influential pathologists and other specialists who adhere to SBS dogma, and the lengths the Met is prepared to go to secure the conviction of suspected parents.
The Met convinced itself and the press that baby Jayden was another Baby P – and that this time there would be no catalogue of blunders. Knacker began by trying to influence the direction of the postmortem by getting in place a pathologist likely to support a charge of murder. The Met sent at least three delegations of officers of ever-increasing rank to put pressure on the deputy coroner for St Pancras, Dr Shirley Radcliffe. They demanded Knacker’s own choice of pathologist, Professor Tony Risdon (see Eye 1285), a well-known supporter of SBS and a member of a strange collective called Forensic Pathology Services (FPS).
Dismay among coroners
Little is known about FPS. Not registered as a limited company, it has premises on an industrial estate in Abingdon, Oxfordshire. As it appears to file no company accounts, it is impossible to see how much public money it receives via Knacker. It is thought to be a significant amount.
It has a contract with the Met and other forces to provide forensic pathologists for post-mortems and as “expert witnesses” at trials where parents are accused of abusing or murdering their children. Its members are almost all adherents to the SBS theory.
Knacker’s over-reliance on FPS has caused dismay to a number of coroners in London and the South East. In the Jayden case, the St Pancras coroner’s office rebuffed the Met’s bullying and decided – despite threats of an injunction – to appoint Dr Irene Scheimberg as the post-mortem pathologist. She is one of the few paediatric pathologists in London, specialising in post-mortems on babies. In the past three years her unit has conducted around 2,000 such autopsies, of which Scheimberg has conducted half personally. She is also sceptical of SBS, so she is not favoured by the Met and the pathologists at FPS.
A split along party lines
Having failed to get Risdon, detectives insisted that another pathologist, Dr Nat Carey, attend the autopsy. The deputy coroner agreed. Knacker also wanted to subcontract examination of the baby’s eyes to ophthalmologist Dr Richard Bonshek, another who supports the SBS theory. But the coroner’s office insisted the eyes were also examined by Professor Phil Luthert, probably the UK’s most brilliant eye pathologist and a much more neutral figure in the SBS battle. The coroner’s office ignored the Met’s insistence that neuro-pathologist Dr Safa Al-Sarraj, another SBS believer, also participate.
Predictably the pathologists split along party lines. Bonshek was convinced that Jayden’s retinal haemorrhage was the result of trauma, possibly inflicted; Luthert was much more equivocal. Carey declared it categorically a case of SBS, stating there was “prima facie evidence that this is an example of paediatric head injury of the shaking/impact type”.
Scheimberg disagreed completely. She found no evidence of trauma or any external injury consistent with shaking… and she discovered the rickets that had eluded three consultants at University College Hospital and two consultants plus three radiologists at Great Ormond St. She also insisted on testing the mother, who was found to have severe vitamin D deficiency. Not surprisingly, Knacker sided with Carey, Bonshek and the parents’ accusers at GOSH and UCH – and so a case that should never have gone to court ended up more than two harrowing years later being thrown out by a judge at the Old Bailey.
The corruption of Forensic Patholgy in London
18 because we know it's a joint report.
So "some forensic pathologists leave out the fact they have broken bones during a post mortem in order to trick the defence" How wonderful that these so called independent experts are clearly NOT ...... And are the CPS lackeys!
19 A. Yes.
20 Q. And I'm not going to ask you any other detail about it
21 other than did you agree to omit from the report that
22 the occipital bone had been fractured by Dr X
23 at post-mortem examination?
24 A. Well, we didn't actually specifically say we would omit
25 it, but it wasn't put in; I accept that.
39
1 Q. Right?
2 A. Some pathologists do, some don't. Some use it as
3 a trick to catch out defence experts. But we didn't put
4 it in.
5 Q. Right. Was that simply because you didn't think it
6 appropriate to put -- or didn't think it necessary to
7 put it in, or was there some other reason why it was
8 kept out?
9 A. I don't think it was that important. We knew the child
10 had rickets, therefore it's going to have fragility of
11 the bones. If bones were broken during the course of
12 the post mortem, that's part of rickets.
13 Q. So it was simply a question of: well, we, as two
14 professionals, don't think it's necessary to put this
15 in?
16 A. Yes.
17 Q. It wasn't a question of sparing the family's feelings,
18 who might be upset to think that a bone had been snapped
19 during post mortem?
20 A. No. During the course of many post mortems you break
21 structures. Say, for example, in an old person -- that
22 is not relevant here, but I always break the ribs to see
23 how fragile they are for osteoporosis. I don't put in
24 the report "I broke ribs 9 to 10", I just simply put,
25 "There are changes of osteoporosis". Some people would
40
1 actually put, "I broke the ninth rib".
2 Q. All the details?
3 A. Yes. Some would; some don't.
4 Q. It was simply omitted because it wasn't necessary rather
5 than there being any agreement between you or conscious
6 decision not to put it in?
7 A. I didn't think it made much difference, so therefore it
8 didn't seem important to put it in.
9 Q. Thank you very much.
10 Would my Lord forgive me?
11 (Pause)
12 Thank you very much, Dr Rouse.
Sunday, 29 April 2012
Julia Norton case misdiagnosis of OI
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/parents-take-son-to-hospital-for-bump-810869
When are they going to "lear tne lessons"?
Friday, 27 April 2012
Damien Marsden secondary impact syndrome
Damien Marsden acquitted of SBS secondary impact syndrome accepted as the reason.
0 1 Print E-mail Published April 24, 2012, 08:43 PM
Defense offers alternate theory in Marsden murder trial
Man facing charges in death of 4-month-old son
The defense team for Damien Marsden took its first steps at putting a dent in the prosecution’s case Tuesday, forwarding its own theory for the death of Marsden’s son bolstered by testimony from a forensic pathologist. Jurors heard emotional testimony from Tammy Klein, the grandmother of Marsden’s son, who said an incident when Rylin Marsden was in her care may have contributed to his death.
By: Chris Bieri, Grand Forks Herald
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Damien L Marsden
Damien L Marsden
WARREN, Minn. — The defense team for Damien Marsden took its first steps at putting a dent in the prosecution’s case Tuesday, forwarding its own theory for the death of Marsden’s son bolstered by testimony from a forensic pathologist.
Jurors heard emotional testimony from Tammy Klein, the grandmother of Marsden’s son, who said an incident when Rylin Marsden was in her care may have contributed to his death.
Marsden, 33, of Grygla, Minn., is facing three murder charges in state District Court for allegedly shaking Rylin Marsden, which led to the 4-month-old boy’s death.
The prosecution rested Monday and the defense called Klein and its own medical expert, Jonathan Arden, to the stand.
Another fall
Klein, whose daughter, Megan Niemi, is Rylin Marsden’s mother, testified she ran a licensed daycare for seven years in Grygla and also has been charged with the care of a number of foster children ranging from newborns to teens.
She told jurors her grandson was at her daycare on July 23, 2009, when she heard a crash from the next room.
She said her 4-year-old daughter Kia had tried to pick up Rylin Marsden out of a bouncy chair and had accidentally dropped him onto a wood floor, leaving him crying and with a golf ball-sized red mark on the back of his head.
Klein reported that she told Niemi about the drop but couldn’t recall if she ever said anything to Marsden.
She said at the time the incident didn’t seem to be too serious, a point prosecutors pushed her on under cross-examination.
Klein was a trained first responder and had extensive experience working at hospitals and clinics. But lead prosecutor Matthew Glen Frank pointed out she didn’t make an official medical report of the incident.
She did report it to Dr. Arne Graff once Rylin Marsden had been admitted to the MeritCare Hospital in Fargo on Aug. 2, 2009.
Klein testified Graff continually told the extended family he knew it was a shaken baby, a term Graff said under oath on Monday he didn’t use.
Klein and Marsden both wiped away tears as she testified to his character and patience in dealing with Niemi’s other son as well as children in Klein’s large family.
Forensic opinion
Arden, an expert anatomic and forensic pathologist based out of northern Virginia, provided testimony supporting a theory that Rylin Marsden’s hospitalization and eventual death were the result of a pair of falls, the first coming at Klein’s daycare.
Arden’s theory was initially based on his finding that there were signs of two different injuries, and that re-bleeding of the initial injury in the boy’s head caused him to be hospitalized on Aug 2.
The second injury was purported to be a barely more than 2-foot fall from a bed onto a carpet on Aug. 1. Arden said the timeline of injuries on July 23 and Aug. 1 were consistent with what he saw in the healing of initial injury and re-bleeding.
Arden went over a number of CT scans with the jury and testified that his reading of initial CT scans having both fresh and healing hemorrhages were in agreement with a case radiologist’s findings.
Prosecutors inferred Arden was a witness for hire — he runs a consulting firm and testified to charging $400 an hour for consulting and $4,000 per day for court appearances.
The state had a tougher time putting holes in his testimony, attempting to make the case that changes in Rylin Marsden’s blood sugar, breathing and behavior didn’t work with his theory.
Motions, rulings
Lead defense attorney Peter B. Wold said the decision as to whether Marsden will take the stand will likely not be made until today, which is expected to be the last day of testimony in the trial.
Frank declined comment Tuesday.
Judge Jeffrey Scott Remick ruled Monday morning against a defense motion to dismiss two of the three murder charges.
Following jury dismissal on Tuesday, both sides argued on defense motions made regarding jury instructions. One motion involved instructions regarding circumstantial evidence and another dealt with language anticipating appellate review of such cases.
Wednesday, 25 April 2012
The mechanism of the triad ignored for so many years
Sir, William Bache (letters, April 23) suggests that there can be many other reasons for the triad which characterises the shaken baby syndrome; there is certainly one, the operation of a normal physiological response, known as the pulmonary hypoxic vasoconstriction reflex. This is the tendency of the small vessels in the lungs to constrict when perfused with blood of low oxygen content. It serves a useful purpose when air entry into only a segment of lung is blocked; the blood vessels in that segment shut down, so that blood is diverted to the aerated parts of the lung. But when there is generalised hypoxemia, then the whole circulation through the lungs shuts down, and blood backs up in the veins, with an increase in pressure that may well cause rupture of the delicate capillaries of the infant, so accounting for the retinal and subdural, and indeed intracranial, haemorrhages, and brain swelling. A lung infection in an infant is one cause that would be sufficient to trigger the syndrome into a vicious spiral. This reflex has a long and respectable history, but unfortunately its existence became forgotten for almost a century, with the result that its importance is still not recognised outside two or three medical specialties.
I do hope that Director of Public Prosecutions will seriously consider Mr. Bache’s proposal. it is hard enough to lose a child; to be the victims of a knee-jerk response that results in the accusation of murder must be devastating. Such miscarriages of justice must be prevented.
Yours sincerely,
Dr David Zuck, MB., FRCA., DHMSA,
London N12
Tuesday, 24 April 2012
Maternal Vitamin D deficiency and shaken baby
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Abstract
Child abuse experts use diagnostic findings of subdural hematoma and retinal hemorrhages as near-pathognomonic findings to diagnose shaken baby syndrome. This article reviews the origin of this link and casts serious doubt on the specificity of the pathophysiologic connection. The forces required to cause brain injury were derived from an experiment of high velocity impacts on monkeys, that generated forces far above those which might occur with a shaking mechanism. These forces, if present, would invariably cause neck trauma, which is conspicuously absent in most babies allegedly injured by shaking. Subdural hematoma may also be the result of common birth trauma, complicated by prenatal vitamin D deficiency, which also contributes to the appearance of long bone fractures commonly associated with child abuse. Retinal hemorrhage is a non-specific finding that occurs with many causes of increased intracranial pressure, including infection and hypoxic brain injury. The evidence challenging these connections should prompt emergency physicians and others who care for children to consider a broad differential diagnosis before settling on occult shaking as the de-facto cause. While childhood non-accidental trauma is certainly a serious problem, the wide exposure of this information may have the potential to exonerate some innocent care-givers who have been convicted, or may be accused, of child abuse.
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