Faith Club

25.3.18 11:06
Vakar pamanīju tādu "medical kidnapping" terminu, un pēc tam jau uzraku Guardian rakstu par to ka ir tāda "shaken baby syndrome" medicīniska teorija, kas varētu būt pat ļoti apšaubāma.

"Despite the certainty with which police, hospital staff and their local authority treated Effie’s parents, the science that underpins shaken baby syndrome is anything but sure. In fact, questions about whether the triad of symptoms found in Effie’s scans are caused by abuse or other innocent events have seen medics, scientists and the police go to war. [...]"
"On one side, there’s the view of the police, prosecutors and the medical establishment: when this triad of symptoms is found, it very strongly suggests shaking, even when other signs that a baby has been aggressively shaken, such as bruising, neck injuries or fractures, are absent."

[...]

"Meanwhile, across the US and UK, alarm about hidden child abuse was rapidly accelerating. Everyone knew that child-abusing monsters looked like perfectly ordinary-looking mums and dads – and perfectly ordinary-looking mums and dads were everywhere. The 1980s saw the emergence of the “satanic panic”, in which parents and carers were imprisoned for bizarrely deviant crimes. Fran and Dan Keller of Austin, Texas, were falsely accused of forcing children at their daycare to drink blood-laced Kool-Aid and watch the chainsaw dismemberment and graveyard burial of a random passerby. Despite the hallucinogenic insanity of the charges, the Kellers spent 21 years in prison. (The couple were released in 2013 and fully exonerated in June this year.) The UK was not immune to such hysteria. In 1987, 121 youngsters in Cleveland were judged to have been abused, and removed from their homes, many on the basis of a test that judged levels of “anal dilation” that turned out to be associated with other factors such as severe constipation.

"By the late 1990s, public scepticism was growing. The accusations had become too wild, journalists were investigating and a number of prosecutions failed. But just as things were calming down, the public’s fascination was reignited by shaken baby syndrome. Attention turned from “satanic abuse” to the possibility that the babies of perfectly innocent-looking caregivers were being violently shaken."

"Norman Guthkelch, the British neurologist who’d first mooted the concept, became convinced that rampant injustices were taking place, and became a late-life campaigner against the “dogmatic thinking” of triad believers. It then emerged that John Caffey, who published his influential 1974 paper shortly after Guthkelch, had based his theory about “whiplash shaken infant syndrome” primarily on a Newsweek scare story about an evil nanny who had harmed 15 children and described aggressive winding and shaking in an interview."

[...]

"When Craig Stillwell hired a solicitor who specialised in cases like his, she asked him: “Have you heard of Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome?” [...] Carla paid £250 for blood tests. By Valentine’s Day 2017, all the results had come in. Both Carla and Effie had EDS. It made sense to Carla. “It answered so many questions I had about myself,” she says. Carla bruises easily and spectacularly."

"In April 2017, the family court took evidence from six expert witnesses, including haematologist Dr Russell Keenan, who testified that Effie’s condition could lead to spontaneous bleeding “with no trauma whatsoever”. The judge ruled that Effie’s collapse was “most likely the consequence of a naturally evolving disease”. She praised Craig and Carla’s “maturity and restraint” and acknowledged the “unimaginable horror” they had lived through. Effie is now back with her parents and thriving."

"But one expert witness was unmoved by Carla’s diagnosis: Stoodley. “He was horrible,” says Carla. “He was always saying all this negative stuff and making it seem like it was fact.”

"“He was all for saying it was shaken baby [syndrome],” Craig says.

"Stoodley remains convinced Craig and Carla’s baby was shaken."

[...]

"Today, 16 years after Geddes published the paper that convinced Waney Squier she was wrong, and two decades after the awful drama of the Louise Woodward trial, the war continues. Prosecutors have silenced their most powerful courtroom enemies, and influential scientists continue to cast doubt on the science of the triad, while experts such as Colin Smith use compelling clinical evidence to convince judges and juries that the triad is, indeed, strong evidence of abuse."

"And for Stoodley, too, the facts are as certain as they have ever been. But, surprisingly for a man who has testified against hundreds of parents, he confesses to profound doubts about the justice of putting them in prison. [...]"

***

(Biju jau manījis kā piemēram, gadījumu Surrey, kā Von Willebrand disease un vitamīna D trūkuma izraisīts bērna "infantile rickets" kurš slimnīcā tika iinterpretēts tikai par child abuse, beigās Karrissa Cox un Richard Carter jaundzimušo atņēma. Un nez kā iet tai audžuģimenei kas adoptēja bērniņu - vai šiem arī ir tā ka katru reizi pie ārsta ienākot jātrīc un jādreb, vai šos pašus par bērna sitējiem/kratītājiem nenosauks, un sāks krimināli vajāt.)
Tags: bērni