A journey into the shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma controversy

YeGoblynQueenne · Sep 26, 2023

>> Sure, done: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402

Thanks! Although I just saw it and didn't have the chance to upvote it when it was posted. Let's hope it gets on the second chance queue. It's a good article, well written and level-headed.

>> This is not just a virtual, academic subject to me.

I can tell. Thank you for your indefatigable advocacy.

I read about Shaken Baby Syndrome some time ago and since then I've kept bookmarks of cases I see in the news that seem to be false convictions. I remember one in particular of a British man who was accused of having murdered his baby daughter by shaking. The case has stuck in my mind because the press reported how a Playstation was found on the living room table and the prosecution alleged that the daughter's crying had disturbed the father's playing, and so he had shaken her so he could continue playing. I could not believe that such a far-fetched conjecture, virtually impossible to falsify, would be accepted by judges and juries and thought that for the prosecution to be grasping for straws like that they must really have nothing concrete to go on, but the father was put in jail nonetheless. I don't have my bookmarks at hand now so I can't look up his name.

I suspect that when legal and medical experts claim that SBS cases don't only take the evidence of the triad into account, that's the kind of "evidence" that they mean they also consider: just-so stories that stop only short of calling the family pet as a witness.

Edit: I just realised - your association is called "adikia". "Injustice" in my native language, Greek.

ars · May 24, 2024

If you want to understand more about how the science on Shaken Baby changed, this is a great place to start: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402

That HN post links to https://www.cambridgeblog.org/2023/05/a-journey-into-the-sha... which explains in detail how the "triad" or symptoms that has been assumed to mean Shaken Baby actually can happen from a variety of other medical causes.

DoreenMichele · Sep 27, 2023

As luck would have it, there is apparently new research out on SBS that you might enjoy reading:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37650402