Using the lie that shaken baby syndrome is a misdiagnosis for vaccine injury to try to exonerate another accused child abuser

And they call people like Dr. Offit a monster…….the irony & horror of it.

Humans are bastards.

Enough said.

I think, when the “vaccines did it” people were asked about the bone fractures in the Alan Yurko case, their response was instantaneous scurvy caused by poor Vitamin C absorption caused by the vaccine. Seriously.

And re “without ever having a trial,” one might call attention to paragraph 26 of the appeal decision:

The defendant made a knowing, intelligent, voluntary plea after he was fully informed of his rights, options and the consequences. The case was set for trial, the witnesses appeared and were ready to testify, the defendant received full and extensive discovery of the evidence and when it was time to call the jury into the courtroom, the defendant plead guilty.

The entire thing is curious in that the only likely effect would be to lengthen his time in the stir were Sadowsky to actually endorse the effort. Almost like the Munchausen by Proxy that author Christina England has already had a run-in with.

Despicable. A fair assumption can, in my mind, be made for some kind of severe psychotic episode in certain SBS-cases, but it would be impossible to say anything specifically about this one. What I can say is that I find the act of covering up SBS to promote the cause of antivax is among the most disgusting practices I know of.
That group of “things” also includes the possibility of not having a trial. That someone can plea guilty and avoid a trial is a gaping hole in the legal system, and a clear breach of basic legal ethics and due process. But when a legal system is completely riddled with gaping holes, I suppose one might think that´s a good thing. Like Swiss cheese.

Anyway – as all casses involving children, absoloutly horrid. I´ve pretty much stopped reading them unless I need to through work.

RoyalCat:
And he has an expert from abroad to bolster his case, one Viera Schibner
Viera Scheibner (retired micropaleontologist) is a familiar name here. Note that Orac included her in his list of cranks who are extreme, so unencumbered by scruple, and
“so far on the fringe that most antivaccinationists tend to stay far, far away from their views with respect to SBS”.

Medical Veritas (the horrible pseudo-journal) hosted a number of papers on shaken baby syndrome.

http://www.medicalveritas.com/man1828_1835.pdf

If you search through you will find a section called “A. The State’s Wild Medical Hypothesis ”

In that section is only a placeholder. Yes–they published it without the author finishing it (shows you how much they care about facts, peer review and the like).

The placeholder:

[Insert facts showing the State’s SBS opinions and/or minor falls and/or the alternate explanation of vaccine reactions.]

Yeah. Basically, “I’ll get around to filling this in about how SBS is really a vaccine reaction”. But he didn’t.

It is difficult to express how disgusted I am with that “journal”.

Oh, and, hilariously, the affiliation given for the author, Kent Holcomb, is the Arizona State Prison Complex.

There is a Free Elwood Facebook page. At a guess I’d say Christina England has something to do with it – she’s being referenced enough https://www.facebook.com/FreeElwood?ref=ts&fref=ts

HDB: I’m not a parent and never plan to be one, but.. don’t most babies cry within 24 hours of birth? Wouldn’t there be something wrong with a baby that didn’t cry within an HOUR of birth? Their defense stinks to high heaven.

Parents will tell you that babies cry. A lot.

Babies that are hungry will cry until they are fed. Mothers that either a) Think that formula is poison. (not kidding) or b) Are waiting for their milk to come in (can take days) can testify that hungry babies will carry on nonstop.

If a woman has ordered that the newborn be not given a bottle of ANYTHING, her baby may well be screaming especially if she hasn’t either nursed it or is producing nothing.

Jaundice in a newborn is not uncommon, and it can take a day or two to present. Connecting it to a vaccination and then to injuries consistent with child abuse is beyond reasonable.

Even worse, the website is HIDEOUS!

@ herr dokto bimler:
@ Narad:

Oh come on guys! He is wearing a dinner jacket thus necessitating the bowtie.
HOWEVER both are hideous.

We don’t know if he wears a bowtie for office wear. I have seen that you know. Unfortunately.

“we don’t realize everything there is to know about SBS.” Period. W-5 had a very interesting show regarding SBS cases that were formally overturned based on solid evidence and there is no agreement as to what SBS is or isn’t.

Anj:

If a woman has ordered that the newborn be not given a bottle of ANYTHING, her baby may well be screaming especially if she hasn’t either nursed it or is producing nothing.

And even if you do give them formula, they still may have difficulty feeding properly. Some babies work it out fairly quickly; others can take days. That’s totally normal, too, and why a full-term baby is usually a bit chubby — it’s insurance, since the “learn how to suckle” phase will likely involve some weight loss.

herr docktor bimler:

Worst of all, the Editor-in-Chief wears a bowtie.

But bowties are cool!

Jen:

“we don’t realize everything there is to know about SBS.” Period. W-5 had a very interesting show regarding SBS cases that were formally overturned based on solid evidence and there is no agreement as to what SBS is or isn’t.

There have been some tragic cases where parents were falsely accused because either an unidentified third party (sibling, babysitter, visiting relative) was causing the injury, or the child had a rare underlying disorder, such as “glass baby syndrome”. (Very scary disease, that one, more formally called osteogenesis imperfecta. For another Dr Who reference, you can see an example of this in the serials “Vengence on Varos” and “Trial of a Time Lord: Mindwarp”. The alien Sil was played by Nabil Shaban, an actor with severe physical deformities due to osteogenesis imperfecta.)

But just because we don’t know everything about SBS doesn’t mean we should think vaccines are the cause, or not vigorously investigate cases where a child has died with traumatic injuries, just because it might not be murder. There are lot of things that can be handwaved, but it strains credulity to think a vaccine could cause a pattern of broken bones in various stages of healing. You might as well blame an alignment of the planets. We can at least rule out the presposterous, surely?

BTW, one interesting thing to chew on: the hospital where I had my babies participated in a study to see whether education would be helpful in reducing cases of SBS. Before discharging the new mother, parents would be shown a video explaining SBS, explaining that babies will make you really really angry at times, and that there is no shame in recognizing this, putting the baby in the crib, and walking away to cool off for a bit. Never shake them, because you might seriously injure or even kill them. Parents had the option of declining the video and signing a piece of paper indicating their choice. They then followed the families to see how many babies died suddenly. The number was dramatically lower; I don’t remember the numbers off the top of my head, but it really was dramatic. And they were including all deaths, not just those ruled homicides, on the presumption that we can’t rely on police reports for a diagnosis. So they made it policy to continue showing the video. I got to see it. It was well made, I thought, and included heartbreaking personal testimony by parents who *had* shaken and injured their babies, and getting to see footage of one child who had survived but was severely handicapped due to brain injury.

If educating people not to shake their babies dramatically lowers the rate of sudden infant death, in the absence of any other interventions, I think there’s fairly good reason to think shaking can indeed kill babies.

Yup John Stone and Isabella Thomas have both commented on/defended parents accused of SBS…

http://www.ageofautism.com/2008/12/mmr-and-the-inq.html

Good grief! Apparently George Bush Jnr has signed it. Not to mention St Andy himself. And what a surprise – Mark Geier! Whoever Rita Brosnan is, she’s signed it 5 times – and I see the ghastly Meryl Dorey’s there, but not Mickey Mouse – yet. What a pitiful affair!

A bit OT, but Orac may be pleased to see this:

http://www.abc.net.au/mediawatch/transcripts/s3601416.htm

Media Watch is the weekly program that – as the name suggests – keeps a sharp eye on the Australian media. In this segment, Jonathan Holmes rubbishes a press report about a measles outbreak in Sydney, where Meryl Dorey is interviewed for fake “balance”. He says straight out that in a case like this, no balance is possible – one side is right and the other wrong, and vaccines do not cause autism as claiemd by Dorey. It was refreshing to have this said so bluntly.

Calli

For sure one of the keys to preventing SBS is education. That’s an important part of baby classes here. It’s not just a video, we talk about it directly, with local parents providing their input. What we teach (I volunteer) is that it’s normal to have the feelings of frustration that lead to sbs, you just have to deal with them properly.

No to Yurko: the most jaw-droppingly amazing thing about him is that while he denies the SBS, he ADMITS to holding the baby upside down and hitting it.

As if that is more acceptable.

See above. As a parent, I actually am far more understanding og how sbS can occur – it doesn’t need a bad person, just a lack of education. It’s not acceptable, of course, but ii can understand how it happens.

OTOH, hitting the child is NOT understandable, nor somehow a consolation. That is a deliberate act of a monster.

But anti-vaxxers say, “My hero!”

First, I have thoroughly researched the biomechanical concept of shaken baby syndrome and found the hypothesis to have no scientific basis. I have published a manuscript, titled “Biomechanics of Head Kinematics Associated with Infant Shaking Compared with Pediatric Activities of Daily Living”, which has been peer-reviewed and is available online through the Journal of Forensic Biomechanics.

Secondly, regarding the abstracts listed on my CV — these have been submitted to the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. They are listed on my CV for the purpose of keeping track of my work, which is the purpose of a CV
Thirdly, asa biomechanist the entire focus of my work is on biomechanics. I have no opinion to offer regarding vaccinations, since I am not an expert in that field. But as a Biomechanist, I can tell you that the fall experienced by Amanda from the arms of Elwood was more than sufficient to cause skull fractures. This opinion I base on my own research, which I hope to present at the AAFS conference, as well as the work of others, including Dr. Webber, who used infant cadavers in his research.

Finally, I have been retained by both prosecution and defense in cases of alleged abusive head trauma. My opinion is always grounded in science.

I notice that no one has commented on this observation by Tonya Sadowsky about her newborn:

“She was jaundiced by the next day.”

From the Wikipedia entry on Neonatal Jaundice:

This condition is common in newborns affecting over half (50 -60%) of all babies in the first week of life.

It’s caused by lysis of fetal red cells beyond the capacity of the liver to process the hemoglobin pigments. It’s not caused by Hepatitis vaccine

Here, for your reading *enjoyment* is Tonya Sadowsky’s website, named after her murdered baby:

http://www.theamandatruthproject.com/

First, I have thoroughly researched the biomechanical concept of shaken baby syndrome and found the hypothesis to have no scientific basis.

My opinion is always grounded in science.

Dr. Lloyd, if you were really interested in the science behind SBS, you would have noted that many have found the model you used in your articles to be overly simplistic and inaccurate. The article you present here is neither thorough nor conclusive. For those interested in the actual biomechanics of this complicated syndrome, give this article a read:

http://www.jbiomech.com/article/S0021-9290(10)00414-8/abstract

So much criticism and yet you intentionally ignore all of the science that is shining a light on the seriously flawed THEORY of SBS. Vitamin D deficiency absolutely leads to broken bones as does osteogenesis imperfecta among other medical issues. If these babies are not being given a full work up, don’t assume the parent or caregiver is guilty. It’s more than just vaccines.

Anj/Calli Arcale: Thank you for the additional points. What I was trying to suggest was that a baby who was NOT crying (unless the baby was asleep) wouldn’t be turned over to the parents, since that is usually an indication of lung troubles or other serious issues.

HDB: He’s promoting Ivar as a positive role model that will shift young people with osteogenesis imperfecta away from lying around in the victim role feeling sorry for themselves, and will instead inspire them to develop great skills of generalship so they too can rally a Viking army and conquer great swathes of England.

As a woman living in a state where about 80% of the population is descended from Vikings, I think this is a great-and overdue- idea. The Asgard pantheon is in great need of revival, and the anemic English music scene could only benefit from the firm hand of the Vikings and liberal libations of mead.

@ Dr John Lloyd

the abstracts listed on my CV — these have been submitted to the American Academy of Forensic Sciences. They are listed on my CV for the purpose of keeping track of my work, which is the purpose of a CV

Yes and no. You should make a clear separation between the work which has been – or is about to be – validated, i.e. published in peer-reviewed journals, and the work which you have been invited to present.
And in the latter case, you should precise where you presented, so people can assess how prestigious and selective the lecture’s place was.
Anything else is just puffing up your feathers.

OK, and now I’m going for the Godwin point.
Your main argument, if I understood correctly, is that the force a full-grown human adult is willing to apply to an infant is insufficient to provoke the damages seen in SBS.
Do you know that some people argue seriously that a woman wearing tight-fitting jeans cannot claim to have been raped, because such a pair of pants cannot be removed by force, without her consent?
Do you know that some people (actually here on this blog) argue seriously that the Holocaust didn’t happen, because the nazis were too nice to force 80 or so “untermensch” people to fit themselves into a small room?
Do you see a pattern, here?

@ Tonya: I’ll give you credit for your colossal arrogance coming here to defend your husband who murdered your baby.

“Actually, a known reaction to the Hepatitis B vaccine is jaundice, too. I would be leery to suggest 50% of all newborns experience jaundice regardless of whatever study you managed to find.”

The point is Tonya, what study have you found in any journal, anywhere, to change our minds?

“That being said, however, I’d encourage some of the readers who visit my site to actually READ something when they get there. Otherwise you’re no better than what you’re accusing me and anyone who supports me to be.”

I’ve been to your site and read all the “stuff” you posted there, and I am accusing you of supporting a murderer.

“Have a nice day.”

I actually was having a nice day, until a read the stomach-churning crap on website. One question for you, Tonya. How do you sleep at night, knowing that you support a murderer and are asking for donations to support your “cause” to free the man who murdered Amanda?

I would be leery to suggest 50% of all newborns experience jaundice regardless of whatever study you managed to find.

I opened a few textbooks. “50-60% of full-term infants” is the consensus.

Tonya @ 3:43 pm – actually, newborn jaundice is very common, especially for breastfed babies (who are usually consuming colostrum not formula for the first few days). A quick poke around has not led me to any numbers on it, but if I have time later I’ll continue searching.
Can you provide a specific citation for jaundice as a side effect of the Hep B vaccine? I don’t see it on the VIS ( http://www.cdc.gov/vaccines/pubs/vis/downloads/vis-hep-b.pdf) dated 2/2/12. I’m curious as to what the mechanism would be for causing jaundice, as there isn’t any virus in the vaccine (just some of the proteins which provoke an immune response; how is the liver involved?).

@ Jennifer

I can accept, intellectually, that there are undiagnosed cases of babies suffering from a deficit of Vit-C or Vit-D, or some debilitating, brittle-bone disease. Actually, I have no doubt such cases exist, given how frail and error-prone human beings are.

Not being a doctor, and not knowing how likely it is to miss symptoms of these deficiencies/diseases, either during an usual visit or during the autopsy, obviously I cannot have a definitive opinion on this.
Although I have the feeling a deficit in either C or D vitamins leading to illness should manifest in specific symptoms before the baby dies of it.

But in the two cases quoted by Orac, do you really believe, that there were cases of undiagnosed Vit-D deficiency? When the dad recognized he “dropped” the baby?

Eh, I missed this part:

you intentionally ignore all of the science that is shining a light on the seriously flawed THEORY of SBS.

Ah yes, it’s just a THEORY.
Like evolution, global warming, gravity…

To quote Isaac Asimov, if you think that the people believing that the Earth is a perfect sphere (the short correct answer is it’s a flattened sphere) are as wrong as the ones believing that the Earth is flat, then you are more wrong than any of them.

You’ll note, Heliantus, that Jennifer failed to link to any of the “science” that was exposing the flaws of the “THEORY of SBS.” Do you think some of them were presented at the “Twelfth International Conference on Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS)/Abusive Head Trauma” that Orac linked to above?

She told me to do the research. Which I did, but the results do not jive with her claims.

trying to shake a job as a paralegal

I see what you do there. Bad Narad. Go to the naughty corner.

@ Chris

Jennifer failed to link to any of the “science” that was exposing the flaws of the “THEORY of SBS.

I am SHOCKED, I tell you. SHOCKED.

OK. Micke Maus just signed the petition. Next!

<i.I can accept, intellectually, that there are undiagnosed cases of babies suffering from a deficit of Vit-C or Vit-D, or some debilitating, brittle-bone disease.

I am happy to believe that miscarriages of justice occur with single-issue zealots seeing bone weakness in a case of infantile rickets, diagnosing it as child abuse, and railroading someone into prison. There seem to be people in the police and justice systems who *prefer* prosecuting such cases, on the theory that the absence of any actual crime makes it harder for the designated defendants to show their innocence.

And then you have the Vitamin-D Deficiency industry, where it is taken as an article of faith that “about 1/4 of all otherwise normal infants have evidence of infantile rickets while they are still in the womb”. Perhaps someone else will have better luck than me at tracing the purported study on which this claim is based.

Also, another form of vit-D deficiency is autism! It’s in Medical Hypotheses!

Her husband copped a plea to protect her…”he was threatened” that the prosecuting attorney would go after her for complicity in the child abuse/battering of Amanda.

He didn’t accept the plea until the jury was going to be led into the courtroom. That doesn’t exactly add up. I will reiterate that the only possible net effect of Tonya’s actions, if endorsed by Elwood, would be to lengthen his sentence. Maybe she’s not concerned. Moreover, Elwood advanced no such allegation of coercion to the appeals court.

“Be very careful what you wish for, Tonya. You might just get it.”

Just a heads-up for those wanting to read there, to save some time – I suggest going straight to the sidebar links. There seems to be nothing about the symptoms, medical examinations, etc., in the main pages.

but child abuse is hard enough to prosecute that no prosecuter would touch it without an ironclad case.
Perhaps things have changed since the days of recovered-memory and satanic-ritual-abuse prosecutions.

Perhaps things have changed since the days of recovered-memory and satanic-ritual-abuse prosecutions.

At least Martha Coakley has moved on from prosecutor to… Massachusetts attorney general. (Includes both Satanic ritual abuse and SBS.)

I read these blogs and find them entertaining, but tonight, I I am ashamed by some of the comments here. I did read some of this woman’s story, and I have to admit that the evidence against her husband sounds incredibly week. While it may be doubtful that vaccinations led to the baby’s collapse, but it’s equally incredulous to believe that he had been abusing the baby for weeks and even the pediatrician didn’t notice, and that a fall could not have caused a skull fracture. Do some doctors really say that?

What I see is a woman who believes her husband is innocent, and is trying everything she can to save him. Perhaps she has made some wrong turns along the way, but let us not stone her to death here, please.

@ Politicalguineapig:
( on a much lighter note) re Asgard / Vikings rampant

Oh I don’t think so.
A few years ago I stayed at a well-appointed hotel: about 75% of the guests that weekend were part of a family reunion – they were Norwegian.
And they were lovely, polite, strong, tall, friendly people. They really liked yours truely, forever smiling at me, offering me coffee and cake … liquor-. they were impossibly nice and killed me with kindness. I couldn’t understand why they were behaving like that and why they liked me so much.

I had an odd thought: I’ll bet they liked my ancestors too.

Punky/Stinky – how awful. Our nicknames for our kids were sweet beyond belief by comparison. This was no ordinary parenting situation!

Politicalguineapig:

3:47 pm Anj/Calli Arcale: Thank you for the additional points. What I was trying to suggest was that a baby who was NOT crying (unless the baby was asleep) wouldn’t be turned over to the parents, since that is usually an indication of lung troubles or other serious issues.

Er… by each of my parents’ separate accounts, the child may be turned over if the parents argue sufficiently persistently, insist on checking breathing without immediate intervention, and medical staff present are convinced that the child is breathing.

The “other serious issues” bit has me worried about my little sister, now.

Politicalguineapig said, “I think any doctor worth their salt could recognize the difference between rickets and abuse, and the doctor’s word is what makes and breaks cases like this.” I agree whole-heartedly. But apparently many doctors are not worth their salt, and yes, the doctor’s word is what makes and breaks cases like this.

I’m not going to stand here and claim that vaccinations led to the collapse of Ms. Sadowsky’s baby, or that they caused the bleeding on the brain, or broken bones. Many of you may not be familiar with the case of Jayden Wray in the U,K. You may wish to familiarize yourself with that case before you make further embarrass yourselves. The U.K. has been working to right these wrongs for the past several months. There are many other cases that read very similar. (1)

Indeed, it is very easy to distinguish rickets from abuse. There are simple, cost-effective, bone density tests that can be performed when treating physicians suspect abuse. Sadly, these tests are rarely performed. The doctor diagnoses abuse, the child goes home (or not), and his job is done. By the time he testifies at trial, he has likely completely forgotten about the child. He expects that the police have done a thorough investigation. Likewise, the police assume that the doctor had done a thorough investigation. Often, that’s not the case for either side, and innocent people are accused and later convicted. (2)

Frontline/NPR/Pro-Publica did a joint investigation of infant deaths, on the heals of a scathing review of the FBI’s forensic practices by the American Academy of Sciences. What they found was equally alarming. (3)

From my investigations into this arena, I believe the the problems are much more widespread than any of us would feel comfortable admitting. It’s one thing to suggest that perhaps scores of innocent parents are in prison for abusing their children, but it’s quite another to suggest that hundreds, if not thousands of innocent parents are currently imprisoned based on a doctor’s hasty diagnosis. But that may be what we are facing.(4) Even Dr. Norman Guthkelch, widely accepted as the “father of shaken baby syndrome,” is now reconsidering his position, and has stated that he is horrified by how his work is being used to convict innocent parents who have had sick children. (5)(6)

As many of us are doctors and scientists, we should understand more than anyone the problems that are created when we merely BELIEVE something to be true. Undertake a rigorous investigation into this issue. Carefully read the medical papers in support of SBS theory. Don’t even bother with the ones that attempt to debunk it. See what conclusions you come to. You may be surprised at what you find. (7)

1. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2134226/Jayden-Wray-death-Couple-wrongly-blamed-shaking-rickets-stricken-baby-death-relive-horrific-ordeal.html

2. http://lawreview.byu.edu/articles/1342143836_13seeley.fin.pdf

3. http://www.propublica.org/special/the-child-cases

4. http://lawreview.wustl.edu/inprint/87/1/dtuerkheimer.pdf

5. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/crime/2012/03/when_babies_die_are_doctors_too_quick_to_blame_it_on_shaken_baby_syndrome_.html

6. http://mip.medill.northwestern.edu/blog/tag/norman-guthkelch/

7. http://www.ga-innocenceproject.org/images/SBS%20Seminar-10.12.11/Plunkett%20Supplemental%20Materials-REVISED-10.20.11/Donohoe%20M.%20Evidence%20Based%20Medicine%20and%20SBS.%20Part%20I.pdf

@ Jeremy Praay:

Why didn’t you read the article and the shifting defenses that Tonya Sadowsky keeps offering up on her website?

Why didn’t you look at the unsuccessful appeal that “Narad” linked to?

Tonya posted one time here…

“Actually, a known reaction to the Hepatitis B vaccine is jaundice, too. I would be leery to suggest 50% of all newborns experience jaundice regardless of whatever study you managed to find. That being said, however, I’d encourage some of the readers who visit my site to actually READ something when they get there. Otherwise you’re no better than what you’re accusing me and anyone who supports me to be. Have a nice day.”

I posted back at Tonya and provided the Engerix Hepatitis B Vaccine Physician’s Prescribing Information and you obviously did not open the link. Show us where jaundice has EVER been reported, no less “a known reaction” to the hepatitis B vaccine.

http://us.gsk.com/products/assets/us_engerixb.pdf

Mr. Praay, show us why Tonya cautions us “to be leery to suggest 50% of all newborns experience jaundice regardless of whatever study you managed to find.”

I also linked to the talk radio blog, where Tonya offers up another *theory* for her baby’s injuries. In *hindsight* she is stating that Amanda must have had a preexisting seizure disorder (“staring off and apnea spells”) Why didn’t you listen to her latest *theory*?

http://www.blogtalkradio.com/4justicenow/2012/09/11/women-behind-the-wall

“As many of us are doctors and scientists, we should understand more than anyone the problems that are created when we merely BELIEVE something to be true. Undertake a rigorous investigation into this issue. Carefully read the medical papers in support of SBS theory. Don’t even bother with the ones that attempt to debunk it. See what conclusions you come to. You may be surprised at what you find.”

Hmmm, what kind of doctor or scientist are you, Mr. Praay?

HDB: Attorney General is a political post. Actual competence doesn’t usually matter. In this state, we’ve been fairly lucky, although the reaction to the local meth problem went way overboard.

Temporarily Delurked: Sorry, didn’t mean to alarm you. My only expertise regarding infants is what I’ve gleaned from my mother’s war stories and some skims of textbooks. When I said ‘serious issues’ I meant things like heart murmurs, lung problems, and general prematurity. For the record, my sibs were born blue and were turned over to my parents after their lungs were cleared. However, most of my mother’s patients were placed in incubators shortly after birth and are not usually sent home until a few weeks later. Does anybody know what the protocol is regarding infants with jaundice?

I’m not going to launch a defense for Ms. Sadowsky, nor am I going to talk about the problems with vaccines…. However, I have read many posts here with have made the implication that these “defenses” are simply invented to defend child murderers.

Unfortunately, in the case of vaccine causation and its post hoc add-on, “instant scurvy,” there is little other conclusion, and this is in fact the topic.

Mr. Praay:

If you want to talk about “shifting defenses,” again, do some reading on SBS.

You should know that medicine marches on, and with the advances in imaging technology just in the past five years: fourteen years old is ancient history.

But you can answer one thing: what actual medical literature actually documents vaccines causing those injuries. Make sure it is good evidence, recent and by someone who is competent. Remember I have seen an infant and toddler with actual seizures, one from a now vaccine preventable disease (and yes, he was standing, but collapsed and went into full convulsions when he was fourteen months old).

Mr. Praay:

You’re more than welcome to go into PubMed and begin the search yourself.

By the way, that is a common tactic used around here to avoid providing the evidence. If you make a claim, you need to provide the evidence.

Though perhaps you are new around here. Lurk a bit, and see where I and others have listed several studies at a drop of a hat. Here are some you might want to look up:

Vaccine. 2012 Jan 5;30(2):247-53.
Lack of association between childhood immunizations and encephalitis in California, 1998-2008.

Pediatrics Vol. 126 No. 2 August 1, 2010 (doi: 10.1542/peds.2009-1496)
Lack of Association Between Acellular Pertussis Vaccine and Seizures in Early Childhood

Pediatr Infect Dis J. 2006 Sep;25(9):768-73.
Encephalopathy after whole-cell pertussis or measles vaccination: lack of evidence for a causal association in a retrospective case-control study.

Now use those as a basis to explain how any vaccine can cause the injuries described in the baby.

@ lilady

I see Mr. Praay lists “Windows software” as his one and only “skill and experience” on LinkedIn.

Mr. Praay, while specific skills in things like epidemiology, virology, physiology, biomechanics and pediatrics aren’t the be-all-and-end-all to enter into the discussion here, it behooves those of us who lack those credentials to work even harder to provide evidence to support our positions.

You’re making extraordinary claims and those require extraordinary evidence. In other words, “[CITATION NEEDED]”

To be fair, I don’t think Mr. Praay is arguing SBS is vaccine injury. He seems to be questioning the very existence of SBS.

If my hypothesis is correct, he’s doing it for the same reason as Kent Holcomb.

This Kent Holcomb?

Yes, he’s mentioned above.

@ Jeremy Praay

And… There are literally hundreds of articles regarding shaken baby syndrome. I will withdraw my earlier statement suggesting that you read them, because they’re apparently too difficult for you to find. I have not read them all, but I have read many of them, starting with Gutkelch and Caffey et al in the 1970′s.

You made the claim, you provide the evidence. Why should we do your job for you?

Mr. Praay, who is not a doctor and certainly not a scientist, comes to this site parroting Tonya Sadowsky’s ever-evolving *explanations* for the death of baby Amanda.

“She was jaundiced the day after she received her hepatitis B vaccine”

http://www.aafp.org/afp/2008/0501/p1255.html

After how many years (?), since her husband was incarcerated, Tonya now *claims* the baby must have been having seizures (“staring off and apnea spells”)…which prompted the software developer to opine, “Apnea and staring spells can be an indication of a petit mal seizures. Certainly, if a baby has encephalopathy, seizures are common.”

(Direct from the Harold Buttram playbook)

http://www.aapsonline.org/jpands/hacienda/buttram.html

I have read many posts here with have made the implication that these “defenses” are simply invented to defend child murderers.

That is simply because Buttram and Yuzbak and others did indeed invent a new clinical entity in which vaccine side-effects mimic the symptoms of infant death by violence, and they did so specifically to defend child murderers.

It is not as if they noticed accumulating evidence about vaccines that caused them to propose a new syndrome… only later realising that this syndrome could be creating embarrassing contretemps and accusations of murder against innocent parents, such as happens all the time in French farce. Crucially, *the accusations came first* — motivating Buttram et al to cobble together their elaborate exculpatory construction of counter-factuals. As a defense for child murderers.

This in turn leads to the suspicion that anyone invoking the “vaccine side-effect” theory to explain an infant’s traumatic injuries is shielding a murderer. It is not conclusive, but it is not a good look.

It is analogous to a situation in which someone is found near a crime scene with red stains on their clothing. There might well be innocent explanations for the stains. It cannot help but invite suspicion, however, If the person claims to have been set upon by reverse vampires.

Chris and ArtK, I’m sorry. I asked you to read all of the evidence IN SUPPORT OF SBS, and to specifically IGNORE the evidence that discredits it, and to form your own opinion based merely on the evidence in support of SBS. And yet, because I could not provide evidence to support the theory of SBS, you have decided not to accept the theory either. Apparently, neither of us support SBS theory. Great! Then that’s one point that we no longer need to discuss. We can consider it moot, and move on. To be serious again, I believe you misunderstood my point in that post, but even so, I left 7 links in my original post. I highly doubt that you have already read through them, but I can certainly present more. I just feel that this entire discourse has been derailed.

Narad: Look, I am more than happy to engage in an honest debate, but when you continue to attack me personally, I have no interest, especially when you will not put yourself on equal footing. Furthermore, I do not need to explain all matters of my personal life to you. I have idea who Kent Holcomb is, except for the link provided. I’m sorry to disappoint your conspiracy theory, whatever it was. My personal involvement is in regards to the people who have been wrongfully convicted. I have no friends or family who have had this happen to them (okay, I obviously know some people now), nor have I ever been involved with CPS, although I’m sure you could arrange that for me, right? I guess you’ll have to find someone else to bully. I do not want to encourage that type of behavior. I’m pretty sure I’m done responding to you. You were definitely trying to intimidate me, and I don’t believe that any reasonable person here would disagree with that analysis. And it’s far from “perfectly legitimate,” especially when I stated at the outset that I was not here to personally support anyone. You are certainly welcome to hate whomever you chose.

Lilady, I don’t mean to be rude, but you seem to keep attributing certain positions to me that I don’t believe that I have taken. I don’t think I’ve used the word jaundice since I began posting here, and I’ve repeatedly said that I’m not going to discuss vaccinations or Ms. Sadowsky. But apnea can be an indication of a petit mal seizure, although because a software developer and Dr. Buttram say that it’s true, then it must be false? Do I need to find a link for that as well, or am I misunderstanding your point?

I am happy to debate the issue of SBS with any of you (except Narad), but I’m not going to continue replying to ad hominim attacks and straw-man arguments. And I’m not sure how many times I have to say that I’m not “anti-vaccine” before those questions end.

If I “have a dog” in this matter, it is to discover the truth and to help those who have been falsely accused and/or wrongfully convicted. After doing some research online, I discovered that I was not alone with my misgivings, and in recent years, many doctors have begun to state their own concerns regarding convictions based on SBS theory. Pediatricians believe it. Many pathologists are not convinced. I’m not aware of any biomechanics experts who are convinced, but I’m sure there are some out there.

You’re welcome to read what these doctors are saying to each other here, in what I believe is the only public exchange of its kind: http://commonhealth.wbur.org/2010/09/shaken-baby

Narad: Look, I am more than happy to engage in an honest debate,

What makes you think that this is the place for an “honest debate” about the existence of SBS? As I’ve mentioned, this is an article about hooking vaccines to the wagon. Moreover, if you had read the comments, you would know that I already brought up Martha Coakley as an example of an ambitious prosecutor who has used SBS as a high-profile plaform with which to promote her career.

but when you continue to attack me personally,

I haven’t attacked you personally.

I have no interest, especially when you will not put yourself on equal footing.

If you think attacking the use of a pseudonym is going to get you any traction, you’re sorely mistaken.

Furthermore, I do not need to explain all matters of my personal life to you. I have idea who Kent Holcomb is, except for the link provided. I’m sorry to disappoint your conspiracy theory, whatever it was.

There is no conspiracy theory. There are some odd patterns emerging around Christina England, though. Frankly, I’m not interested in you — you just seem to be some guy with a Google alert for SBS who shows up in various places and starts doing his shtick without any particular regard to context.

My personal involvement is in regards to the people who have been wrongfully convicted. I have no friends or family who have had this happen to them

And why did you choose this outlet, then?

(okay, I obviously know some people now),

Obviously.

nor have I ever been involved with CPS,

That seems like an odd remark to advance out of the blue.

although I’m sure you could arrange that for me, right?

Quit whining.

lilady, the the link to Dr. Buttram, in reference to apnea and staring spells being the result of a petit mal seizure, I could find no mention of either “apnea” nor “staring” in the included citation. I found where he briefly mentions “stress-induced breathing,” however.

“Epilepsy is a neurological disorder involving recurrent seizures. A seizure, also called convulsion, is a sudden change in behavior caused by increased electrical activity in the brain. The increase in electrical activity may result in unconsciousness and violent body shakes or simply a staring spell that may go unnoticed…”
http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/sleep-related-problems/epilepsy-and-sleep

I’m still assuming that I do not need to correlate apnea with seizures, but I’m not familiar with your level of medical knowledge. Let me know if you need help.

I’m still assuming that I do not need to correlate apnea with seizures, but I’m not familiar with your level of medical knowledge. Let me know if you need help.

Oh, this is going to go well.

Mr. Praay:

Squier and Mack’s discussion of intradural hemorrhages in infancy? Geddes I, II, and II? Matshe’s published study on the non-specificity of retinal hemorrhages? Lantz’s unpublished study of the same? (oh, sorry, that’s not published, so it doesn’t count.) Most of those (and more) are already cited in Tuerkheimer’s law review article.

I said citations, not name dropping. What part of “title, journal and date of the PubMed indexed paper” did you fail to understand. Oh, and they need to be published. I gave you examples. And I specifically included that last link in the list of not real citations because it is a radio show by a pair of journalists.

And I did mention Donohoe’s review multiple times. Did you not notice I mentioned that you posted exactly one citation that was fourteen years old?

Do you even read the responses you were given?

Now answer Science Mom’s question. I would add you really need to give us a real citation that a vaccine reaction includes skull fractures. And again, I do not mean random websites, unpublished works, opinion pieces, news reports or radio shows.

AAAAGH…. the last bit is supposed not be in blockquote:

I said citations, not name dropping. What part of “title, journal and date of the PubMed indexed paper” did you fail to understand. Oh, and they need to be published. I gave you examples. And I specifically included that last link in the list of not real citations because it is a radio show by a pair of journalists.

And I did mention Donohoe’s review multiple times. Did you not notice I mentioned that you posted exactly one citation that was fourteen years old?

Do you even read the responses you were given?

Now answer Science Mom’s question. I would add you really need to give us a real citation that a vaccine reaction includes skull fractures. And again, I do not mean random websites, unpublished works, opinion pieces, news reports or radio shows.

Though maybe if I repeat it, he might actually read it with comprehension. Why in the world would he think a radio show is a “citation”?

Chris, I’m asking if that’s what you want? Is that what you want me to cite? I’m not going to spend an hour looking this up, if you’re just going to say, “That’s not what I was talking about.”

As for your final question, I’m not even sure what fallacy you are engaging in, but I think the straw-man argument comes closest, although it is also non-sequitor, so I’m not sure. I guess you’re asking me to cite something that shows that vaccinations prevent skull fractures. You win. I can’t produce that.

Mr. Praay, I think you are overlooking something rather obvious. Namely, every case which is attributed to SBS represents an actual dead infant, who certainly died of something.

You suggest that we should examine “the evidence in support of SBS” and make our decisions based on that, and you suggest that the supposed paucity of that evidence will lead us to believe that it is unlikely for there to be any such thing. But that’s like asking “how probable is it, really, for a big chunk of rock to come hurtling down from the sky?” and not taking into consideration as evidence in the calculation THE FACT THAT YOU’VE GOT A FREAKING HUGE ROCK IN THE GROUND THAT WASN’T THERE BEFORE.

Have there been cases where an infant has had a rare pre-existing condition and the parents have been unjustly blamed for the infant’s death? Yes, there have. But the key word is “rare.” To say you don’t believe that SBS is real is to inherently say that you believe every single infant death attributed to SBS has some better, more likely explanation. And supporting Tonya Sadowsky and her preposterous idea that vaccines somehow fractured her infant’s skull, well, I’ll be frank. That says to most people here that you’re not actually concerned with finding the real reason these infants died; you just want to find a set of beliefs that doesn’t make you confront anything unpleasant or uncomfortable.

Look, I’m from the state where the infamous “Little Rascals Daycare” fiasco occurred. I’ve had people very close to me who came under suspicion for some awful deeds for the reason that they were in fact guilty of them; I’ve had people very close to me who came under suspicion for awful deeds for no better reason than that they were related to the above people. I know all too well that the system doesn’t always get it right. But you can’t just say “the authorities don’t know everything, so I get to believe anything I choose.” You have to go with what the evidence shows, and – again – the evidence that must weigh most heavily is the fact that the infants are dead, not any alleged theoretical defects in scientific papers.

Sorry, I made that comment before Mr. Praay responded to “I would add you really need to give us a real citation that a vaccine reaction includes skull fractures. And again, I do not mean random websites, unpublished works, opinion pieces, news reports or radio shows.” with “I guess you’re asking me to cite something that shows that vaccinations prevent skull fractures.” I wouldn’t have tried to get through to Mr. Praay had I realized what scum he is. Apologies for my role in wasting your time, y’all.

Antaeus Feldspar, your argument is more fallacious than anything that I have put forward on here. Certainly, infants die. They die of natural, accidental, and inflicted causes each and every day. Are we always able to differentiate these 3 causes? No. Indeed, I can be perfectly healthy in appearance, and drop dead tomorrow from any number known and unknown causes. The problem erupts when a doctor may see something out of the ordinary, and then makes an assumption without taking other factors into consideration, including “I don’t know.” Babies die of “I don’t know” all the time, but we call it SIDS, or cot-death in the U.K.

Are some SBS cases abuse? I think the vast majority of them are. Do they always get the right perpetrator? Perhaps. But if you are presented with a baby with no external or internal injuries, other than the brain bleed, retinal hemorrhages, and brain swelling, do we know to an absolute certainty that the child was shaken? That is the question. And we do not necessarily know how “rare” these cases are, if we keep sending people to prison, even though they vehemently profess their innocence.

If I may present an analogy, imagine if the witch trials from 1692 never ended. By now we would have 400+ years of confessions and established dogma concerning witchcraft. But none of it would be real, would it? Well, perhaps we could argue that many of those tried for witchcraft were still guilty of SOMETHING, and therefore the continued prosecutions are warranted. But what about those that are not guilty of anything? What about those who were in the wrong place at the wrong time? Should we just accept those losses? Personally, I don’t think so. You are welcome to your opinion.

Antaeus Feldspar, you are entitled to your opinion of me. However, I did misspeak, and meant to say the following:

“I guess you’re asking me to cite something that shows that vaccinations do not prevent skull fractures.”

If you drop a baby, whether vaccinated or not, a skull fracture is a possibility. [missing citation]

I don’t have every aspect of this case memorized and I’m not here to discuss it

You opened that door, Sherlock.

Chris, I’m truly sorry. I do not understand your question, and I have done my best to answer it on several occasions.

herr doktor bimler,
For the moment, let’s entertain the notion that Elwood shook the baby to death, as alleged. Then let me ask you how the skull fracture got there. Can you shake a skull fracture?

Indeed, that argument seems just as ridiculous as vaccine-induced skull fractures. If Mr. Sadowsky did not drop the baby, then perhaps we can simply say that both sides should reasonably agree that the baby impacted a solid surface. Do we agree on that aspect?

Chemmemo, I am familiar with many of these cases. I may have confused it with another, but I believe that Dr. Buttram mentioned it in his report. But since Dr. Buttram’s report is apparently not considered credible here, you are certainly free to consider that the skull fracture was simply the result of a drop or solid-surface impact of some kind without any additional brittle bone disorder.

Jeremy: No, no, you haven’t. You’ve done a whole lot of pretty dancing, but you haven’t answered anything at all. If yu can move like that in real life, you might apply to Dancing with the Stars.

We aren’t disputing that all sorts of things happen to babies. I know a woman who had a one year old who fell off her front steps and dislocated his elbow. My state is currently dealing with a number of cases involving infants who died of suffocation in day cares.

However in this case, we have an infant who died in a highly suspicious way, followed by two parents who are desperately trying to blame something, anything, for their child’s death and are claiming innocence at the top of their lungs. And they aren’t cooperating at all with the police or the legal forces. So, most of us are quite rightly thinking that there’s something stinking under all that smoke.

By the way, most SIDS deaths are caused by asphyxiation, not skull fractures.

Jeremy, you are a piece of work.

At October 7, 10:47 pm, you back out of claiming the child had a metabolic bone disorder with:

I may have confused it with another

Yet, your initial reply to ScienceMom at October 7, 9:37 pm reads (my emphasis),

It is undisputed in this case that the father dropped the infant. It is my position that such a fall could have caused a skull fracture in an infant, especially one who is already suffering from a metabolic bone disorder.

If you’re making “undisputed” claims, you’d better not be confusing the case with another!

By the way, you’ve been bitten by one of the internet gremlins: have you noticed that ever since you criticized Chris’s spelling, your own posts have been riddled with typos as well?

Babies die of “I don’t know” all the time, but we call it SIDS, or cot-death in the U.K.

SIDS isn’t just “I don’t know why the infant died” you know.

Further into the autopsy report we discover that as well as bilateral fractures to the parietal and occipital bones, Amanda had bruises to the face, a fractured neck, and hemorrhaging within the spinal cord.
Both in the spine and the brain, the pathologist distinguishes between organising infarctions (i.e. the body is trying to cope with the bleeding — dismantling the neural architecture in the process) and more recent acute infarctions.

Baby dropping? Apparently Elwood could not stop at just one!

Dr. Buttram’s report is apparently not considered credible here

Do you accept Dr Buttram as a credible authority? Bearing in mind his claim early in his report that infant crying is “suggestive of an encephalalitic reaction to the hepatitis B vaccine, something rarely recognized for its true nature”?

Well, I think I’m done here. Feel free to reference me in distaste in your future posts, but I have to go do my real job,and I doubt that I’ll be back to discuss this issue, assuming that’s what we ever did.

“lilady, the the link to Dr. Buttram, in reference to apnea and staring spells being the result of a petit mal seizure, I could find no mention of either “apnea” nor “staring” in the included citation. I found where he briefly mentions “stress-induced breathing,” however.”

Mr. Praay: In the link I provided to Harold Buttram, did you *miss* this?

“Vasculopathies, Autoimmunity, and Cerebral Hemorrhages: A scattering of reports suggest that the hepatitis B vaccine may play a major role, as yet largely unrecognized, in hemorrhagic complications from vaccines. Among the children diagnosed with the SBS were quadruplets who suffered subdural hemorrhages or bloody spinal fluid following hepatitis B vaccines. The mother of these children has been sentenced to l72.5 years in prison.

In a collection of abstracts from Med-Line research, from 1990 to October 1997, on adverse reactions from the recombinant hepatitis B vaccine, Dr. Andrea Valeri of Italy catalogued a total of 45 different types of reactions in the world literature (personal communication, 2000) Among these were necrotizing vasculitis,(35) vaccine-induced autoimmunity,(36) and segmentary occlusion of the central retinal vein.(37) In addition, vasculitis following hepatitis B vaccine has been reported.(38) Thrombocytopenia is listed as a possible complication in the Physicians’ Desk Reference, 2001. In a report of 18 deaths of neonates following the hepatitis B vaccine by the Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System, 1991-1998, hemorrhagic phenomena were common, including two patients with cerebral hemorrhages, four with pulmonary bleeding, one with bloody diarrhea, and several with blood in upper airway passages.(39) A report in Postgraduate Medicine on acute hemorrhagic encephalitis cites vaccines as one of the possible causes.(40)”

You then go on to state…

“Epilepsy is a neurological disorder involving recurrent seizures. A seizure, also called convulsion, is a sudden change in behavior caused by increased electrical activity in the brain. The increase in electrical activity may result in unconsciousness and violent body shakes or simply a staring spell that may go unnoticed…”

“”I’m still assuming that I do not need to correlate apnea with seizures, but I’m not familiar with your level of medical knowledge. Let me know if you need help.”

http://www.sleepfoundation.org/article/sleep-related-problems/epilepsy-and-sleep

Your link to that source Mr. Praay, is a joke. Why not try this source for pediatric petit mal (absence) seizures Try looking at the diagnostic workup for absence seizures…that includes natural sleep EEG tracings during 24-hour continuous EEG monitoring and MRI scans.

http://www.dukehealth.org/health_library/advice_from_doctors/your_childs_health/childhoodseizures

I have a BSc-Nursing degree and I am a licensed registered nurse.

My now deceased son was born with a rare genetic disorder. He was multiply and profoundly intellectually and physically disabled with a grand mal (tonic-clonic) seizure disorder. His first seizure occurred in the NICU when he was less than 24 hours old; he was anoxic and was resuscitated. He also had psychomotor seizures. There were numerous episodes of status epilepticus; he had right sided Todd’s paralysis following one these episodes. During early childhood he was an impatient in the pediatric ICU dozens of times for seizure control…that’s not counting the in-between-trips via ambulance to the hospital ER for IV push lorazapam and IV push phenytoin to stop his seizures.

I am the substitute legal guardian for a young man who was born with zero platelets that caused a major brain bleed that left him with a huge left hemisphere porencephalic cyst. He has Lennox Gasteux seizures, absence seizures and he too, has been in (absence) status epilepticus. He was also hospitalized in the pediatric ICU under 24 hour continuous EEG monitoring, where I cared for him, when he was in Lennox Gasteux status epilepticus.

“I’m still assuming that I do not need to correlate apnea with seizures, but I’m not familiar with your level of medical knowledge. Let me know if you need help.”

Here let me FTFY-

I know you are clueless about apnea and seizures. I am familiar with your *level of medical knowledge* and you are beyond help.

Hello, Mr. Praay. Have you ever heard of Purple Crying? Or that babies cry for no apparent reason.

Part of communicating with my now eighteen year old daughter is through sewing. Something that she has learned from me, and we share by watching “Project Runway.” We both get to laugh that one of her brothers is a straight doppelganger for Austin Scarlett. (He posted a picture of Mr Scarlett on his Facebook page and most people thought it was him!… yes, he is a tall blond math major who is a swim teacher).

We both thought it was hilarious that the designers needed to deal with dolls that cried like real babies in episode. Have fun with the almost an hour of that episode when they try to work as the dolls emit almost realistic cries.

@sheepmilker:

Charles Smith, who was a pediatric pathologist who unjustly got lots of people sent to prison for “child abuse”, when the only evidence was his say-so

UK law was changed so that a guilty verdict cannot be returned if it’s based solely on the testimony of an expert witness.

That’s because of a delightful(ly arrogant) man, Professor Sir Roy Meadow. Despite not being a statistician, he decided that multiple cases of SIDS in one family could only be due to murder. Several women were imprisoned, solely due to his testimony.

His other pet cause was Munchausen’s by Proxy. One of the jailed women was sentenced after he claimed she killed her babies for attention, due to having MBP. His reasoning? The babies were healthy prior to their deaths, and SIDS does not (according to him) strike healthy infants.

One of the mothers (a solicitor) died shortly after her sentence was overturned. Her grief over her children, compounded by false imprisonment (and abuse from staff and inmates alike, as the resident “baby killer”) led her to drink herself to death.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Meadow#Cot_death_trial_controversies

Aaagh… the first link should be:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austin_Scarlett

And oddly enough, my younger blondy boy looks like that picture. Except he is quite straight. His problem is that after he gives his heart away, after a while the young ladies who do not wish to deal with his inherent nerdness hand it back to him. Ah, the problems of being a math major!

@ politicalguineapig: About SIDS…

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0002533/

Notice the various hypotheses about the etiology of SIDS, and the “Back to Sleep/Safe to Sleep” campaigns which resulted in a dramatic decrease in SIDS cases:

http://www.nichd.nih.gov/sids/

(I’m smart enough now, to not link to three sources)

Politicalguineapig: Suffocation is a major problem for babies whose parents “bed-share”, who parents do not provide a safe separate crib and safe bedding.

http://www.childdeathreview.org/causessuf.htm

Shame my comment disappeared into spam with only one link. Let’s try again, this time with no link, then the link in a following comment.

Off-topic, but excuse the diversion. SANE Vax has put up a few abstracts of unpublished papers or conference presentations from the Shaw lab (Shaw was one of the ‘expert witnesses’ in the Jasmine Renata coroner’s inquest that Orac wrote about a while back). Lucija Tomljenovic works in his lab. An abstract they post of a conference presentation she has made draws a link between brain tissue examination and vaccination: “Death after quadrivalent human papillomavirus (qHPV) vaccination: Causal or coincidental?” (google it if you’re interested and the link doesn’t come through in a later comment)

I’m curious as to how see ‘connects dots’ from the brain tissue observations to fingering the vaccine as the cause.

We had a terrible case here (Grant, you’ll remember), when infant twins Chris and Cru Kahui were murdered by somebody in their family. Check their Wikipedia entry to see the ins and outs of the case. It was utterly ghastly and at one point, predictably, some so-called expert claimed they died of ‘natural causes’ – but with some degree of implication that vaccines might have been involved.

lilady, thanks. I wonder what the blog has against me!

Edit: “how see ‘connects dots’” should read “how she ‘connects dots’”

lilady – nothing has changed at my end, but thanks for the thought.

Science Mom, thank you for asking. It is undisputed in this case that the father dropped the infant. It is my position that such a fall could have caused a skull fracture in an infant, especially one who is already suffering from a metabolic bone disorder. Again, this is irrespective of vaccinations, and I’m just a software developer. But you asked my opinion, and that is my opinion.

Thank you for answering Mr. Praay but I’m having some trouble with “undisputed” and “metabolic bone disorder”. The “undisputed” part isn’t really is it? And the “metabolic bone disorder” is a post-hoc introduction by a very unscrupulous doctor. Is there anything in the autopsy report that actually substantiates that?

Chris, look… I don’t have every aspect of this case memorized and I’m not here to discuss it. She asked my opinion. If I made a mis-statement regarding a metabolic bone disorder, then strike it.

Oddly, Dr. Buttram asserted that, you repeated it and then re-canted based upon faulty memory. Why?

But if you are presented with a baby with no external or internal injuries, other than the brain bleed, retinal hemorrhages, and brain swelling, do we know to an absolute certainty that the child was shaken?

But that isn’t the case here. The cause of death was listed as “homicidal blunt force trauma” was it not?

Chemmomo, when I originally said “undisputed,” I simply meant that both Mr. and Mrs. Sadowsky are not disputing that the baby had fallen.

The baby was four months old at the time of her death. Stating the “baby had fallen” implies of her own volition. I don’t know of any four month old infants, other than a tumble down the stairs, who could fall by themselves and sustain those kind of injuries. Care to elaborate on this Mr. Praay? Additionally, Amanda sustained numerous injuries prior to her death that are consistent with abuse so if you are not defending Tonya’s ridiculous vaccine-injury nor any pre-existing condition that has not been found then what is your point?

lilady, I’m not going to launch a defense for Ms. Sadowsky, nor am I going to talk about the problems with vaccines. I did read her post, but I have nothing to say on that matter. I listened to the live broadcast of her radio interview and submitted a question during the interview. I have also read extensively on her blog. Certainly, you are welcome to your opinion concerning the content, but I caution everyone not to draw firm conclusions based on the single article referenced by this blog. I am not here to support or defend her.

That doesn’t seem to be an accurate description as it’s been shown that you have a personal relationship with Tonya Sadowsky and Christina England at the very least. And you’re proffering quite a bit of obfuscation about SBS when that is not even the cause of death here. You’ve hitched your wagon to a strange bunch of horses here and I can’t help but wonder why.

Your position is neither internally consistent nor consistent with the facts in evidence. No mention of SBS or like entity is in the autopsy report as far as I can see nor in the court documents I have viewed. You have withheld information regarding your relationship with Tonya Sadowsky and Christina England and claim that you have only read Dr. Buttram’s report. What is your dog in this fight?

lilady: Thank you for the links.

Jeremy Praay “I met Tonya Sadowsky in Vancouver earlier this year. I also met Christina England and her son at that same conference, along with several other doctors and legal professionals.”

Did you enjoy your copy of “Shaken Baby Syndrome or Vaccine Enduced Encephalitis – Are Parents Being Falsely Accused? Written by Dr. Harold Buttram, M.D. and Christina England, Research Journalist”

I could add to what has already been said about neonatal jaundice, having measured plasma bilirubin on more babies than I care to remember, but I see little point. The child in question had transient neonatal jaundice which rapidly cleared (as you can see from the photo on the mother’s website) months before she was beaten to death.

@ Krebiozen: If you recall the one time that Tonya Sadowsky posted upthread…she claimed that her baby was jaundiced from the hepatitis B vaccine given to Amanda.

BTW, Jeremy Praay resorted to posting as a female under his sock puppet ELloyd and has been busted, here:

http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-antivaccine-lie-that-just-wont-die-shaken-baby-syndrome-is-really-due-to-vaccine-injury/

@ Krebiozen…Agreed it is “a red herring”.

See Harold Buttram’s Report on Tonya Sadowsky’s blog:

http://www.theamandatruthproject.com/drbuttramsreport.htm

“Hospital Labor, Delivery, and Newborn Records, Southwest General Hospital.

This was the mother’s first pregnancy, with birth at 40.2 weeks gestation. She was 31 years old. Her blood type was O positive.

Uncomplicated delivery was accomplished with pitocin drip augmentation and epidural anesthesia. The mother was also given 2 grams of intravenous ampicillin. Birth took place with nuchal arm presentation (arm came out adjacent to neck).

By phone consultation with the mother, she reported that her perineum “ripped” as the baby’s head emerged (in spite of a preceding episiotomy.)

The baby’s weight was 7 lbs and 10 ozs (75 percentile), length 51.0 cm (75 percentile), head circumference 36.0 cm (95 percentile). APGARS were 9/9. Newborn P.E. was normal.

Hepatitis B vaccine was administered on day-of-birth. (NOTE: On the next day, Feb. 17th, according to mother’s notes, Amanda was brought in to her from the nursery screaming, as “she was bothering the other babies in the nursery,” suggestive of an encephalalitic reaction to the hepatitis B vaccine, something rarely recognized for its true nature. There was no note of vitamin K administration in the records.)

Routine newborn screening blood tests were acceptable, as were CBCs. Bilirubin levels reached a peak of 13.95 on February 18th and dropped to 12.18 on the 19th. On 2-18-07 Amanda was placed under a “heat lamp” according to mother’s notes (This was likely phototherapy)….”

I think Herr Doktor Bimler posted upthread about “encephalalitic reaction” based on Tonya’s observation and Amanda’s cry.

I suppose that Tonya does believe that Elwood has been wrongfully convicted in her child’s death. I also think that she is trying to gain a foothold within the community that defends child batterers and child murderers…now that she has recently graduated college with a paralegal degree. A girl has to have some way to support herself, now that her soon-to-be-ex-husband is incarcerated:

http://www.dln.com/courtdomesticrelations/details/ref_index/7813

Thanks Lilady for the pdf document – the graph for bilirubin is the same one in UptoDate.

So we know for sure that Amanda was NOT jaundiced (not more than physiologically expected, anyway).
Her bilirubin peaked at the 95th centile at 48 hours and then dropped.

I think Herr Doktor Bimler posted upthread about “encephalalitic reaction” based on Tonya’s observation and Amanda’s cry.

Yes indeed. There was a lot of research into baby crying through the 1980s (and it may still be going on for all I know)… one of the goals was to work out the precise acoustic qualities that distinguish a ‘pain cry’ from a ‘hunger cry’ and both from a ‘boredom cry’. And of course there are distinctive diagnostic cries like the “cri du chat” of Lejeune syndrome.

Suffice to say that the anti-vax concept of “encephalitic cry” did not come up at any time during that research. It is used exclusively on anti-vax websites, by ‘experts’ who give no indication of any familiarity with the baby-cry literature, solely for the purpose of convincing parents that if their babies are crying a lot in distress (i.e. colicky) then they’ve been damaged irreparably by vaccines and the parents will forever bear a burden of guilt.

They seem to have borrowed the term ‘encephalitic cry’ from old homeopathy textbooks, which gives an idea of the expertise they’re drawing on.

@ Doktor Bimler: I know a troll who often posts at AoA under her name…and under various ‘nyms on other science blogs, about her infant’s encephalitis, following the hepatitis B birth dose.

Her baby was not diagnosed with encephalitis by a physician and did not received intensive care in a hospital…the diagnosis was made by her and her sockies…based on their own *observations*.

OK, let me make sure I have this right – it’s OK to shake babies now, as long as you don’t vaccinate them?

A few thoughts….

* When I was born, I was jaundiced. I was several weeks preterm; not quite a preemie, but earlyish. I was by far the palest baby in the ward where I was born (George Washington University Hospital) and so the nurses were apparently a bit startled by how yellow I turned, although the blood tests indicated it wasn’t an especially severe case. But it happens, and I was fine. I did not have the HepB vaccine, as it was 1975. Jaundice is simply very common in newborns; when you consider the acrobatics being undertaken by the body’s internal systems within minutes of birth to switch over from umbilical to internal power (so to speak), it’s amazing there are ever babies that aren’t jaundiced.

* The idea of a child supposedly having home-diagnosed encephalitis and never receiving any sort of medical care for this supposed encephalitis boggles my mind. I had meningitis and encephalitis when I was four. I was extremely ill, and spent two weeks in the hospital. The first week in isolation, in case I had HiB (long story, but the pathogen was never isolated — and in early 1980, there was no vaccine for that, so they were not taking their chances). These people have no idea what encephalitis is really like. If they genuinely believed, at the time, that their child had encephalitis and did not take the child to a doctor, they are both severely negligent and extremely lucky to have been wrong.

I

It is interesting that the Journal (JPANDS) that promotes this shake baby denialism also publishes all sorts of bad science in support of their anti-abortion position. The forced birthers don’t care a rats ass about what happens to children after they are born.

And Twyla holds these nimrods out to be the paragon of critical-thinking. I weep for the future of their children.

It is interesting that the Journal (JPANDS) that promotes this shake baby denialism also publishes all sorts of bad science in support of their anti-abortion position. The forced birthers don’t care a rats ass about what happens to children after they are born.

Some other SCM blogger wrote about JP&S once:
http://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/index.php/the-journal-of-american-physicians-and-surgeons-ideology-trumps-science-based-medicine/

lilady:
Now I’m reading cia parker’s story after answering your question about the spinal tap and why they don’t know what caused mine. And WOW.

they gave it to her anyway, and she reacted with four days and nights of endless screaming, vaccine-induced encephalitis, and was diagnosed with autism at 20 months. The doctor dismissed it as colic, although she was in too much pain to feed and lost one pound two ounces in the first two days of the screaming, when colic does not affect feeding and does not occur in newborns earlier than the third week of life
1) If you think your baby has encephalitis, you don’t call your doctor, you go to the ER. Now. Encephalitis kills.
2) Four days of endless screaming? HAH! Baby. Try two months. That’s what it was with my oldest. She had *real* colic. Not just struggling to learn how to feed and cope with life outside the womb, but sheer agony that lasted months. Guess what? It wasn’t encephalitis. It was colic. And anyone who says colic doesn’t affect feeding is insane. Some colicky babies can eat just fine. Mine could, thankfully. Many can’t. Depends on what’s causing the pain, probably. Colic isn’t really a diagnosis; it’s a symptom.
3) Most babies lose weight in their first week. Over a pound is unusual, but not unheard of. Usually, it’s because they haven’t figured out how to suckle yet. My first took quite a while to figure it out, and lost about the same amount of weight. (Fortunately, she was a little porker when she was born, two weeks overdue.)

As to the rest of that . . .

Wow.