A journalist visits the ivory tower
The online journal Argument & Critique has published my academic treatment of the shaken baby syndrome literature, after an editorial exchange that has clarified my understanding of the media's role in the professional debate about shaken baby syndrome and sharpened my appreciation for The National Registry of Exonerations.
The journal’s managing editor, Dr. Lynne Wrennall at Liverpool John Moores University, approached me some months ago, after reviewing my web site on shaken baby syndrome, to see if I wanted to submit a paper. After 17 years of tracking the evolving research, I was eager for the chance to pull the key medical-journal articles and court cases into an historical narrative. My own education came in the footnotes.
My citations to the medical literature were fine, but it turns out that the golden links for a blogger—the in-depth articles on individual cases in news outlets that post their archives on line—are forbidden to the academic researcher. I was allowed to cite the opinion of a New York Times reporter about British sentiment toward Louise Woodward but not, for example, the Philadelphia Inquirer’s treatment of the Baby Lucas case, in which doctors misdiagnosed a vitamin K deficiency as shaking injury. I thought my essay would be more potent if I could name some of the conditions that have been misdiagnosed as abuse, but my examples were all excised because the citations were deemed unreliable—underscoring how academia feels about the popular press.
Now I realize I could have saved us all a lot of trouble if I had just gone first to The National Registry of Exonerations, a joint effort of the innocence projects at the Michigan and Northwestern University law schools, a reputable source that offers a sobering list of overturned shaking convictions, with case histories. The registry documents a number of conditions that have been misdiagnosed as abusive head trauma:
- Sickle cell disease, in the case of Melonie Ware (registry entry, radio treatment)
- Stroke, in the case of Julie Baumer (registry entry, press treatment)
- Seizure disorder, in the case of Drayton Witt (registry entry, press treatment)
- Sepsis infection, in the case of Adrian Thomas (registry entry, film about his first trial)
- Urinary tract infection and hypoxia, in the case of Brandy Briggs (registry entry)
- SIDS, in the cases of Teresa Engberg-Lehmer (registry entry) and Joel Lehmer (registry entry), whose case helped unravel years of misdiagnoses by Dr. Thomas Bennett in Iowa (Los Angeles Times treatment, by reporter Barry Siegel)
- Accidental injury, in the cases of
- John Peel (whose registry entry includes a second case where charges were dropped when other doctors realized the child had died of pneumonia)
- Warren Hales (registry entry—this case also featured timing issues)
- Ken Marsh (registry entry)
- Michael Hansen (registry entry)
Some cases were overturned because they rested on timing:
- Audrey Edmunds (registry entry, press treatment, book about her ordeal)
- Mary Weaver (registry entry, press treatment, book about her ordeal)
- Abilgail Tiscareno (registry entry)
- Rashawn Greer (registry entry)
The registry now contains 1,397exonerations, a number that’s likely to change soon, as the last entry seems to have been added yesterday, July 10, which I know because their case browser offers a handy sorting tool, which also let me find the cases above.
The journal that published my paper takes a libertarian perspective and “aims to stimulate debate and critical thinking around controversial topics.” I was encouraged to know that its editor, a U.K. social science professor, researcher, and government policy advisor, is not only aware of the SBS debate but eager to push it forward. I got a hint of why she is also a popular media figure in the U.K. when she offered this perspective on the criticism she hopes for in response to the shaken baby paper:
As you know the history of SBS, you know that it can get pretty stormy, but I make it a point of honour not to give in. I go by the edicts, ‘let the light in’, and make sure that you are never the only person to know something.
In that spirit, thank you for reading this essay.
copyright 2014, Sue Luttner
If you are not familiar with the debate surrounding shaken baby syndrome, please see the home page of my web site on the subject.