The evidence base for shaken baby syndrome: Response to Reece et al from 41 physicians and scientists

doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7468.741-c

BMJ 2004;329:741-742 (25 September), doi:10.1136/bmj.329.7468.741-c

Letter

The evidence base for shaken baby syndrome

Response to Reece et al from 41 physicians and scientists

The first 150 words of the full text of this article appear below.

EDITOR—Reece et al have implied that child abuse is aparticularly difficult area in which to conduct research.¹ Thisdifficulty does not justify circular reasoning, selection bias,imprecise case definition, unsystematic review publications,or conclusions that overstep the data.^2-5 ^w1-w3

Geddes and Plunkett described the use of evidence based medicinein evaluating the causes of head injury in infants and children.^w4w5 Evidence based medicine is the conscientious, explicit, andjudicious use of scientific evidence in making medical decisionsand cautions against unsystematic, untested reasoning and intuitionbased clinical applications. It integrates scientific principlesand clinical experience with valid, current research.^w6

While much of clinical medicine still relies on observation,it is critical that these observations are verified and validated.Often, the clinician must be more deliberate than the experimentalistwho uses a planned systematic approach. The clinical researchermay have to await the natural sequence of events—deducingrelationships that . . . [Full text of this article]

Patrick E Lantz, forensic pathologist

Wake Forest University Health Sciences, Winston-Salem, NC 27157, USA plantz@wfubmc.edu

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The evidence base for shaken baby syndrome: Response to editorial from 106 doctors: Robert M Reece
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