Diagnosis of "shaken baby syndrome" still valid, appeal court rules

doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7511.253

BMJ 2005;331:253 (30 July), doi:10.1136/bmj.331.7511.253

News

Diagnosis of "shaken baby syndrome" still valid, appeal court rules

Clare Dyer, legal correspondent

BMJ

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

The role of the three classic signs of "shaken baby syndrome"in diagnosing intentional head injury was endorsed by the Courtof Appeal last week in a test case aimed at casting doubt ontheir validity.

Lawyers for four people convicted of killing or causing grievousbodily harm by shaking babies in their care argued that newresearch had cast doubt on the link between shaking and thetriad of injuries—encephalopathy, subdural haemorrhages,and retinal haemorrhages—traditionally regarded as diagnosticof shaken baby syndrome.

They cited papers by neuropathologist Jennian Geddes and colleaguesthat hypothesised that the triad could be produced by gentleshaking or even without any trauma at all.

Controversy centred particularly on a paper that looked at almost50 paediatric cases without head injury ( Neuropathology andApplied Neurobiology 2003;29: 14-22[CrossRef][Web of Science][Medline]). The other two papershad appeared in 2001 ( Brain 2001. . . [Full text of this article]

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