Shaken Baby Syndrome: Medical Science Or Medical Faith

by Catherine J. Frompovich

“This, in addition to the other more recent developments in this area previously discussed, arguably suggests that a claim of shaken baby syndrome is more an article of faith than a proposition of science.” – Matthew F. Kennelly, United States District Judge

Shaken baby syndrome (SBS) is something of an enigma. The medical profession, especially Emergency Room personnel—doctors, in particular—medically certify to legally charge adults with SBS when a child is brought in after having experienced trauma – usually diagnosed as head trauma – from supposed severe shaking by an adult, usually a parent or the last-known care giver.

First and foremost, let it be known that this writer is not discussing genuinely-deliberate child abuse, which rightly must be prosecuted as criminal acts. What’s being discussed here is the apparent ‘blind faith’ theory that if a child has subdural hemorrhage, retinal hemorrhage and brain swelling (aka SBS triad of symptoms) then that child has been shaken violently by an adult, a parent, or a care giver even though there are no physical marks or broken bones on the child’s body.

Hundreds, if not thousands, of persons have been prosecuted legally with SBS and are serving prison terms even though they are innocent. That’s the power of the blindness from medical faith that physicians somehow have spawned despite SBS not being “evidence-based medicine.”

This writer has been contacted by advocates for those serving prison terms—the stories are truly heart-breaking. Furthermore, I have co-authored with Harold E. Buttram, an MD board certified in environmental medicine, several articles discussing in great depth brain damage, encephalopathy, SBS, and how there are other contributing factors – or even contraindications – that the medical and legal professions ignore and, apparently, do not want to consider. That, in my opinion, is tantamount to medical and legal malpractice coupled with false imprisonment of innocent individuals.

However, an evidentiary hearing, new preponderance of scientific-medical evidence, and a judge’s ruling in the case of daycare worker Jennifer Del Prete redefines “taken for granted” shaken baby syndrome as “an article of faith” – at least in the Del Prete case. Mrs. Del Prete was charged with first degree murder and sentenced to twenty years in prison in the death of a three-month-old infant in 2005.

The Del Prete case is extremely fascinating; I probably could write a book about it. What makes it truly remarkable, in my opinion after reading the judge’s 97-page “Memorandum Opinion and Order,” is how many bona fide medical doctors and professionals disagreed – and testified so – about the interpretation of the autopsy report; the condition of the child’s brain, even upon re-examination after many years being preserved in formaldehyde; and how medical professionals actually took to what amounted to insulting their peers because of what’s become an ingrained medical ‘religious’ belief about SBS despite various recent medical tests and those performed at autopsy in the case at hand.

One of the most important documentations I would like to have seen reported in the case history was the exact date of the child’s birth, plus the dates of all vaccinations she received, especially the Hepatitis B, which usually is given within 24 hours of birth and before the newborn leaves the hospital. That lack of documentation jumped out for me since it was discovered after the autopsy, and at the reopened hearing, that the infant apparently suffered from “chronic subdural hemorrhage and further points away from Del Prete as a perpetrator of abusive trauma.” [pg.93]

Furthermore, the child was seen at one month in hospital for “a fever, her medical records showed that she had elevated platelets. Specifically, she had 685,000 platelets per drop of blood, whereas the normal child will have between 150,000 and 450,000.” [pg.53] However, the infant had a one-month doctor visit, where she probably received her second Hepatitis B vaccine [1], and a two-month medical evaluation. [pg.61] If normal two-month-well-baby visits follow established protocols, that infant should have received the following CDC-recommended vaccines:

• DTaP (Diphtheria, Tetanus, and acellular Pertussis vaccine) 
• Hib (Haemophilus influenza type B vaccine) 
• IPV (Inactivated Poliovirus vaccine) 
• PCV (Pneumococcal conjugate vaccine) 
• Rota (Rotavirus vaccine) [1]

Why should dates of vaccines be noted in any medical, police or legal reporting for SBS suspected activity? I think it is imperative because of the documented adverse events or reactions to vaccines, especially as the case of an infant boy, Ian Gomowski, attests to the Hepatitis B vaccine, which is chronicled by his parents at Ian’s Voice, and further dramatized by these photographs showing Ian’s grotesquely swollen body.

Brain swelling also can occur, as Dr. Buttram and I discussed in our articles. Links to them can be found in the references at the end of this article.

During daycare worker Del Prete’s presentation of expert witnesses to establish “a preponderance of the evidence that based on all the relevant evidence, no reasonable jury would find her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt” [pg.96], numerous medical experts established that “one can no longer assume that the last caregiver with an infant who dies of abusive head trauma must have been the perpetrator.” [pg.94]

Furthermore – and here’s the clincher, I think:

The evidence offered by Del Prete’s experts goes well beyond the reasonable and logical inferences from the testimony by respondent’s experts that the Court has discussed; it points to a cause for [initials] death unrelated to any abuse by anyone. [pg.95]

Apparently, the Court realized from the expert witness testimony that something else was capable of causing what was not picked up at autopsy: “chronic subdural hemorrhage” to which one of the expert witnesses testified, “…science cannot even yet establish an injury threshold.” [pg.95] So, how can Emergency Room docs pontificate “shaken baby syndrome” when they don’t even know what to look for?

There are medical tests to disproved SBS. In the reference section at the end of this blog there are two articles I wrote: “Bone Density Test Can Disprove Shaken Baby Syndrome” Parts 1 and 2, which suggest what parents should know, especially since vaccines can cause serious adverse reactions, including death as documented by the U.S. HHS/HRSA Statistics Report. Note the number of deaths that have been attributed to these vaccines: 76 to DTaP; 53 to Hepatitis B; 3 to Hib; 28 to Oral Polio; 3 to Pertussis; 5 to Pneumococcal; 1 to Rotavirus.

Furthermore and quite coincidentally, SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome) seems to have escalated with the acceleration of mandated vaccines.

SIDS is the leading cause of death among infants 1 month to 1 year old, and claims the lives of about 2,500 each year in the United States. It remains unpredictable despite years of research. [2]

To add to the “sudden childhood death syndrome” that seems to be ramping up, I’d like to point out that as I write this blog, radio news reports talk about a seven-year-old boy dropping over in school in South Philadelphia, plus another incident at a Mount Laurel, New Jersey school where, during a gym class, a fourteen-year-old boy keeled over and then died. Additionally, the website Parent Heart Watch.org displays more childhood health anomalies. Something obviously is weakening children’s health and hearts.

Personally, I think those who ought to know better [federal and state health agencies] should get their heads out of their posteriors and ditch their cockamamie, flat-earth-society, Neanderthal-age-beliefs that vaccines do not cause children health adverse events. There is damning proof from none other than the U.S. Vaccine Court in that it’s paid out almost US $3Billion in settlements for claims that are documented on the HRSA Statistics Report site.

Moreover, 1,132 deaths attributed to vaccines are reported with settlements apparently paid on them. Even though that is definite acknowledgement that vaccines can kill and have, wouldn’t you think in view of that history the U.S. CDC/FDA and the American Medical Association willingly would take off their blinders that vaccines don’t cause harm, and any health anomaly that occurs after vaccination is “coincidental,” especially after receiving the HPV vaccines.

That’s where the problem lies, I contend, in vaccine apologists’ and acolytes’ rabid ‘religious’ belief that vaccines don’t cause harm. Nothing is further from the facts since some “ingredients” in vaccines are specifically designed to enable chemicals to cross the blood brain barrier. One, in particular, is polysorbate 80, often referred to as “Tween-80™”. There apparently is the specific design of polysorbate 80 coating on the targeting of nanoparticles to the brain. [3]

Fourteen mandated vaccines routinely administered to infants, toddlers, and children contain polysorbate 80!

In my book Vaccination Voodoo, I devote Chapter 9 to discussing what polysorbate 80 can do from peer-review sources and journals. After writing that chapter I questioned if there really is some “method to the madness” found in vaccine ingredients.

In August of 2012 Norma Erickson, the president of SaneVax, and I collaborated on a seminal paper regarding what parents should do if they suspect their child has died as a result of vaccination. The article is “A Parent’s Guide: What to do if Your Child Dies After Vaccination.” That article addresses what parents need to know and do; autopsy tests to be performed by the parent’s designated Forensic Pathologist; and coroner, pathologist, and attorney information.

In the Del Prete case I do believe those who were involved came to realize that shaken baby syndrome probably is a medical misnomer – and dis-service – since there are many other unrelated causes that could mimic what doctors ‘believe’ happened. That can be anything from undetected birth trauma that may have caused brain bleeding, chronic subdural hemorrhages, to other issues that Dr. Buttram and I discuss in our articles.

Mrs. Del Prete was able to prove the medical profession wrong.

In April of 2014 she was released on bond from prison after serving almost half of her twenty-year prison term for first degree murder. What a tragedy for all involved: the baby, Mrs. Del Prete, and the medical and legal professions!

Probably, the best resource for understanding what neurotoxins in vaccines are capable of doing in the human body, I’d like to recommend my October 2013 book, Vaccination Voodoo, What YOU Don’t Know About Vaccines, available at Amazon.com.

Here’s the review that NaturalNews.com gave the book
http://www.naturalnews.com/043711_vaccination_voodoo_book_review_vaccine_side_effects.html .

Notes:

Memorandum Opinion and Order Case No. 10 C 5070
http://www.medilljusticeproject.org/files/2014/01/Actual-Innocence-Ruling.pdf

[1] http://kidshealth.org/parent/growth/medical/immunization_chart.html
[2] http://kidshealth.org/parent/general/sleep/sids.html
[3] http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14967540

References:

Vaccines and Brain Inflammation / 6/1/2011
Buttram & Frompovich
http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2011/06/01/vaccines-and-brain-inflammation/

Basics of the Human Immune System Prior to Introduction of Vaccines: Are Vaccines Turning Our Children’s Immune Systems Inside Out? Part 2 / 6/10/2011
Buttram & Frompovich
www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2011/06/10/basics-of-the-human-immune-system

Basics of the Human Immune System Prior to Introduction of Vaccines: Are Vaccines Turning Our Immune Systems Inside Out? Part 2 / 6/21/2011
Buttram & Frompovich
http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2011/06/21/risks-damage-basics-of-the-human-immune-system-prior-to-introduction-of-vaccines-are-vaccines-turning-our-childrens-immune-systems-inside-out-part-2/

Do Childhood Vaccines Cause Subdural (Brain) Hemorrhages, Health Anomalies? 10/23/2011
Buttram & Frompovich
www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2011/10/23/do-childhood-vaccines-cause

Bone Density Test Can Disprove Shaken Baby Syndrome / Frompovich
http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/02/05/bone-density-test-can-disprove-shaken-baby-syndrome-by-catherine-frompovich/

Bone Density & Shaken Baby Syndrome, Part 2 / Frompovich
http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/02/09/bone-density-shaken-baby-syndrome-part-2-by-catherine-j-frompovich/

Catherine J Frompovich (website) is a retired natural nutritionist who earned advanced degrees in Nutrition and Holistic Health Sciences, Certification in Orthomolecular Theory and Practice plus Paralegal Studies. Her work has been published in national and airline magazines since the early 1980s. Catherine authored numerous books on health issues along with co-authoring papers and monographs with physicians, nurses, and holistic healthcare professionals. She has been a consumer healthcare researcher 35 years and counting.

Two of Catherine’s more recent books on Amazon.com are Our Chemical Lives And The Hijacking Of Our DNA, A Probe Into What’s Probably Making Us Sick (2009) and Lord, How Can I Make It Through Grieving My Loss, An Inspirational Guide Through the Grieving Process (2008).