Category Archives: Junk science

A new, compelling documentary on the junk science of shaken baby syndrome, titled The Syndrome, will premiere at the Kansas Film Festival in October, 2014.

Synopsis:  The Syndrome tells the story of a group of doctors who say that shaken baby syndrome, the basis of hundreds of criminal cases every year, is not scientifically valid. The film focuses on three key doctors: A Georgetown University neurosurgeon, a former Minnesota state medical examiner, and the head of Stanford University’s Pediatric Neuroradiology Department. These doctors are part of a growing scientific movement coming to the defense of the some thousand people in prison for shaken baby. In an unprecedented criminal justice crisis, promoters of shaken baby syndrome are not backing down.

Watch the trailer here.

Editorial Comment:  Of course the promoters of this medical voodoo are not backing down.  For them, SBS has been their source of livelihood, notoriety, and power.

Sue Luttner, editor of the blog OnSBS, has posted an article that points out the parallels between “old” and discredited arson science and the situation with child abuse experts who are stuck in a paradigm paralysis regarding shaken baby syndrome (SBS).

‘Hats off’ to Sue, because the parallels had never struck me before, but they are incredibly close.

Please see Sue’s article here.

Sue Luttner maintains the blog OnSBS.  She is a long time observer and reporter of the state of SBS in the justice system.  We  have reblogged many of her articles here on the WCB.

Ms. Luttner has recently had published a definitive, scholarly work that traces the origins of SBS, and explains why the hypothesis of SBS is scientifically questionable.

If you are student of SBS at all, this is a must read.

For me, the most cogent point the paper makes is that SBS evolved into being through massively flawed inductive reasoning, driven by statistically invalid anecdotal observations of extremely small populations.  SBS is just a collection of guesses and speculations canonized into a “diagnosis,” which Prof. Deborah Tuerkheimer has so aptly stated is a “medical diagnosis of murder.”

Access the paper here.