Editorial: Not all shaken baby convictions are sound
NO ONE doubts that parents and babysitters can and do inflict horrendous and sometimes fatal brain injuries on young children by violently shaking them. Shaken baby syndrome is given as the cause of death in around half of child abuse fatalities.
But there is something badly wrong with the way so many child fatalities are blamed on shaking. As we report, many infants who appear to have been shaken to death may simply have tumbled, suffocated or met with some other accident.
For 40 years, mainstream medical experts who give evidence in…
