Shaken Baby Syndrome: Investigating the Abusive Head Trauma Controversy

The first collaborative, multidisciplinary academic textbook to tackle the scientific reliability of medical determinations of abusive head injuries in infants, a highly controversial subject at the intersection of medicine, science, and law.

Book info

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: May 2023
• Online ISBN: 9781009177894

Preorder

Hardcover copies will be available in UK stores in May 2023, and in US stores in July 2023.

Preorder now on:

• Cambridge University Press
• Waterstones
• Blackwell's
• WHSmith
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News

You'll find here the latest updates and errata about the book:

• 2023-02-19: initial README

Co-editors

• Keith A. Findley, University of Wisconsin, Madison, US
• Cyrille Rossant, University College London, UK
• Kana Sasakura, Konan University, Japan
• Leila Schneps, Sorbonne Université, Paris, France
• Waney Squier, formerly John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford, UK
• Knut Wester, Universitetet i Bergen, Norway

Topic

For the past decades, a growing body of scientific studies in neuropathology, neurology, biomechanics, statistics, and psychology has cast doubt on the forensic reliability of medical determinations of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), also known as Abusive Head Trauma (AHT). Studies have increasingly documented that the same findings are caused not only by non-accidental trauma, but also by accidental short falls and a wide range of medical conditions. Nevertheless, inaccurate diagnoses, unrealistic confidence expression, and wrongful convictions continue to this day.

Bringing together contributions from a multidisciplinary expert panel of 32 world-leading professionals, this landmark book explains the scientific evidence challenging the reliability of determinations of SBS/AHT and advances efforts to evaluate how deaths and serious brain injuries in infants should be analysed and investigated.

Table of contents

#	Author	Chapter
	Barry Scheck	Foreword
1	Chris Brook	Maintaining the Orthodoxy and Silencing Dissent
2	Randy Papetti	The History of SBS
		MEDICINE
3	Waney Squier, Tommie Olofsson	The neuropathology of SBS or retinodural haemorrhage of infancy
4	Julie Mack, Waney Squier	The importance of the correlation between radiology and pathology in SBS
5	Knut Wester, Johan Wikström	SBS, AHT – or just a type of hydrocephalus?
6	Knut Wester, Johan Wikström, Joseph Scheller	SBS or benign external hydrocephalus - how is AHT depicted in the scientific literature?
7	Marta Cohen	Are some cases of sudden infant death syndrome incorrectly diagnosed as SBS?
8	Bernard Echenne	AHT: the importance of predisposing factors
9	Marvin Miller	How I Became a SBS Skeptic Paediatrician
		SCIENCE
10	Niels Lynoe, Anders Eriksson	The Swedish systematic literature review on suspected traumatic shaking (SBS) and its aftermath
11	Deborah Davis, Richard Leo	Interrogation and the Infanticide Suspect: Mechanisms of Vulnerability to False Confession
12	Keith Findley	Can confession substitute for science in SBS/AHT?
13	Jeff Kukucka, Keith Findley	Cognitive Bias in Medicolegal Judgments
14	Kirk Thibault	Biomechanical forensic analysis of shaking and short fall head injury mechanisms in infants and young children
15	Leila Schneps	When lack of information leads to apparent paradoxes and wrong conclusions: analysis of a seminal article on short falls
16	Ulf Högberg	Epidemiology of findings claimed to be highly specific for SBS/AHT, a prerequisite to improve diagnosis of child abuse
17	Norman Fenton, Scott McLachlan	SBS: Exploring concerns about the ‘triad’ diagnosis and its statistical validation using a causal Bayesian Network
		LAW
18	Felicity Goodyear-Smith	Mandatory reporting of child maltreatment
19	Kathleen Pakes	SBS/AHT Opinion Evidence in U.S. Courts
20	Keith Findley	Undoing Wrongful Convictions: Exonerating the Innocent in SBS/AHT Cases
		INTERNATIONAL
21	Clive Stafford Smith	Ptolemy rather than Copernicus — The State of SBS In the British Legal System
22	Cyrille Rossant, Grégoire Etrillard	SBS in France
23	Ulf Högberg, Goran Högberg	Sweden and SBS/AHT
24	Kana Sasakura	SBS/AHT in Japan
25	Chris Brook, Michael Nott	SBS in Australia
26	Multiple authors	SBS around the world

Further information, references

The book contains hundreds of references. You'll find a small selection of references below. Many more can be found on Cyrille Rossant's introduction to the SBS/AHT controversy.

Articles

• Zahl et al., 2021. Thrombosis is not a marker of bridging vein rupture in infants with alleged abusive head trauma

• Narang et al., 2020. Abusive Head Trauma in Infants and Children

• Papetti, 2019. Outside the Echo Chamber: A Response to the Consensus Statement on Abusive Head Trauma in Infants and Young Children

• Findley et al., 2019. Feigned consensus: usurping the law in shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma prosecutions

• Choudhary et al., 2018. Consensus statement on abusive head trauma in infants and young children

• Lynøe et al., 2017. Insufficient evidence for 'shaken baby syndrome'—a systematic review

• SBU, 2016. Traumatic shaking – The role of the triad in medical investigations of suspected traumatic shaking

• Squier et al., 2016. Infants dying suddenly and unexpectedly share demographic features with infants who die with retinal and dural bleeding: a review of neural mechanisms

• Ontario Ministry of the Attorney General, 2011. Committee Report To The Attorney General: Shaken Baby Death Review

• Guthkelch, 2012. Problems of Infant Retino-Dural Hemorrhage with Minimal External Injury

• Squier, 2011. The "Shaken Baby" syndrome: pathology and mechanisms

• and more...

Books

• Papetti, 2018. The Forensic Unreliability of the Shaken Baby Syndrome

• Tuerkheimer, 2014. Flawed Convictions: "Shaken Baby Syndrome" and the Inertia of Injustice

• Palusci, Lazoritz, 2001. The Shaken Baby Syndrome: A Multidisciplinary Approach

• and more...

Videos

• TEDxWandsworth, Waney Squier, 2016. I believed in Shaken Baby Syndrome until science showed I was wrong

• TEDxButler, Jessica Henry, 2021. No-Crime Wrongful Convictions

• Retro report, 2015. The Nanny Murder Case: Shaken Baby Syndrome on Trial

• Interview with Norman Guthkelch, 2015.

• and more...

Press investigations

• The Appeal, 2022. A Judge Finally Called Bs On ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome'

• The Appeal, 2020. How Dubious Science Helped Put A New Jersey Woman In Prison For Killing A Baby In Her Care

• The Guardian, 2017. ‘We believe you harmed your child': the war over shaken baby convictions

• New Scientist, 2016. Evidence of 'shaken baby' questioned by controversial study

• New York Times, 2015. Shaken Baby Syndrome: A Diagnosis That Divides the Medical World

• Washington Post, 2015. A disputed diagnosis imprisons parents

• and more...

Blog

• Rossant, 2022. An Introduction to the Scientific Controversy over Shaken Baby Syndrome

Errata

• None yet.