BY ELAINE HOPKINS

PEORIA, IL – Quietly behind closed doors, the drama over what is commonly known as ‘shaken baby syndrome’ plays out in courtrooms across Illinois and the nation.

Medical science cannot prove this diagnosis, now known as ‘abusive head trauma,’ is real. But some doctors, including those with a vested interest in the diagnosis, argue it takes place despite the lack of convincing physical evidence.

In Peoria, judges must decide whether a parent or caregiver is guilty of harming a baby only by shaking it.

Parents or caregivers without the financial resources to hire medical experts and private lawyers – the cost can run to $50,000 or more — can be persuaded to plead guilty and may be sentenced to prison or be placed on the registry of child abusers for life.

Michelle Weidner, a Peoria parent, was accused of inflicting abusive head trauma after a pediatrician misread a CT scan. A doctor called the Illinois Department of Children and Family Services, throwing the Weidners into the child protection system.

The case against the Weidners was finally dismissed, but Michelle Weidner, a former U.S. Air Force veteran and journalist, became a medical accountability advocate and a charter member of Pediatric Accountability in Central Illinois, PACI.

The group co-sponsored a recent panel discussion and film on  ‘shaken baby syndrome,’ or abusive head trauma. The panel branded the syndrome as “mythology” and without scientific evidence that it can occur.

The April 25 panel discussion in a Bradley University auditorium was sponsored by the Illinois Innocence Project, PACI, two Bradley University clubs and the law office of Louis Milot.

The panel included Weidner; Wheaton attorney Zachary Bravos; a board certified radiologist Dr. David Ayoub; and attorney Louis Milot, an assistant public defender in Peoria County’s juvenile court division.

“Classic shaken baby syndrome with no external signs of injury does not exist” Bravos said.  Bleeding on the brain, used to diagnose the syndrome, is caused by “disease conditions.”

Dozens of bio-mechanical tests, some on animals such as primates, have proved that shaking cannot cause bleeding in the brain, he said. It cannot occur without external signs of abuse, he said.

A film “The Syndrome” presented during the forum about wrongful convictions and prosecutions of abuse based on shaken baby syndrome contended that physicians who have pushed this obsolete diagnosis are profiting from it by setting up centers and conferences and obtaining millions in grants to fund their activities.

“You can’t cause brain damage without causing neck damage,” an expert in the film stated.

Doctors are fighting back. A recent survey of more than 600 physicians who see children found a “high degree of medical consensus that shaking a young child is capable of producing subdural hematoma (a life-threatening pooling of blood outside the brain), severe retinal hemorrhage, coma or death, ” according to a news release from the Lurie Children’s Hospital in Chicago.

“Recent media reports and judicial decisions have called into question the general acceptance among physicians of shaken baby syndrome and abusive head trauma. General acceptance of concepts in the medical community is a critical factor for admitting medical expert testimony in courts. In cases of child maltreatment, courts often rely on medical expert testimony to establish the most likely cause of a child’s injuries,” the release stated.

It quoted Dr. Sandeep Narang, the lead author on the study who is also an attorney whose work is connected to child abuse. He is Division Head of Child Abuse Pediatrics at Ann & Robert H. Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago and Associate Professor of Pediatrics-Child Abuse at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine.

“Claims of substantial controversy within the medical community about shaken baby syndrome and abusive head trauma have created a chilling effect on child protection hearings and criminal prosecutions,” Narang stated. “Our data show that shaking a young child is generally accepted by physicians to be a dangerous form of abuse.”

Doctors are supposed to accept and use scientific evidence. At the panel discussion, radiologist Ayoub said since there is no scientific evidence for shaken baby syndrome/abusive head trauma, the medical establishment has fallen for the ideology and is pushing back against dissent.

“Things are worse now than before. I fear people like us are going away,” he said.

The syndrome is “entrenched in the legal system,” Bravos said, but some judges who understand science are becoming enlightened.

“The courts have been recognizing the evolution in science,” he said “The attempt to silence dissent is usually the last gasp of a dying idea.”

Weidner told how she was wrongly accused of “abusive head trauma” in 2010 after her 6-week- old infant was incorrectly diagnosed at a Peoria hospital, and child welfare officials were notified of potential abuse. The baby was ultimately taken out of state to another hospital where accurate scans took place.

He was finally diagnosed with a rare disorder, she said, but the family was under supervision for three months by child welfare officials during an investigation and could not be alone with their children.

Weidner told the audience that when she became an activist for medical accuracy in child abuse investigations she was threatened.

“I have been warned to stop telling my story,” she said.

A nurse who tried to help her almost lost her job, she said. A doctor kept silent.

“There is no safety for dissent. People stay quiet,” she said. “There needs to be less fear. What does this say about child welfare in this community?”

Louis Milot told the audience that parents accused of this type of abuse are not like typical criminals.

“These parents want to know what happened. They want to help,” he said.

Peoria doctors don’t want to testify against their medical colleagues, Weidner said. In an interview, Weidner later told of a recent case where a low-income man pled guilty to “shaken baby syndrome” and was sentenced to 16 years in prison. Without the resources of the Weidners, he likely had no outside investigation of his situation and may be innocent, Weidner said.

His 4-month-old baby probably had a seizure and died from it, Weidner said.

There were cultural issues in his case. The man had “a minor criminal history, pants below his butt, and a ‘fowl mouth,’“ she said. But medical science has shown “in the absence of external markings or neck injury, it’s not shaken baby syndrome,” she said.

For more information, go to:

Illinois Innocence Project: http://www.uis.edu/illinoisinnocenceproject/

PACI: www.pediatricaccountability.com