Shaken baby syndrome (SBS) is gaining international attention due to the alarming number of alleged cases as well as recent events scrutinizing the validity of SBS in the UK and Canada. Three symptomsretinal hemorrhage, subdural hemorrhage, and cerebral edema, have been widely accepted as diagnostic of the syndrome. Those symptoms have even been downsized to include as little as one of the symptoms listed above. In recent years, researchers and physicians have conducted further studies and have found that other conditions can mimic what was classically coined as SBS. Exhaustive medical investigations are seldom conducted to rule out other causes such as underlying diseases or conditions. In both Daubert and Frye hearings, SBS has recently been disqualified as a diagnosis able to establish legal guilt.
New research needs to be conducted to ensure that no one is sent to prison because of a false accusation. New protocols need to be implemented within social and police agencies to guide investigations of possible child abuse. New standards need to be incorporated at hospitals requiring exhaustive investigations for all possible causes of injury when SBS is suspected. All SBS cases need to be reopened to ensure abuse did in fact occur and was not merely assumed to have occurred. Those who have been wrongly accused should not continue to serve harsh penalities for something they did not do. Unless the innocent are protected from wrongful accusation and conviction, there is no justice. Few defendants can afford the legal costs or the costs for expert testimony, without which convictions are virtually assured.
Please sign this petition to support change in the way suspected SBS cases are handled, in order to ensure every child gets the proper medical care to avoid a life threatening outcome or injury and to stop wrongly imprisoning those whose only crime was that they happened to be \"the last person with the child.\"