December 2019, By The Innocence Network

Shaken baby syndrome (SBS), now more frequently known as abusive head trauma (AHT), is a medico-legal diagnosis that has served as the basis in thousands of cases where children have been separated from their parents and caretakers have been sent to prison. Until recently, no independent scientific agency had reviewed the evidence basis for the diagnosis. The first to do so published its results in 2016, and it found the evidence for SBS “insufficient” and unreliable.

The Innocence Network is very concerned that, despite several developments that undermine core SBS/AHT tenets, including the findings of this independent review, prosecutions and family separations continue and there has been no systematic attempt to identify and correct wrongful convictions.

The SBS/AHT hypothesis has never been validated. The unproven hypothesis allows
doctors to infer abuse from a “constellation of findings” that we now know appear in a wide
array of situations, both accidental and natural. The independent review has shown that there
has never been a reliable basis to infer shaking or other abusive trauma from these findings.
This has led and continues to lead to incorrect accusations of abuse and wrongful convictions…

Recommendations:

In order to identify and correct wrongful convictions, prevent the future conviction of innocent parents and wrongful separation of families, and to improve the reliability of the legal process in these complex cases, the Innocence Network recommends the following:

1) Convictions in which the prosecution’s experts provided testimony now known to be false, such as rejecting an accidental fall or testifying that retinal hemorrhages are caused only by abuse or major trauma equivalent to an automobile accident, should be identified, evaluated, and vacated if that testimony was potentially material to the outcome.

2) Prosecutions should not be based on disputed medical evidence. Expert testimony
purporting to “diagnose” SBS/AHT or any form of abuse based on the presence of
retinal and/or subdural hemorrhage should not be admitted because it is unreliable…

Review the entire statement by The Innocence Network: