Shaken baby syndrome: the counter-investigation SUPPLIED BY FLORENCE BELLONE

[Alison J Stevens]

https://www.franceinter.fr/emissions/l-interview/l-interview-de-sec...

Nearly 400 cases of shaken baby syndrome are reported to the courts each year. Many parents or nannies are condemned on the basis of medical expertise. For journalist Sophie Tardy-Joubert, in some cases, other explanations should be preferred.

Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), documented in the United States in the 1970s, is an abuse condition characterized by a set of clinical signs, sometimes referred to as the “triad”: bleeding in the brain and/or blood in the fundus of eyes and brain damage. In most cases, these signs indicate that the child has been the victim of physical abuse : a shock, or a violent act of shaking. This abuse usually occurs on infants a few months old. It often has serious and irreversible consequences, and can lead to the death of the child.

Journalist Sophie Tardy-Joubert met Alexandre Chacòn. “He had a son who fell ill. So he took him to the hospital, but his health deteriorated and the baby died. The doctors then made the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. Since he was the last person to have spent time alone with the child, the father is placed in police custody before being indicted. The procedure will last eight years.

Journalist Sophie Tardy-Joubert met Alexandre Chacòn. “He had a son who fell ill. So he took him to the hospital, but his health deteriorated and the baby died. The doctors then made the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome. Since he was the last person to have spent time alone with the child, the father is placed in police custody before being indicted. The procedure will last eight years.

During all these years, Alexandre Chacòn, who claims his innocence, asks for the expertise of specialists, in particular the pediatric neuro-pathologist Waney Squier, who questioned the reliability of the diagnostic elements of certain SBS in the United Kingdom. He also had his son's medical records examined by Christian Marescaux, the former head of the neurovascular unit of the Strasbourg University Hospital, the neuropediatrician Bernard Échenne and the specialist in vascular pathologies in infants, Doctor Guillaume Sébire. They discover in the file a footnote of a blood test that had been completely obscured. “There was a very strong infectious marker, explains Sophie Tardy-Joubert.The first hospital that took care of the baby had also put him on antibiotics, suspecting meningitis. This meningitis would have degenerated and caused thrombosis in the sinuses.”

The three specialists agree on this hypothesis. “Brain imaging shows bleeding in the brain which is considered by a number of doctors to be characteristic of shaken baby syndrome, specifies Sophie Tardy-Joubert. bleeding can also be associated with other pathologies. And she concludes: Obviously, we must track down violent parents. But that does not justify convicting people without evidence and potentially throwing innocent people in prison." After being acquitted, Alexandre Chacòn was sentenced on appeal to a five-year suspended prison sentence.

https://youtu.be/O5FyTFs7P7U