If you’re not sufficiently depressed about anything in particular these days…

…go read this long and immensely distressing piece by Emily Bazelon about the scientific and legal perils of diagnosing and prosecuting cases of Shaken Baby Syndrome. Researchers have known for quite some time — see this 2004 BMJ article, for example — that some of the classic indications of SBS aren’t necessarily specific to incidents of violent shaking, a problem for which an obvious corrective would be the exercise of great care in making sure that diagnosis rests on all three of the classic signs of such abuse (i.e., brain swelling, retinal bleeding, and bleeding beneath the skull).

Bazelon, however, points out that more recent studies have suggested that even in cases where the usual triad of symptoms are present, the difficulty of establishing when the injury occurred is greater than previously thought — with the upshot being that parents or child care providers could possibly find themselves falsely accused of abuse if they happen to be in the baby’s presence when the first signs of distress occur. Moreover, there’s some evidence that other causes — undetected infections for one — might produce symptoms that strongly resemble SBS, in which case humans might wind up being prosecuted for the crimes of viruses.

It’s worth noting that the debate here isn’t over whether Shaken Baby Syndrome exists at all, but rather over how well anyone understands its causes and symptoms and what the implications of all this might be for prosecuting and defending legal charges stemming from alleged abuse.  (It’s worth pointing out as well that the anti-vaccination lunatics have long tried to hijack Shaken Baby Syndrome, much as they tried to hijack autism by claiming that it was nothing more than misdiagnosed mercury poisoning.  The “DTP Defense” was an enormous load of shit two decades ago, and it’s no more plausible today.  The notion that protecting your baby from pertussis is the equivalent of — literally — throwing her against the wall is pretty astonishing.  It’s an underappreciated aspect of the movement, but it’s quite revealing that anti-vaxxers hate medical science and pharmaceutical companies so much that they’re willing to offer a blanket exoneration to people who actually throw their kids against a wall, so long as it offers them the illusion that they’ve actually scored a point.)