5 ms·

Similar case in Denmark/Romania where a baby was taken from his romanian parents because of the shaken baby syndrome, parents spent time in jail, but the hemora

by raducu 3y ago

Similar case in Denmark/Romania where a baby was taken from his romanian parents because of the shaken baby syndrome, parents spent time in jail, but the hemorage continued over time so they had to concede it wasn't the shaken baby syndromd.

cornholio 3y ago
The trouble is: shaken baby syndrome is real and well documented. Because the crime is so abhorrent, people strongly want to believe the diagnostic tools to be much more sensitive and accurate than they really seem to be. It's the classic "N guilty men" problem, aka Blackstone's ratio: if you risk putting one innocent person in jail, how many guilty people you need to catch to make it morally justifiable? 5, 10? 100? You have to pick a number, or else no kind of criminal justice can exist.
- Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
  In the article it clearly states that shaking does not cause the hemorrhage that's currently considered "shaken baby syndrome". It literally says there aren't documented cases where the shaking was captured on tape/testified and the symptoms present at the same time. It's more likely that a fall (or being thrown) would cause the symptoms.
  - hoseja 3y ago
    I read it as no cases where shaking caused ONLY the retinal/subdural haemorrhage, without any other trauma.
    - rossant 3y ago
      That's indeed what I said, but I was cautious. I'd have to dig into the latest literature to be sure, but I don't remember seeing even 1 case where shaking with no impact was independently witnessed or videotaped, and was shown to cause retinal/subdural haemorrhage, with or without any other form of trauma. In any case, these situations are extremely rare, much more than those involving any kind of head impact.
  - robbiep 3y ago
    You need to work on your comprehension
    - dang 3y ago
      Please don't cross into personal attack. You can make your substantive points without that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- Justsignedup 3y ago
  The better way to think of what you said is: If toyota cars unintentionally accelerate and kill people, but sometimes people mistakenly accelerate and kill people. If I am driving a toyota and accelerate and kill a person, if 100% of all cops/investigators believe the first case doesn't exist, and the second case is the only possible answer, I will be thrown in jail without a second thought; my life is destroyed, and it wasn't even my fault. But more than that, we don't even know what the ratios are, is it 90% / 10%? is it 10% / 90%? is it 50/50? Because everyone believes it is 0%/100% we can't make the "N guilty men" decision at all, so we need a hard stop, evidence, and re-start. I know you were downvoted, but I think your thoughts are exactly the problem I am trying to point out. So thank you for commenting on it.
tokai 3y ago
Even if the kids hemorrhaging continued, it was brought to the ER initially with fractures in the right side of the skull.
- raducu 3y ago
  I did not know this detail, I know the Danish state offered apologies, the charges were dropped and the child was returned to the parents.
  - tokai 3y ago
    Yeah, nobody know the exact parts of the case. As its semi-secret (to protect the child and parents I guess). While the parents were cleared, this case is definitely not appropriate to this discussion as it was definitely not only hemorrhaging that started it. If a hospital gets a toddler with fractures on their skull, society should damn well figure out how it got them and stop it from happening again.
    - grog454 3y ago
      > If a hospital gets a toddler with fractures on their skull, society should damn well figure out how it got them and stop it from happening again. What a leap (the kind the article is calling out by the way). Do you really think all causes for toddler skull fractures are a societal problem?
      - ameister14 3y ago
        I do. If a child has a serious injury the circumstances should be examined, as it should be quite rare for children to have serious injuries. That's why places have Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committees.
        michaelmrose 3y ago
        So in order to form an informed opinion we have to figure out the relative costs and benefits of various options. Lets start by examining assumptions. Here we have Fractures among children: incidence and impact on daily activities https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/4/3/194 https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/4/3/194 wherein we discover that kids 0-12 break bones at an incidence of 128 per 10,000. Over 12 years that's more like 1536 or about 15% of kids if injuries were evenly distributed, although they probably aren't. Still in the right ballpark. So serious injuries among kids are incredibly common. If we launch investigations and get it right 95% of the time we will none the less fuck up millions of kids lives. We would probably be better off selectively investigating when there is at least some reason to believe something is afoot instead of every injury.

by raducu 3y ago

cornholio 3y ago

The trouble is: shaken baby syndrome is real and well documented. Because the crime is so abhorrent, people strongly want to believe the diagnostic tools to be much more sensitive and accurate than they really seem to be. It's the classic "N guilty men" problem, aka Blackstone's ratio: if you risk putting one innocent person in jail, how many guilty people you need to catch to make it morally justifiable? 5, 10? 100? You have to pick a number, or else no kind of criminal justice can exist.

Fire-Dragon-DoL 3y ago
In the article it clearly states that shaking does not cause the hemorrhage that's currently considered "shaken baby syndrome". It literally says there aren't documented cases where the shaking was captured on tape/testified and the symptoms present at the same time. It's more likely that a fall (or being thrown) would cause the symptoms.
- hoseja 3y ago
  I read it as no cases where shaking caused ONLY the retinal/subdural haemorrhage, without any other trauma.
  - rossant 3y ago
    That's indeed what I said, but I was cautious. I'd have to dig into the latest literature to be sure, but I don't remember seeing even 1 case where shaking with no impact was independently witnessed or videotaped, and was shown to cause retinal/subdural haemorrhage, with or without any other form of trauma. In any case, these situations are extremely rare, much more than those involving any kind of head impact.
- robbiep 3y ago
  You need to work on your comprehension
  - dang 3y ago
    Please don't cross into personal attack. You can make your substantive points without that. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
Justsignedup 3y ago
The better way to think of what you said is: If toyota cars unintentionally accelerate and kill people, but sometimes people mistakenly accelerate and kill people. If I am driving a toyota and accelerate and kill a person, if 100% of all cops/investigators believe the first case doesn't exist, and the second case is the only possible answer, I will be thrown in jail without a second thought; my life is destroyed, and it wasn't even my fault. But more than that, we don't even know what the ratios are, is it 90% / 10%? is it 10% / 90%? is it 50/50? Because everyone believes it is 0%/100% we can't make the "N guilty men" decision at all, so we need a hard stop, evidence, and re-start. I know you were downvoted, but I think your thoughts are exactly the problem I am trying to point out. So thank you for commenting on it.

tokai 3y ago

Even if the kids hemorrhaging continued, it was brought to the ER initially with fractures in the right side of the skull.

raducu 3y ago
I did not know this detail, I know the Danish state offered apologies, the charges were dropped and the child was returned to the parents.
- tokai 3y ago
  Yeah, nobody know the exact parts of the case. As its semi-secret (to protect the child and parents I guess). While the parents were cleared, this case is definitely not appropriate to this discussion as it was definitely not only hemorrhaging that started it. If a hospital gets a toddler with fractures on their skull, society should damn well figure out how it got them and stop it from happening again.
  - grog454 3y ago
    > If a hospital gets a toddler with fractures on their skull, society should damn well figure out how it got them and stop it from happening again. What a leap (the kind the article is calling out by the way). Do you really think all causes for toddler skull fractures are a societal problem?
    - ameister14 3y ago
      I do. If a child has a serious injury the circumstances should be examined, as it should be quite rare for children to have serious injuries. That's why places have Child Death and Serious Injury Review Committees.
      - michaelmrose 3y ago
        So in order to form an informed opinion we have to figure out the relative costs and benefits of various options. Lets start by examining assumptions. Here we have Fractures among children: incidence and impact on daily activities https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/4/3/194 https://injuryprevention.bmj.com/content/4/3/194 wherein we discover that kids 0-12 break bones at an incidence of 128 per 10,000. Over 12 years that's more like 1536 or about 15% of kids if injuries were evenly distributed, although they probably aren't. Still in the right ballpark. So serious injuries among kids are incredibly common. If we launch investigations and get it right 95% of the time we will none the less fuck up millions of kids lives. We would probably be better off selectively investigating when there is at least some reason to believe something is afoot instead of every injury.