Bone Density Test Can Disprove Shaken Baby Syndrome (parts 1 & 2): by Frompovich

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http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/02/05/bone-density-test-can-disprove-shaken-baby-syndrome-by-catherine-frompovich/

Bone Density Test Can Disprove Shaken Baby Syndrome: by

Frompovich

– February 5, 2012

As a consumer health care researcher and journalist, one of my pet

projects is something I think the medical and legal professions may have

taken the low road in dealing with caretakers charged with Shaken Baby

Syndrome, a medical-legal term that devastates those prosecuted with it

and also destroys families due to inaccuracies involved that require

children to be removed from parents’ care and placed in foster homes or

up for adoption.

Before I delve into the topic I want to discuss, perhaps you may want to

know that I have co-authored several papers with Dr. Harold E. Buttram,

MD, regarding topics such as Brain Inflammation, Basics of the Human

Immune System Prior to Vaccines, and Shaken Baby Syndrome, which can be

accessed at the International Medical Council on Vaccination website

starting with Vaccines and Brain Inflammation at

http://lawreview.byu.edu/articles/1325789487_13Seeley.FIN.pdf. In

order to access the other papers, you will have to scroll through IMCV’s

archives. Dr. Buttram’s name appears first on all articles.

Additionally, in early September 2010, I made a presentation before the

U.S. Food and Drug Administration’s Advisory Committee on Childhood

Vaccines (ACCV) about Shaken Baby Syndrome. To read my report on that FDA

meeting, please access it at

http://vactruth.com/2010/09/07/vaccine-meeting-at-fda/.

Also, I prepared a survey questionnaire about SBS for an international

website. So I feel comfortable thinking I know enough about SBS as

alleged child abuse to talk about a newly published paper that has me

thrilled to say the least, but not quite overly excited due to what I

feel may be an omission of probable contributing factors.

B. Seeley, JD, has published one of the more credible papers

regarding SBS I’ve ever read that was produced by mainstream thought,

e.g., the medical and/or legal professions. “Unexplained Fractures in

Infants and Child Abuse: The Case for Requiring Bone-Density Testing

Before Convicting Caretakers” [1] was published in the December 20, 2011

issue of the Brigham Young University Law Review. Dr. Seeley, as I

understand, is a researcher and professor at BYU in its College of Life

Sciences.

As background history, I’m familiar with SBS from the medical-legal

aspects because of the work my collaborator Dr. Buttram has been doing

for the last ten or so years, i.e., testifying as a medical expert for

the defense, those parents/caretakers who are legally charged with child

abuse and/or SBS­often with first degree murder. Since Dr. Buttram has

over 100 such cases under his belt, our collaborating on papers about the

issue has allowed me to understand more about SBS than the average

person.

Dr. Seeley astutely points out that SBS probably got off on the wrong

medical and legal ‘feet’ due to the theorized assessments that shaking

babies could cause intracranial hemorrhages, as published in a paper by

Dr. Caffey, “On the Theory and Practice of Shaking Infants: Its

Potential Residual Effects of Permanent Brain Damage and Mental

Retardation” in the American Journal of Diseases of Children (1972).

Caffey apparently based his theories upon whiplash studies inducing

intracranial hemorrhaging in rhesus monkeys performed by Dr. Ommaya, who

advised Caffey that there was no information that could substantiate that

humans could generate such angular acceleration via shaking so as to

induce the type of rear-end collision injuries the monkeys sustained.

Caffey still maintained his theory in the published paper that apparently

has become ‘gospel truth’ and prevailed in medicine and at law ever

since. Could Caffey’s theory been a mistake that’s been perpetuated all

this time and for which innocent parents and caretakers have paid an

awful legal price?

Adding more ‘legal salt’ to the SBS injury, Dr. Caffey published “The

Whiplash Shaken Infant Syndrome: Manual Shaking by the Extremities with

Whiplash-Induced Intracranial Bleedings, Linked With Residual Permanent

Brain Damage and Mental Retardation” in Pediatrics in 1974 wherein he

gave his opinion that subdural and retinal hemorrhaging without signs of

external physical abuse, would be sufficient to diagnose child abuse,

medically known as pathognomonic.

For all these years child abuse charges have been prosecuted legally

based upon a theory and opinion with no studies to prove or disprove

child abuse, since it would be real child abuse to subject children to

such actions for a study as Dr. Caffey alleged were responsible for SBS.

Sadly, innocent parents and caretakers have been prosecuted and

incarcerated without any means at law to prove themselves innocent until

what Dr. Seeley discusses in his exceptional paper: a Bone Density

Test­something that can be done inexpensively and does not require high

tech equipment, only a properly trained technician to

administer.

A single-photon absorptiometry test that uses single-photon

absorptiometers (SPAs) has been used for years and is well established

for measuring bone density in children. That type of test could exonerate

or prove SBS charges, especially if an infant were born prematurely, or

when there are no signs of physical abuse presenting on the child’s

body.

Additionally, a blood serum Vitamin D test should be mandated and taken

of both the supposedly abused infant AND his/her post-partum mother. The

mother’s test results could indicate the proclivity to in utero rickets,

depending upon how long after the birth the SBS tragedy occurred, while

the infant’s test results would confirm insufficient Vitamin D levels

that allowed the child to have bone fractures either during the birthing

process or even from normal daily baby care, since no one knew of the

child’s fragile bones.

As Dr. Seeley points out, many health problems can contribute to in utero

rickets; even natural vaginal births can cause broken ribs and other

bones due to Osteopenia of Prematurity or other metabolic bone diseases.

Infants with certain health proclivities due to poor prenatal nutrition,

etc. can suffer broken bones from just being cuddled or properly handled

in every day life ministrations. However, when it comes to brain

inflammation, I’d like to suggest that Dr. Seeley read Dr. Buttram’s and

my papers on the role that vaccines play in causing subdural brain

hemorrhages and other central nervous system adverse reactions, including

the possibility of contributing to the Autism Spectrum Disorder.

I know if he reads this article, Dr. Seeley may bristle at the thought

that vaccines can contribute to SBS, but as he says, there are some

unknowns yet to be discovered by medicine regarding this syndrome. There

is much in the literature that points to vaccines as one of those yet

unknowns.

I cannot congratulate Dr. Seeley enough for bringing a great deal of

scientific sense to the SBS problem, and I suggest that the law, legal

and medical professions, federal and state health agencies immediately

mandate Vitamin D assays and/or Bone Density Tests for all premature

babies whose parent(s) or caretaker(s) are charged with child abuse when

no physical trauma presents on the child’s body.

Not only do children have to be protected from child abuse, so do

innocent adults who are wrongfully charged with crimes they have not

committed. Something as simple and inexpensive as a blood serum Vitamin D

assay or a Bone Density Test will prove three things: 1) the condition of

the child’s bones, i.e., something an X-ray can do only when 40 percent

bone loss has to occurred thus the medical-legal need for a Vitamin D

assay; and 2) legal proof that SBS charges are not warranted; and 3) the

child needs proper medical care to build up bones that can fracture very

easily that was an unknown until either the Vitamin D assay or Bone

Density Test.

I’d like to see bone density investigation go a step further and become

similar to the Apgar test given at birth and the unfortunate Hepatitis B

vaccine, which is mandated within 24 hours of birth. That is, blood

Vitamin D assays should be mandated for all premature babies to ascertain

whether the infant has in utero rickets and is prone to bone fractures or

possibly has fractures as a result of the birthing process.

Furthermore, I suggest that the Hepatitis B vaccine NOT be administered

to premature infants before the blood Vitamin D assay is performed as the

test results may indicate health anomalies that the Hep B vaccine can

induce or exacerbate, especially in premature birth babies. The

Pourcyrous et al study “Primary immunization of premature infants with

gestational age <35 weeks: Cardiorespiratory complications and

C-reactive protein responses associated with administration of single and

multiple separate vaccines simultaneously” [2] details what can happen.

However, I will go so far as to say that I think a Bone Density Test,

which involves ionizing radiation, just may be the lesser of the evils

when a parent is charged with SBS and child abuse and no physical trauma

presents on the child. If the innocent parent faces a protracted jail

term, which would deprive the infant of being raised by a loving and

innocent parent, then that test could prove both SBS innocence and the

need for the child’s proper bone healthcare. As it stands now, innocent

parents have their children taken away and placed in foster care or up

for adoption. What a tragedy occurs within the justice system when the

innocent are mistreated, especially because of lack of proper knowledge.

The SBS situation can be equated with other legal cases where innocent

parties were exonerated by DNA tests. SBS medical-legal problems need to

be reconsidered and I think what I discuss in this paper presents

something for both the medical and legal professions to consider

seriously.

However, Dr. Seeley’s paper has so much ‘meat’ in it that I’d like to

discuss, I plan on writing more about his truly insightful paper. Thank

you, Dr. Seeley.

[1]

http://lawreview.byu.edu/articles/1325789487_13Seeley.FIN.pdf

accessed 1/24/12

[2] Pourcyrous M, Korones SB, Kristopher LA, Bada HS. Primary

immunization of premature infants with gestational age <35 weeks:

Cardiorespiratory complications and C-reactive protein responses

associated with administration of single and multiple separate vaccines

simultaneously. J Pediatrics. 2007:151, p.171.

http://www.vaccinationcouncil.org/2012/02/09/bone-density-shaken-baby-syndrome-part-2-by-catherine-j-frompovich/

Bone Density Test Can Disprove Shaken Baby Syndrome, Part 2: by

Frompovich

– February 9, 2012Posted in:

Articles

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In Part 1, Bone Density Test Can Disprove Shaken Baby Syndrome,

published February 5, 2012, on IMCV, I expressed a desire to discuss

further my views about absolutely enlightening comments B.

Seeley, JD, made in his remarkable paper “Unexplained Fractures in

Infants and Child Abuse: The Case for Requiring Bone-Density Testing

Before Convicting Caretakers,” published in the Brigham Young

University Law Review December 20, 2011.

Part 1 of this two-part series explains SBS, so I won’t go into that

again. What I want to concentrate on in Part 2 is some of the mechanics

involved in dealing with SBS from a consumer healthcare

researcher/advocate’s viewpoint.

As Professor Seeley points out, approximately 900,000 cases of child

mistreatment were confirmed by child protective services in the United

States during 2003. The question that I have regarding that statistic is

this: Were they bona fide cases of child abuse and not some

misapplications of a medical-legal misunderstanding of the Shaken Baby

Syndrome (SBS) wherein innocent parents or caretakers may have become

‘victims’ of the legal system.

In 1974 Congress passed the Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act,

which in my opinion has relied solely upon theory and opinions proffered

in the medical literature and which may have been misleading for many

years about what can happen to an infant in utero and even during

childbirth. I talked about that in Part 1.

What I’m discussing is the problem of SBS and/or child abuse when there

is no physical trauma presenting on the child’s body and how to determine

both medically and legally if SBS truly is the appropriate legal

nomenclature and prosecution. Here’s where it becomes involved, since

many infants suffer subdural hemorrhages, retinal hemorrhages, and brain

swelling that can be associated with other factors and not SBS or child

abuse, such as adverse reactions to vaccines, especially multivalent

vaccines.

Having said that, I think it ought to be incumbent upon the medical

profession to retract articles published in the 1972 American Journal of

Diseases of Children and the 1974 Pediatrics as misleading in the

diagnosis of SBS and, instead, cite Dr. Seeley’s December 2011 paper as a

comprehensive update.

My reason for claiming that is what my collaborator Harold E. Buttram,

MD, has been telling the courts and publishing in his papers, and which

Seeley confirms:

Problems continued to trickle out over the next two decades.

Conditions such as vitamin K deficiency, glutaric aciduria, Terson’s

Syndrome, hemophagocytic lymphohistiocytosis, benign enlargement of the

subarachnoid spaces, idiopathic thrombocytopenic purpura, hemophilia, Von

Willebrand’s Disease, infective endocarditis, Apnea, Bradycardia, and

even the performance of CPR were all shown to cause spontaneous

intracranial hemorrhaging in infants. [1]

In view of the above, Seeley points out that, unfortunately, “many of the

shaken-baby researchers committed the logical flaw of affirming the

consequent: they assumed that if retinal and subdural hemorrhages were

always seen in shaken-baby cases, then the presence of retinal and

subdural hemorrhages proved that a baby had been shaken.”

Here’s where I must digress for a moment and try to explain an “on point”

issue that ought to be debunked, and similarly can be applied to the

problem of vaccine adverse reactions that can and do cause brain damage

often considered SBS. To Seeley’s open-minded credit, he points out “In

other words, the existence of shaken-baby syndrome was based on research

that was not scientifically strong enough to justify its long-accepted

status in the medical community.” That exact allegation can­and should­be

made against vaccines but, unfortunately, due to Big Pharma’s financial

influences over members of Congress and the U.S. FDA, is not, sad to

say.

Seeley points out that several states are enacting laws to forestall

erroneous accusations of child abuse. They include Colorado, West

Virginia, Kentucky and New Mexico that now require that infants be tested

for glutaric aciduria, one of the conditions stated above that are now

known to cause the ‘shaken-baby triad’.

One of the most gratifying quotes I’ve ever heard attributed to a medical

doctor is the one Seeley says Dr. C. Henry Kempe made, “the bones tell a

story the child is too young or too frightened to tell.”

In his outstanding and thorough research, Dr. Seeley found some

shaken-baby researchers, e.g., Dr. D.L. Griffiths, “did not consider the

possibility that the similarity of the x-ray findings in his study to

x-rays of fractures attributed to scurvy in textbooks might indicate that

some of the children in his study might have had undetected scurvy­even

though fractures can be the first symptoms of scurvy that appear.” Again,

I’d like to point out parallels that seem to be surfacing regarding

vaccine adverse reactions not being recognized.

Key in both Dr. Sweeney’s fantastic paper and my articles is that there

is a definite correlation between premature birth and Osteopenia of

Prematurity (OP), a common problem that affects premature infants and, I

say, must be considered in any case of SBS or child abuse when no

physical trauma presents on the body. OP also is known as “metabolic bone

disease of prematurity” or “rickets of prematurity.”

Back in 1994 Lingam and Joester published their paper “Spontaneous

Fractures in Children and Adolescents with Cerebral Palsy” in the British

Medical Journal (265, 1994) wherein they stated, “all infants born at

[less than thirty-two] weeks gestation have some degree of

hypomineralization during and subsequent to the prolonged period of

hospitalization” associated with premature birth, as Seeley wisely points

out.

In reading Seeley’s paper, I annotated this remark that Seeley attributes

to R. Greer from an article published in 1994, which I feel parents

should be taught in prenatal classes everywhere:

“Osteopenic [infants] are susceptible to fractures

with normal handling during routine care.”

Again, I must reiterate the statement I made in Part 1 that Vitamin D

assays of premature birth babies should be mandatory at birth to

ascertain the condition of infants’ bones, as X-rays only show bone

demineralization at 40 percent bone loss.

Something that probably is overlooked in pediatric care is the role of

liver dysfunction and bone fragility, which Seeley also points out.

Bravo, I say. With today’s chemicalized food world, gestational

mothers-to-be may be unloading toxins into the fetus because her liver is

not detoxifying correctly. When I was in private practice as a consulting

natural nutritionist, I always advised my clients to go on a detox

program six months before even considering getting pregnant; both husband

and wife should detox. As a matter of fact I wrote the book, Feeding Baby

Naturally From Pregnancy On… in the early 1980s.

I was not surprised to read Dr. Seeley’s pointing out the role of liver

dysfunction and its effects on Vitamin D and Vitamin K absorption that

directly impact bone health in the pregnant mother, the fetus, and the

post-partum infant. Rickets also is attributed to Vitamin D deficiency

and many pregnant females are deficient as a result of both today’s

lifestyles­less outdoor sun activities and the use of sunscreens that

inhibit proper interaction with cholesterol under the skin for Vitamin D

production­and abhorrently deficient diets that are based in processed,

fast food, sugar- and rancid fat-laden edibles.

Scurvy also can play a role in SBS misdiagnosis since Vitamin C is needed

for collagen formation and bone health. That’s why I think a post-partum

mother of a premature birth infant also should have a multiple vitamin

blood panel performed so as to get a ‘heads up’ status on what could

possibly be medically/physically/nutritionally wrong with her premature

infant.

To my way of thinking, this type of blood test ought to be mandated for

premies even before they are given any vaccinations, which could

exacerbate any underlying illness. Please check out the Pourcyrous et al

study, “Primary Immunization of Premature Infants with Gestational Age

<35 Weeks: Cardiorespiratory Complications and C-Reactive Protein

Responses Associated with Administration of Single and Multiple Separate

Vaccines Simultaneously” at

http://www.jpeds.com/article/S0022-3476(07)00185-0/abstract

In addition to what I put forth above, Harold E. Buttram, MD, board

certified in Environmental Medicine, emailed these tests that ought to be

administered when trying to prove/disprove SBS.

Diagnostic tests for brain hemorrhages (with or without retinal

hemorrhages) and extensive bruising would include the following blood

tests and procedures:

Complete blood count with platelets.

Blood chemistries and liver function tests.

Prothrombintime (PT) and Thromboplastin time (PTT) (Routine screening

tests for hemorrhagic disorders).

PIVKA blood test (Proteins in vitamin K absence), screening test for

late-form hemorrhagic disease of the newborn due to vitamin K

deficiency.

Plasma ascorbate, a test for vitamin C.

If any of the above tests are abnormal, a hematologic consultation should

be sought.

For fractures:

Bone densitometry test (the most reliable diagnostic test for metabolic

bone disease).

Serum calcium and phosphorus.

Alkaline phosphatase blood test.

Parathyroid Hormone blood test. (PTH)

25-hydroxy vitamin D blood test

As Dr. Seeley points out in his paper, “…the crime of child abuse must be

proven beyond a reasonable doubt.” I agree wholeheartedly and, hopefully,

both Dr. Seeley’s and my papers will bring some badly needed

introspection to a growing problem for everyone involved in Shaken Baby

Syndrome.

[1]

http://lawreview.byu.edu/articles/1325789487_13Seeley.FIN.pdf

accessed 1/24/12

Word Count: 1528

Sheri Nakken, former R.N., MA, Hahnemannian

Homeopath

Vaccination Information & Choice Network, Washington State, USA

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