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Shaken Baby Syndrome — THE VACCINATION LINK — Shaken Baby Syndrome VACCINATION THE LINK Many infants who suffer the so-called ‘shaken baby syndrome’ may be victims of undiagnosed vaccine damage. ecently there has been quite an "epidemic" of the so-called "shaken baby syn- drome". Parents, usually the fathers, or other care-givers such as nannies have increasingly been accused of shaking a baby to the point of causing permanent brain damage and death. Why? Is there an unprecedented increase in the num- ber of people who commit infanticide or have an ambition to seriously hurt babies? Or is there something more sinister at play? Some time ago I started getting requests from lawyers or the accused parents them- selves for expert reports. A close study of the history of these cases revealed something distinctly sinister: in every single case, the symptoms appeared shortly after the baby's vaccinations. While investigating the personal medical history of these babies based on the care- givers' diaries and medical records, I quickly established that these babies were given one or more of the series of so-called routine shots—hepatitis B, DPT (diphtheria, pertussis, tetanus), polio and HiB (Haemophilus influenzae type B)—shortly before they developed symptoms of illness resulting in serious brain damage or death. The usual scenario is that a baby is born and does well initially. At the usual age of about two months it is administered the first series of vaccines as above. (Sometimes a hepatitis B injection is given shortly after birth while the mother and child are still in hos- pital. However, a great number of babies now die within days or within two to four weeks of birth after hepatitis B vaccination, as documented by the records of the VAERS [Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System] in the USA.) So, the baby stops progressing, starts deteriorating, and usually develops signs of respiratory tract infection. Then comes the second and third injections, and tragedy strikes: the child may cry intensely and inconsolably, may stop feeding properly, vomit, have difficulty swallowing, become irri- table, stop sleeping, and may develop convulsions with accelerating progressive deteriora - tion of its condition and mainly its brain function. This deterioration may be fast, or may slowly inch in until the parents notice that some- thing is very wrong with their child and then rush it to the doctor or hospital. Interestingly, they are invariably asked when the baby was immunised. On learning that the baby was indeed "immunised", the parents may be reassured that its symptoms will all clear up. They are sent home with the advice, "Give your baby Panadol". If they persist in considering the baby's reaction serious, they may be labelled as anxious parents or trou- ble-makers. So the parents go home, and the child remains in a serious condition or dies. Until recently, the vaccine death would have just been labelled "sudden infant death", particularly if the symptoms and pathological findings were minimal. However, nowa- days, with an alarmingly increasing frequency, the parents (or at least one of them, usually the father) may be accused of shaking the baby to death. The accused may even "confess" to shaking the baby, giving the reason, for example, that having found the baby lying still and not breathing and/or with a glazed look in its eyes, they shook it gently—as is only natural—in their attempt to revive it. Sometimes, ironically, they save the baby's life, only to be accused of causing the internal injuries that made the baby stop breathing in the first place, and which in fact were already present when they shook the baby to revive it. No matter what the parents say or do, everything is construed against them. If they are crying and emotional, they will be accused of showing signs of guilt. If they manage to remain composed and unemotional, they will be called calculating and controlling—and guilty because of that. In another scenario the distraught parents try to describe the symptoms to an attending by Viera Scheibner, PhD © 1998 178 Govetts Leap Road Blackheath, NSW 2785 Australia Telephone: +61 (0)2 4787 8203 Fax: +61 (0)2 4787 8988 178 Govetts Leap Road Blackheath, NSW 2785 Australia Telephone: +61 (0)2 4787 8203 Fax: +61 (0)2 4787 8988 NEXUS - 35 AUGUST - SEPTEMBER 1998