When I go and ask people who are defenders of the traditional theory
[of shaken baby syndrome] and they say: ‘Well it's like that because the
judge ruled like that’, or ‘because I've never seen any other evidence’, I think:
that's not good enough. Don't tell me something doesn't exist because
you haven't seen it. Tell me why the physiological mechanism is not possible.
I don't like dogmas. I might be wrong, but I need to prove it
Irene Scheimberg (UK)
While a number of people talk about the importance of keeping an open mind, and being prepared to question and challenge received wisdom, a few interviewees have found their work has brought them up against more significant barriers.
Waney Squier, for example, became closely involved in the controversy surrounding shaken baby syndrome when her reading on the topic convinced her that “the whole basis for this syndrome was incredibly insecure”. Irene Scheimberg is also uncomfortable with the diagnosis. “You see, the problem with the Shaken Baby controversy is that it's very dogmatic. If I don't accept religious dogma, I'm not going to accept scientific dogma. If something is there, it can be proven. I need to understand the mechanism.”
If I don't accept religious dogma, I'm not going to accept scientific dogma“Before the introduction of technologies like immunohistochemistry, electron microscopy, molecular genetics,” says Christopher Fletcher, “a lot of the clinical stuff...was all a matter of opinion... If you’re big and famous then it is so and so!” He gives an example of coming up against this himself when trying to get a paper published that challenged the prevailing ideas about a specific cancer.
Bill Bass talks about the sensitivity of raising the issue of racial differences, and challenging the idea that this is purely a cultural construct. His work with skeletons and bones, and trying to establish the identity of individual bodies, has convinced him that race “is biological”.
Neuropathologist Richard Hewlett talks about barriers of a different kind: an unwillingness to cross professional boundaries. His championing of the value of marrying radioimaging with autopsy pathology has met with resistance everywhere but America. “The bulk of folk are on one side or the other side, and they go their own ways.”
Key interviewees: Christopher Fletcher, Irene Scheimberg, Waney Squier, Richard Hewlett, Bill Bass
QUOTES
 When I go and ask people who are defenders of the traditional theory [of shaken baby syndrome] and they say: ‘Well it's like that because the judge ruled like that’, or ‘because I've never seen any other evidence’, I think: that's not good enough. Don't tell me something doesn't exist because you haven't seen it. Tell me why the physiological mechanism is not possible. I don't like dogmas. I might be wrong, but I need to prove it.
- Irene Scheimberg (UK)
 There were lots and lots of dogmas when I was a baby pathologist... You’d go to meetings where famous people with different points of view would just sit and argue, but there was no right or wrong. And it made me understand why basic scientists would say, ‘Well this is all bullshit.’ Now it’s much, much more objective, and there is less dogma around than there was. [It’s a shift in culture], plus ancillary techniques so that you can actually disprove nonsense – or prove truth, or whatever. And then it’s much harder for people to argue.
- Christopher Fletcher (UK and USA)
 So much of what we believe we're told and we accept – somebody teaches us something and we say, "Alright, that must be true", and we don't ask enough questions. Somebody was quoting the other day one of his lecturers at medical school who said, "Lovely to welcome you students to my lectures here. What I'm going to tell you is that you'll be given a lot of information here – and probably 50% of it will be proved subsequently to be wrong. The only problem is we don't which half is going to be wrong and which half is going to be right!" So we all have to keep on asking questions...
Waney Squier (UK)
You’ll have seen people with little sort of brown lumps on their lower legs? They’re called dermatofibromas, and they’re fantastically common. They’re banal and benign, and in fact some people believe they’re not even tumours. It was realised, maybe five, six years ago, that once in a blue moon these things can actually spread and kill you. And the first few reports, you could sense disbelief. In fact people would write letters to the journal saying, "Well this case is clearly a misdiagnosis. I can’t believe you published that" and all the rest of it. It’s the dogma thing again – ‘It can’t be, because it’s a benign thing…’
- Christopher Fletcher (UK and USA)
It rather frightened me that I'd just accepted what I was told, so I started looking at the literature, and I started reading what was actually written about shaken baby syndrome, and realised that the whole basis for this syndrome was incredibly insecure. Then I got into discussions with Jennian and with various other people who were questioning this, including a lively and informative group of forensic pathologists, biomechanical engineers, surgeons, radiologists, predominantly in the United States. We exchange letters and comments about cases and discuss and question everything that's been written...
- Waney Squier (UK)
 I'm happy to have been able to work with this blend of pathology and imaging... But no one else will do it... The bulk of folk are on one side or the other side, and they go their own ways. When you work at the interface, you're talking two languages. People in medicine would have to say, ‘Look, this question of cross-over, it's a good thing.’ But there's no provision for it anywhere, except in America.
- Richard Hewlett (South Africa)
 I'm not good at arguing with people. I mean I point out the science of [racial difference], point out that this is well established, it's a scientific fact, it's published in the literature, it's been accepted by the courts, now if you don't like it, that's fine. I don't stand on a stump and preach, or on the street corner and hand out literature. I mean, I'm trying to figure out how this thing works, and occasionally I'll find something that nobody else has found out, so we write a little article on it.
- Bill Bass (USA)
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