DIRTY THINKER
by Tom Watkins
In the British Medical Journal, 11 September 1999, Professor
Michael Green published an article under the heading of “Education and Debate”. He
had already put forward his ideas in an editorial in the Journal of Clinical Pathology.
This
man’s mission in life is to get other people to believe that babies that are the
victims of Cot Death are in fact killed by their mothers (or others). To support
his thinking he cites work done by fellow travellers: Meadow, Southall, Banks and
Wilczyniski.
Recalling what he calls “the bad old days” of the 1960’s he claims that
deaths were then wrongly attributed to unsuitable bedding or inappropriate care and
says that meaningless diagnoses such as acute interstitial pneumonitis and viral
bronchiolitis were invented.
He goes on to claim that because until 1971 the Registrar
General would not accept Sudden Infant Death Syndrome or any of its synonyms as a
cause of death the size of this problem was not indicated. Consequently attention
was focused on laboratory investigations rather than closely scrutinising the history
of the child and its family.
The accepted definition of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome
was proposed by Beckwith in 1969 when there were around 1200 sudden infant deaths
per year. This remained at around the figure of 1000 throughout the 1970’s and 1980’s
but thanks to the efforts of campaigners has now dropped to approximately 400.
Here
is where this man shows his true mettle. Using a little arithmetical jiggery-pokery,
he assumes (how dare he?), that the number of kids killed stays constant and consequently
due to the fall in Sudden Infant Death numbers, they now make up to 40% of cot deaths.
He goes on to say that child homicide, especially by the mother is by its nature
difficult to detect. He urges people to follow advice and to “think dirty” (his words!)
Citing
research partly done in his department at Sheffield University he gives what he calls
risk factors:
1. Bleeding in the lungs from a small number of alveoli (air sacs).
2.
Iron laden pulmonary macrophages (large cells that ingest debris and bacteria within
the lungs).
3. The number and distribution of siderophages (inflammation).
4. Maternal
and child risk factors set out by Meadow and Southall.
Even if his autopsy investigations
are completely negative he states that if three or more of these risk factors are
present he initiates further and more detailed enquiries. He urges coroners’ officers
and the police to take action (A witch hunt?).
With dirty thinkers like this around
no woman is safe. His arithmetic means that if the number of cot deaths continue
to fall then they will be able to assume shortly that ALL sudden infant deaths are
murder. Thanks to Green and his colleagues who are always willing to go into court
and give their exaggerated opinions, the mothers suspected will all get life sentences,
this automatic situation has already been reached if a woman is unfortunate enough
to suffer two cot deaths.
So the government will need to start building more prisons
now. The Prison Service will shortly be asked to accommodate around 160 new lifers
each year multiplied by the number of years the government are willing to keep these
poor women in prison.
The resulting misery, not only to those incarcerated, but also
shared by their loved ones on the outside, will no doubt give Green and his fellow
travellers satisfaction, otherwise they would not be thinking so dirty.
Those that
think evil, always see evil.
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