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Dr. John Plunkett died this week. He spent nearly 20 years arguing in court against bad forensic science, for which he was maliciously prosecuted and received false ethics complaints. Through his efforts, 300 innocent people were exonerated. (This sentence from fark.com)
Like a lot of other doctors, child welfare advocates and forensic specialists, John Plunkett at first bought into the theory of Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS). It's a convenient diagnosis for prosecutors, in that it provides a cause of death (violent shaking), a culprit (whoever was last with the child before death) and even intent (prosecutors often argue that the violent, extended shaking establishes mens rea.) But in the late 1990s, Plunkett — a forensic pathologist in Minnesota — began to have doubts about the diagnosis. The same year his study was published, Plunkett testified in the trial of Lisa Stickney, a licensed day care worker in Oregon. Thanks in large part to Plunkett's testimony, Stickney was acquitted. District Attorney Michael Dugan responded with something unprecedented — it criminally charged an expert witness over testimony he had given in court. Today, the scientific consensus on SBS has since shifted significantly in Plunkett's direction.
[...] According to the National Registry of Exonerations, 16 SBS convictions have been overturned. Plunkett's obituary puts the figure at 300, and claims that he participated in 50 of those cases. I'm not sure of the source for that figure, and it's the first I've seen of it. But whatever the number, Plunkett deserves credit for being among the first to sound the alarm about wrongful SBS convictions. His study was the first step toward those exonerations.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Thursday April 12 2018, @02:00PM
I didn't necessarily ascribe the money motive to doctors. Mayo Clinic is a great place, and the doctors there are also great. But, doctors don't exactly run Mayo, either. There are managers, accountants, as well as hoards of other staff. Doctors mostly do doctor stuff, and those hoards to hoard stuff. Among the hoard stuff is hoarding money. If some charitable organizations, individual donors, and/or gubbermint are making funds available for SBS research, then SBS will be done. You know the facts of life, man.
I have been to places where the doctors decide what happens, when, and how, and establish their own rates. These places are generally called "clinics", and they are generally small businesses, run as a partnership, or some such arrangement. The doctors call all the shots, and no one else gets a vote.