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Dr. Roy Meadow:
Dangerous UK
quack
- Parents demand gag on
cot death doctor's lectures
- Outrage at international
acclaim for Meadow
Jamie Doward, social
affairs editor, Observer, January 16, 2005
The paediatrician whose
discredited scientific evidence resulted in the wrongful jailing
of Angela Cannings for murdering two of her children is continuing
to promote his controversial theories about child abuse to the
medical community.
News that Professor Sir Roy
Meadow, who is to face a General Medical Council hearing into
his conduct next month, is continuing to influence medical thinking
about child abuse issues has sparked outrage among families wrongly
accused of killing their children on the strength of his evidence.
Cannings, who was wrongly jailed
for killing her two babies, partly on the basis of Meadow's evidence,
last week discovered she would not be entitled to compensation.
Tomorrow she will have a private meeting with the Attorney General,
Lord Goldsmith, at which she will raise concerns that Meadow
is continuing to discuss his controversial theories at medical
seminars in the UK and the United States.
Medical experts fear doctors
have been too ready to diagnose on the basis of Meadow's theory
about Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP), which suggests that
parents harm their children to draw attention to themselves.
As a result parents have been accused when their children's injuries
have been due to other factors.
In Australia, the Queensland
Court of Appeal has ruled that MSBP can no longer be recognised
as a psychiatric disorder.
Meadow's principal claim about
cot deaths - that one child's death in the same family is a tragedy,
two is suspicious and three is murder, which became known as
'Meadow's Law' - has also been rejected by the British courts.
Despite the huge controversy
generated by Meadow's theories, he continues to be a big draw
on the lecture circuit. Later this month he will lecture to a
1,500-strong audience of child-protection workers from 30 countries
at a conference in San Diego in the United States. The 'Quest
for the Best' conference is billed as a platform for health workers
to learn 'best practices'.
Meadow is to give a lecture
entitled 'The Medical Diagnosis of MSBP - Warning Signs and Strategies
for Diagnosis'. In a separate lecture, he will also discuss how
the backlash against MSBP has affected the paediatrics profession.
When Meadow addressed British doctors last November, they were
awarded 'personal development points' on their CVs for attending.
Penny Mellor, who campaigns
on behalf of parents wrongly accused of suffering from MSBP and
will attend Canning's meeting with Goldsmith, said: 'Given the
concerns about the use of expert medical evidence which were
raised in the Attorney General's review of hundreds of criminal
cases, many of which involved Meadow, I don't understand how
he can be allowed to continue lecturing.'
Meadow was unavailable for
comment last night, but his supporters have in the past accused
his critics of conducting a vendetta against him. They say the
actions of a handful of campaigners have damaged the image of
paediatricians to the extent that many doctors are turning away
from the profession.
The appeal court ruled that
Cannings' conviction, made on the basis of the testimony of an
expert witness, was unsafe. The ruling prompted the Attorney
General to announce a review of almost 300 cases in which parents
had been convicted of killing their children. The government
also instructed local councils to look into almost 30,000 cases
in the family courts where children had been separated from their
parents.
Meadow also gave prosecution
evidence in two other murder trials which were overturned on
appeal. Sally Clark's conviction for murdering her two sons was
quashed after she had spent more than three years in jail. Trupti
Patel was also cleared of suffocating her three babies.
Charles Pragnell, an expert
defence witness in child prosecution cases, has said previously
that MSBP allegations have been made 'with no attempt having
been made to thoroughly investigate possible causes of the child's
illness from genetic disorders, vaccine damage, effects of prescribed
medications, exposure to toxic substances, or severe allergic
reactions'.
Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2005
'We can't reunite thousands
of mothers with children wrongly taken from them'
Melissa Kite, Deputy Political
Editor, Sunday
Telegraph (London), January 18, 2004
Thousands of parents who had
children taken away from them on the evidence of the controversial
paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow will not have them returned.
Ministers are to review as many as 5,000 civil cases of families
affected over the past 15 years by Prof Meadow's now-discredited
theory of Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy. This accused mothers
of harming their children to draw attention to themselves.
Many mothers say that they have been vindicated in their insistence
that they were wrongly accused and now want their children back.
However, Margaret Hodge, the minister for children, has ruled
out any widespread return.
In an interview with The Telegraph,
Mrs Hodge said that it would be wrong to raise the hopes of the
families torn apart by the doctor's theory. It was called into
question following three major miscarriages of criminal justice
and is being investigated by the General Medical Council.
Mrs Hodge said that the exact
number of civil cases where Prof Meadow's theory had been used
to remove children from mothers was unknown, but could run into
"thousands or even tens of thousands".
She added, however: "If
a miscarriage of justice was made 10 or 15 years ago, what is
in the child's interest now? If the adoption order was made on
the back of Meadow's evidence and that was 10 years ago, what
is in the real interest of the child? If they were taken as babies
the only parent they know is the adopted one. It is incredibly
difficult. It is a really tough call to make.
"The sort of families
that are coming forward are heartbroken families. But if the
child was adopted at birth the sensible thing to do is to let
it stay. As children's minister my prime interest has to be the
interests of the child."
Mrs Hodge made clear that whatever
she decided, those families who thought they had been wronged
could go back to the family court.
"What is clear is that
any parent who feels that a judgment was made on the back of
evidence from Meadow would be entitled to go back to the courts
and try to have the case reopened and would be eligible for legal
aid," she said. "They can come forward and say there
is new evidence."
She would not, however, issue
guidance that all children in such circumstances should be returned.
"This is where we are
hitting an increasingly difficult dilemma," she admitted.
It would not be possible simply to "turn the clock back".
Prof Meadow's theory was discredited
following the cases of three mothers who were wrongly accused
of killing their children on his evidence. Sally Clark was cleared
on appeal, Trupti Patel was acquitted and Angela Cannings, who
was jailed in 2002 for murdering her two baby sons, had the conviction
quashed last December. On that occasion, three High Court judges
said some of the professor's evidence was "simply wrong".
The Attorney General, Lord
Goldsmith, is examining a further 250 criminal trials involving
Munchausen's Syndrome By Proxy, to see whether more mothers imprisoned
for murdering their babies might be innocent.
Mrs Hodge is likely to ask
local authorities to search through their records to find all
family law cases involving Meadow. Some campaigners estimate
that 5,000 children were taken into care because of Prof Meadow.
In these civil cases, children
were taken from their mothers on a balance of probability that
they were harming them or might harm them in the future. In criminal
cases, harm has to be proved beyond reasonable doubt.
Another option being considered
by Mrs Hodge is to appoint a judge to trawl through the records
of each authority to identify possible miscarriages of justice,
but this would prove costly. In addition, the Government may
ask Prof Meadow to surrender all his notes and files.
Mrs Hodge said that the enormity
of the problem and the complexities facing her could not be underestimated.
In many cases it would be extremely difficult to prove that Prof
Meadow had been central to the decision to take the children
away. Even if some children were shown to have been taken away
unjustly it would not be a simple matter of returning them.
Addressing the question of
the reliability of Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy, Mrs Hodge said:
"The whole issue is a crucial one of whether this is a proper
diagnosis."
She said she would wait for
the verdict of the General Medical Council and the Court of Appeal,
but one option would be to set up an international panel to review
the theory, which is used as a diagnosis throughout the world.
Mrs Hodge said a further problem
was the issue of compensation. As well as mothers suing their
local authorities for taking their children away, there could
be young adults who may sue for the loss of family life.
She said that she hoped that
if it was not possible to reconcile families formally they would
at least be helped to establish contact with each other in the
way adopted children sometimes seek to do now.
"The Government is not
running away from this issue," Mrs Hodge insisted. "I
hope the families understand that these are really, really difficult
decisions we have to take."
Her decision will be influenced
heavily by the judgment of the Court of Appeal and by the General
Medical Council, where Prof Meadow faces charges of serious professional
misconduct. The hearing is likely to take place in the autumn
and he faces a ban from practising.
Families whose lives have been
blighted by his theory reacted with disappointment yesterday
to Mrs Hodge's view that they were unlikely to get their children
back.
A mother whose eight-year-old
child was taken from her seven years ago after social workers
suspected that she was suffering from Munchausen Syndrome by
Proxy said: "Something has to be done by the Government.
It is vindictive. They suspect you of this thing and it gets
out of hand and you can't stop them."
The woman, who is 50, cannot
be named for legal reasons. She added: "What gets me is
it was enough for them just to suspect me of Munchausen's to
take my daughter away. If I protest or dispute the evidence they
say I'm lying and that proves I've got Munchausen's because lying
is one of the symptoms. That's how it works."
For publishers wishing to reproduce
photographs on this page please phone 44 (0) 207 538 7505 or
email syndicat@telegraph.co.uk
N.B. "Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy"
is a wicked and dangerous form of pseudo-science that caused
thousands of parents to be falsely accused and wrongly convicted
of child abuse.
A time for tears
and outrage
(an important article)
[ from Howard Fishman]
NOTE: Sir Roy Meadow is "the godfather"
of Münchausen Syndrome by Proxy. In fact,
children's injuries and deaths in the United Kingdom are often
described as having been victims of 'Meadow's Syndrome.'
The harm he has caused to untold thousands of families cannot
be overestimated.
A very important aspect of this article is that the specific
cases cited (Clark, Patel, Cannings) included accusations by
Meadow of "Shaken Baby Syndrome." This "junk
science" diagnosis continues to be assigned promiscuously
by medical "experts" (pediatricians, medical examiners,
nurses, psychiatrists, and others) in the United States.
It is no exaggeration to suggest that we are suffering from an
epidemic of these cases. Parents, most often fathers, are being
indicted on murder charges and a significant number have already
been convicted and sentenced to lengthy jail terms and even life
in prison.
In a Pennsylvania case on which I have consulted, the prosecutor
has announced that he will seek the death penalty. The accused
father has no criminal record, no history of substance abuse
or violence, no psychiatric impairments, and many friends and
relatives who state unequivocally that he adored his baby son.
There is absolutely no evidence whatsoever to suggest that he
is culpable other than the fact that he was the sole parent present
when the child was stricken and eventually died.
It is encouraging that the British government and Medical Council
have undertaken investigations into these issues. It is disheartening
that the U.S. government, the
American Medical Association, and our courts continue to
ignore these realities and persist in visiting manifest injustices
on so many innocents.
Howard Fishman
5805 Charles Street
Philadelphia, PA 19135
(215) 744-5010
e-mail: HFJustice@aol.com
Profile: Sir Roy Meadow
The case of Angela
Cannings, whose conviction for the murder of her two sons has
been overturned by the Court of Appeal, has once again put the
spotlight firmly on controversial retired paediatrician Professor
Sir Roy Meadow.
Sir Roy was a prosecution witness
during the original trial, but his evidence was heavily criticised
by QC Michael Mansfield during Mrs Cannings's appeal.
Mr Mansfield argued that, were
the trial to take place now, it was unlikely the Crown would
call Professor Meadow as a witness, or, if they did, it would
"have to be done with a health warning attached to it".
Sir Roy Meadow
Educated at a grammar school
in Wigan and Oxford University
Worked as a GP in Banbury
Became a senior lecturer at Leeds University
Took up chair in paediatrics and child health in 1980 at St James's
University Hospital, Leeds
Former president of British Paediatric Association
Former president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child
Health
Knighted in 1998 for services to child health
Professor Meadow was also a central figure in two previous similar
cases.
Solicitor Sally Clark won her
appeal in January to overturn her conviction in 1999 for murdering
her two baby sons and pharmacist Trupti Patel was found not guilty
in June of murdering her three babies.
Giving evidence at the trial
of Mrs Clark, Sir Roy told the jury that the chance of two children
in such an affluent family dying of cot death was "one in
73 million".
But his claim was disputed
by the Royal Statistical Society, which wrote to the Lord Chancellor
to say there was "no statistical basis" for the figure.
And Sir Roy's estimate was
criticised as "grossly misleading" and "manifestly
wrong" by a judge during Mrs Clark's second appeal hearing.
Munchausen's
Sir Roy first came to prominence
in 1977 after publishing a paper in The Lancet medical journal
on a condition he dubbed as Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy.
This is a form of child abuse
in which a parent induces real or apparent symptoms of a disease
in a child.
Perhaps the most high profile
example was the case of nurse Beverly Allit, who murdered four
children and harmed nine others. Professor Meadow worked in this
case.
But even his work in this field
has been subject to controversy.
In the House of Lords recently,
Earl Howe, the Opposition spokesman on health, accused the professor
of inventing a 'theory without science' and refusing to produce
any real evidence to prove that Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy
actually exists.
Meadow's law
However, Sir Roy is most renowned
for an observation in a book that became universally known as
"Meadow's Law".
This states that: "one
sudden infant death is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three
is murder, unless proven otherwise."
He has since gained him a reputation
for being particularly severe when confronted with cases of multiple
child deaths in one family.
Many supporters, however, have
championed Professor Meadow, calling him a man of great skill
and compassion.
It is also true that the Court
of Appeal decision to quash Mrs Clark's murder convictions did
not hinge on Professor Meadow's statistics.
Instead, the crucial factor
was the revelation that evidence from pathologist Dr Alan Williams
had not been made available at the original trial.
A CPS spokeswoman said Professor
Meadow did not use statistics in the Patel and Cannings trials
and had been just one of a number of expert witnesses to be called
by the prosecution.
Asked whether he would be called
again as a witness, she said: "There is no professional
body that has found against Professor Meadow that we are aware
of.
"It would depend on the
case and what the evidence was whichever expert was chosen."
The General Medical Council
said they were investigating Prof Meadow but would not release
any further details.
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/health/3307427.stm
Published: 2003/12/10 15:27:15
GMT
© BBC MMIV
|
Truth can never be
told so as to be understood, and not be believ'd. William Blake, The Proverbs of Hell
