Articles by Dr. Erdman are for informational purposes, and are not to be taken as specific medical advice.
Is it Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS), or something else? They
tell us the triad of brain swelling, retinal hemorrhage, and brain hemorrhage
can only mean one thing, you hurt your baby. Child abuse is abhorrent, but so
is being accused of killing or injuring your own child with abuse when you know
you have not. The simple allegation can ruin a person’s life; so we better be
sure when that accusation is leveled.
According to experts, the alleged scenario for SBS goes like
this: A baby crying inconsolably triggers the action; the perpetrator shakes
the baby from 5 to 20 seconds at a rate of 2 to 4 times per second. So at a
minimum, you can do unfathomable damage to a baby’s brain in 5 seconds by
shaking them up to twenty times. Is this good for a baby, obviously not, but
can it do the alleged damage absent neurologic and neck injuries? It seems
highly improbable that that action would kill a child, especially after the
quote from the National Shaken Baby Coalition that less damage may occur if you
drop them from three stories up! And real science seems to back up that
conclusion.
Most of the information in the rest of this article comes
from an interview of Dr. F. Edward Yazbak, M.D., by Dr. Mercola.
Dr. Yazbak says that all causes of the triad of SBS must be
ruled out before it is even considered as a diagnosis. That is rarely
performed, sadly. He talks of many things that can cause these symptoms; here
is a list of some of them. Anything that increases intracranial pressure;
Vitamin C, K, and D deficiencies; infections, bleeding disorders, CPR; 1/3 of
normal vaginal deliveries, vaccines, and aluminum overdose are all
abnormalities that lead to some of these symptoms. We will look at these.
A 2004 Study by Geddes and Whitewell showed, by way of
autopsy on 50 non-traumatically injured babies, that subdural and retinal
bleeding may well have a non-traumatic origin. In other words, things other
than shaking of the head of a baby can cause the brain swelling and retinal
bleeding.
In 2009, Squire and Mack showed that far greater forces than
they could produce by shaking a dummy are needed to cause brain swelling. They
concluded that impact of the skull on something is necessary to produce
subdural hematoma (SDH). They concluded that any infant shaken so bad as to
cause SDH would necessarily be expected to have injury to the neck structures
and spinal cord, as in a car whiplash accident or a truly shaken baby.
In 2009, Cohen and Scheinberg studied 55 cases of children
and fetuses that died from suffocation, with no trauma alleged. What they found
means a lot to this discussion. They noted every case had intradural bleeding
and two thirds had subdural bleeding(SDH). This is key because that is exactly
the type of bleeding they say occurs with SBS, and they say it is diagnostic of
SBS; it is not. Hypoxia causes brain bleeding.
Looking at retinal hemorrhage (RH) as an indicator of SBS is
also not definitive. The eye is an extension of the brain. Any cause of
increased pressure in the brain cavity will cause RH. There are no controlled
studies of humans that show any mechanical (shaking) cause of RH. No one has
ever witnessed RH in a “shaken infant,” and studies on shaken animals have
never shown RH. What does cause RH? Hypoxia, increased intracranial pressure by
any means, vitamin C and K deficiencies, infections, bleeding disorders and
others.
Vitamin K deficiency at birth can be part of hemolytic
disease of the newborn. We know vitamin K levels fall even more at about 3
months of age. Death can occur, and those that die all have intracranial
hemorrhage and some have retinal hemorrhage.
Adverse reactions to vaccines are rarely ever fully
investigated or even considered in most of those cases. Medicine is blindly
invested in vaccines and cannot even admit (let alone report to VAERS) bad
things can happen when they are administered.
Hypoxia, or lack of oxygen to the brain, produces brain
swelling. One common adverse reaction to vaccines is apnea (respiratory
difficulty or even arrest). Apnea causes loss of oxygen to the brain which
causes more brain swelling, raises brain pressure and causes subdural and
retinal hemorrhage. It is a vicious cycle. There are several vaccines that
cause apnea and seizures, causing decreased oxygen to the brain.
There are two specific vaccines that cause a decrease in
platelet counts. Fewer platelets means less oxygen carried to the brain, and
that leads to hypoxia and brain pressure.
A 2004 study by C. Alan Clemetson, MD, Tulane School of
Medicine, showed elevated blood histamine caused by vaccines coupled with
Vitamin C deficiency mimics SBS. (Med Hypoth 62:533-536) He also said, “When a
determination of SBS is based solely on subdural hemorrhage and retinal
hemorrhage, the assessment is an unfounded accusation, and not a diagnosis.”
Toxicity with aluminum is yet another reason for SIDS or
sudden baby death. It has some of the same signs a SBS. The FDA has put an
arbitrary safe dose of aluminum at .85 mg per dose. The vaccine schedule calls
for the DTAP, Hepatitis B, IPV, HIB and pneumococcal vaccines to be given on
one visit. Combined, these have 1.2 mg of mercury in them; enough to be toxic
even by the FDA’s arbitrary standards, which have never really been studied in
infants.
Finally, Michael Innes, an Australian researcher has said,
and has issued a challenge open to the medical community of the world to prove
him wrong, that there has never been a documented case of SBS outside of the 21
day period after vaccination in which a ‘disorder of the blood, liver or
nutrition was fully ruled out’, never! He also says, “The diagnosis of
SBS/ISII, is a proven figment of the imagination of some in the medical
profession and should be relegated to the scrap heap of history…” Those are
some strong words.