No Sarah's Law for the UK.

Last Sunday, the News of the World ran a story proclaiming that, as a result of the paper's campaigning for a Sarah's Law, the Home Office was to pilot a scheme allowing parents to know if paedophiles were living in their area. Now it turns out that a rag hardly famed for the accuracy of its reporting has been fed a load of rubbish by Home secretary John Reid.

In typical Noo Labour style, the trumpeted pilot is little more than a headline grabbing propaganda exercise. Nothing will change. The Daily Telegraph has rumbled Reid's game.

Both the Times and the Independent run stories that parents are in fact to be denied the right to know of any dangerous sex offenders living locally. The Home Office is not saying anything.

Tags: Child protection, Home Office, John Reid, Sarah's Law

Harte and Duncan sentenced. ( update 3)

Kimberly Harte and Samuel Duncan, the sadistic child torturers have been sentenced. The BBC reports that Harte got 11 and a half years and Duncan 10 and a half years.

By my inexpert reckoning, based on eligibility for parole after about a third of the sentence, if they say the right things to their social workers they may well be out within four years or so. The psychiatrists and social workers will no doubt argue that Harte and Duncan are not evil but the victim of their own circumstances and, as such, require only behavioural adjustment before they can be safely returned to society. Just one more example of why so much evil abounds in our society.

The Sun also has a report.

Update 1: the Willsden and Brent Times (local press) focuses on the judge's remarks.

Update 2: 9/2/07.

The Independent examines the serious failures of social services to protect the child, despite some 20 visits to the family. I doubt Westminster Council's "serious case review" will ever see the light of public scrutiny, unless it is leaked.

Update 3: 9/2/07 @ 16:00

To my surprise, Westminster Council has released statements by Ron Lock , who conducted the independent case review and by the Westminster Local Safeguarding Children Board. An executive summary of the Lock review is also available for download as a Word/Open Office file. In summary, all concerned got it badly wrong in thinking Duncan was safe with children because he had completed a behavioural modification course called the Domestic Violence Intervention Programme. Unbelievable.

Update 4: 10/2/07

Looking at the BBC's artist's drawing of Harte and Duncan, it occurs to me that nobody seems have asked one particular question: was the social workers' decisions, to return the child to the parents and to leave her there, in any way influenced by multicultural considerations? Maybe not, but the question needs to asked and answered.

Tags: Samuel Ducan, Kimberly Harte, Child protection.

Westminster Social Services: failing to protect, again.

The Observer has the horrific story of how Westminster social workers ignored the danger signs of a genuine case of child abuse and returned a young child to her parents, Kimberley Harte and Samuel Duncan. Harte and Duncan then spent seven weeks torturing the child by pouring boiling liquid over her hands, ripping out her hair, kicking her repeatedly in the groin and locking her in the toilet. The pair have been found guilty and will be sentenced later this week.

Meanwhile, it is unlikely that the the guilty social workers will be sacked. Rather they will be left free to continue their incompetent work. Already the notoriously corrupt social services establishment is closing ranks. According to the independent review of the case,

...what happened could not be attributed to 'professional errors' or 'poor practice'.

Really? Which rather begs the question of what does constitute a professional error or poor practice. Well may the Observer draw a parallel with the Climbie scandal.

Update 6.2.07

John Hemming MP, a notable campaigner on questions of child protection, has a good analysis of the questions raised by the case.

Tags: Child Protection, Westminster Social Services.

NHS secrecy: looking after their own.

North Staffordshire NHS Trust is threatening to sue John Hemming, MP, for the cost of consulting lawyers over the David Southall Special Case files, which they are reluctant to release.

Mr Hemming is quoted in the Birmingham Post as saying:

"I have been writing to the hospital asking them to tell patients when there is a secret medical file. The hospital's response has been to pass the issue to their lawyers.

"Their lawyers have now threatened to sue me for the cost of the legal advice. This is complete nonsense. The hospital should obey the law. If they don't know what the law is then they should not try to get me to pay the legal costs of them finding out."

It is an old trick. Threaten legal action and then refuse to comment other than to say, as North Staffs NHS Trust did, "Our solicitors are dealing with this and it would be quite inappropriate to comment."

So, not content with killing people, the NHS now wants to do it in secret.

More from John Hemming's Weblog.

Update 29.12.06 @ 20:00
For some Friday evening surrealism, see the link to John Hemming's weblog (under 29th December). The Trust now says it is not going to sue the MP but, as far as I can make out, will only talk to him via their lawyers and will charge him for the lawyers' time, so that the money can be spent on officials' expense accounts patient care. Mr Hemming concludes,

So the response from the hospital is that they don't want to talk to me directly, but only through the lawyers and they want to charge me for the time spent by the lawyers on talking to me. I am not quite sure what planet this organisation is on.

Which planet? First identify your galaxy.

Tags: Child Protection, John Hemming, North Staffordshire NHS.

Johm Hemming MP on David Southall and the GMC.

In a speech in the House of Commons, John Hemming the MP for Birmingham Yardley, has continued his campaign against the mistreatment of children and their parents by the authorities in child abuse cases. He had much to say of interest regarding David Southall's controversial research into Sudden Infant Death.

In the speech, Mr Hemming raises some disturbing questions about the nature of Southall's research and the way the issue has been handled by the General Medical Council. It does seem remarkable that, for some reason I cannot figure, the GMC have not only adjourned their disciplinary hearing against Southall for 11 months but they have also left him in possession of key documentary evidence. Here is some extracts from Hansard:

Dr. Southall has done much research on sudden infant death—an important area of research, given the numbers of children who have died without a clear diagnosis. Perhaps the biggest project was known as protocol 85.02. Dr. Southall looked at the response of babies to asphyxiation, shortage of oxygen and the presence of carbon dioxide. The experiments were known as sleep studies, and started with about 7,000 babies born in the mid ’80s at Doncaster and Rotherham hospitals.

Phases 1 and 2 of the experiments were quite reasonable. Phase 3, however, involved choking babies for 10 sessions of 10 seconds, depriving them of oxygen by giving them only 15 per cent. oxygen rather than the normal 21 per cent., and then giving them too much carbon dioxide. Parents were not asked for their consent to the experiments; they were merely told, in writing, that they would happen, without any details.

A large number of brain-damaged babies were born in Doncaster in the 1980s. However, the records showing which babies were in the experiments were not in the medical files, because Dr. Southall kept secret files, known as special case files. Although compensation was paid, the causation was not entirely clear. The process expanded with the Office for National Statistics providing details of all deaths from sudden infant death syndrome—about 12,000 cases—so that Dr. Southall could continue his research with the siblings....

...Protocol 85.02 was not the only research project operated by Dr. Southall. He also gave carbon monoxide to babies with breathing problems, caused so much damage to babies in his experiments that they needed resuscitation, and did considerable damage through his experimental continuous negative extrathoracic pressure tanks, which he told others was tried and tested when in fact it was research...

..In essence, what we have is evidence of a doctor managing research likely to lead to brain damage and/or death in infants. There is evidence of a substantial number of babies being brain-damaged at the same hospital. There are also records of babies dying from symptoms that could have been caused by that type of research. However, there is no detailed explanation.

The allegations are very serious, but the system of regulation wants to ignore them. After many years of struggle, the General Medical Council started to hear evidence in November relating indirectly to research. It has, however, now decided to adjourn the hearing for 11 months. What is particularly interesting is the history of the special case files. Those have been stored in all sorts of locations, and they have been involved in criminal prosecutions and in family court actions. At one stage, a parent infiltrated the charity run by Dr. Southall to get access to the files. Court action resulted in their repossession.

In December 2005, it was agreed between the GMC and Dr. Southall that the files should be part of the medical records. However, he has now been allowed 11 months to sanitise them. It is important to remember that there is evidence that the files have already been partially sanitised. Many of the patients are completely unaware that the files exist. I have made numerous requests of the NHS to control the files and legal proceedings are continuing in an attempt to keep them intact. However, the authorities continue to resist this, and to tolerate a major cover-up.

Tags: Child Protection, General Medical Council, John Hemming, David Southall, Sudden Infant Death.

David Southall 9

The General Medical Council seems to have been inspired by Jarndyce and Jarndyce. From John Hemming's web log:

Unbelievably the GMC have deferred the hearing into Dr David Southall's activities until 5th November 2007.

Unbelievably indeed, but one thing I find very believable is that the GMC is no longer fit for purpose. I wonder if Donaldson will take a similar view.

Tags: Child protection, GMC.

David Southall : 8

David Southall has been continuing his evidence to the GMC disciplinary hearing. After his recent memory lapses, Southall seems to have recovered sufficiently to display a mastery of language. No,he said, he had not been aggressive or angry, when dealing with Mrs M., a woman whose 10 year old son had hanged himself. Rather he had been "professional" in investigating his concerns for the safety of the woman's other child. Southall denied accusing her of murder. From the Daily Mail: [link fixed]

Prof Southall said he had wanted to explore three "scenarios" with Mrs M - that of whether her son had died by accident, had committed suicide or had been killed by somebody.

Beneath the professorial semantics, the implication is clear: who was the "somebody" who did the killing, if not the mother?

The BBC reports that:

Asked by his QC, Kieran Coonan, if he had gone beyond his remit by accusing her of drugging her child and leaving him hanging on a curtain pole to die and then calling an ambulance he said: "No and that is just not acceptable.

"I did not do it. That is a key issue and that was the line across which I could not move."

More semantics. Of course he literally "did not do it" but the mind games he was playing with the mother were clearly intended to have that effect.

Over the last two reports I have noticed that Southall is cleverly managing to reduce the case to one of his word against that of the mothers' involved. I think the outcome is becoming increasingly predicable.

Tags: David Southall, GMC

Munchausen Syndrome by Proxy in New York.

A series of articles relating to Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy, from newsday.com, in connection with accusations made in New York against Cindy Becvar and Susan Nilsen:

The case: Controversial diagnoses split up two families.

The doctor's view: Response from Schneider Children's Hospital.

Background: England a hotbed of Munchausen scandal.

Tags: Child Protection, Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy

David Southall 7

David Southall has begun giving evidence to the General Medical Council's fitness for practice panel. icWales and the BBC have reports.

It must be difficult for Southall to discuss the events of so long ago whilst suffering from memory loss. He cannot remember exactly how many SC (special case) files he created , nor receiving a letter requesting disclosure of the files, neither could he think of any risk created by taking a child's file with him when moved hospitals. I think the Americans call this sort of memory problem "taking the fifth".

However, Southall could remember that he created the special files to enable him to find out quickly "what as going on with the child." Nobody seems to have asked him why the hospital's normal filing system was not fit for that purpose. Moreover, nobody seems to have asked him if the files were kept secret because contained details of his controversial ghastly experiments.

Southall has already been found not guilty of one charge of serious professional misconduct in respect of respecting the privacy and dignity of a woman known as Mrs D, following “insufficient evidence." I think we can expect more of the same as the medical establishment closes ranks and looks after its own.

The hearing continues on Monday.

Tags: David Southall, GMC

Child Abuse 3: structural problems

In previous posts in this series I examined the over-arching theme of the need for structural reform of child protection policies in the UK through areas labelled medical research and the effects on individual and family. This post moves on to examine the statutory framework, that is, the roles of the legal system, the police and the social services. I do not claim to have given a detailed picture of the area of any of the issues involved, however, I hope the series serves as a rough sketch map, providing at least some illumination to help navigate a complex terrain. Once again I draw heavily on John Hemming's blog and his recent speech in parliament.

Arguably, the structural faults of the legal system in relation the child protection system can be encapsulated in one word: secrecy. Over this series of posts we have seen that the child protection system is too often lacking in transparency. As Hemming told the House of Commons,

One of the difficulties in obtaining information about the child protection system is the secrecy of social services. It is claimed that that secrecy exists to protect the child, but it is clear that it is maintained mainly to protect any professionals involved from allegations of misconduct. The intentions of the majority of the people involved are clearly good and many hard-working people care a lot about their clients, but a much smaller number cause great problems.

It is not just the social services who are secretive. Hemming illustrates the point by referring to: the secrecy imposed by the General Medical Council on the David Southall hearings "against the express will of the parents"; Heidi Frost, of which I can find no further details; the case of Clayton v Clayton; and Nicola and Mark Webster, which I referred to yesterday. As Hemming acknowledges, the government is currently reviewing the question of secrecy and the family courts and it is to be hoped that some moves will be made towards lifting the veil of secrecy which allows too many individuals to dragged into devastating problems by officials whom it not possible to hold publicly to account for their actions.

In addition to the secrecy, there is the obvious problem, which the blog has previously addressed, of the legal system being prepared to base prosecutions for serious crimes on statistical proofs rather than factual evidence, of which Marianne Williams and Sally Clark are examples cited by Hemming.

Moving on to social services, this seems to me to be crux of the problem. Social workers seem to see child abuse everywhere and carry their obsession into witch hunts in the tradition of the Puritan witchfinders. Hemmings refers to the Cleveland Enquiry, to which we can add the Orkney scandal. On the other side of the coin, as Hemming notes, the a fear of missing genuine cases can lead social services "to play safe and treat a normal situation as one where a child is at risk."

There is an obvious danger that social services' obsession with certain form of child abuse can lead to them missing obvious cases. Victoria Climbie is such an example. In her tragic case the problems were of social workers' inaction, in my view, something Haringey social services ineptly tried to cover up. As Hemming says:

In cases like that of Victoria Climbié, abuse is obvious and should not haunt the system, driving people to treat normal situations as abusive. Common sense is needed to bring balance back into the system. One key point about the Climbié inquiry was that it showed how social workers were busy chasing up the chimera of a few Munchausen’s syndrome by proxy cases and did not have the time to focus on a serious case of abuse, which was ignored.

Alas, common sense does not appear to be a particularly dominant characteristic of social workers. Essentially, this is a question which requires a detailed examination of social worker education and training.

Over this series of posts we have seen that the child protection system is too often lacking in transparency. Decisions affecting the lives of individuals and families are taken in secret and never have to be justified to those involved. Independent scrutiny leads to public accountability, which in turn gives individuals a degree of control over their lives. That is why I agree with the closing sentiments in John Hemming's speech:

The system in the UK has gone wrong in so many ways. It has not served children well. The biggest reason for that is the lack of independent scrutiny.

Tags: Child abuse, Child protection, Hemming

Child Abuse 2: the individual and family cost.

Previously I identified three areas of concern arising from Professor David Southall's research related to Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy (MSBP). I have since refined those areas into three sub-categories within the over-arching theme of structural reform of child protection policies in the UK: medical research; individual and family; and statutory, (legal system,police and social services). Of course, the distinctions are often blurred and, as in all such ideal type models, there is considerable over-lap, nonetheless it will serve to separate out the various strands sufficiently to allow a clearer picture to be drawn of a complex set of inter-locking issues.

Yesterday I dealt with the medical research strand, outlining David Southall's work and briefly placing it in the context of MSBP. This post moves on to draw attention to the effect of false allegations of child abuse on individuals and their families. On 16 November 2006, John Hemming made a speech in the House of Commons in which he drew attention to devastating effects that erroneous allegations of child abuse can have on individuals and their families.

Professionals have avoided scrutiny through secrecy and continually made errors that would have been picked up had matters been considered in public. It is very clear that too many children are taken into care and there are a number of reasons for it. There is the simple failure of the system where the system gets the facts wrong.

In this respect, Hemming drew attention to the cases of Gina and Tim Williams, and Mark and Nicola Webster.

Even accepting as Hemming says, that these "two cases came about from the actions of almost certainly well motivated physicians", it raises deep concerns about the operation of a system which imposes such unnecessary suffering on individuals. Clearly the system needs to be reviewed but structural reform of the Social Services is a subject for another post.

Hemming then moves on to less than well motivated doctors, including the case of Ben Hollisey McLean (scroll down to 2nd post, by Penny Mellor). In perhaps the most disturbing passage of the speech, Hemming continues,

There are also cases such as that of Ben Hollisey McLean, in which the threat of child protection proceedings was used to force him into dangerous medical research. I have evidence of the threat of child protection proceedings being used to silence parents. Indeed, parents have been forced to admit that they harmed their children—when they did not—simply to keep them. When parents are caught in the Catch-22 world of social services it is one of the most pernicious and invidious aspects of the system, and it provides a reason why it is difficult to get clear understanding from the research.

Roy Meadow, who followed in the tradition of Matthew Hopkins, and David Southall, who shared that ancestry and that of Joseph Mengele combined, should have to account for the misery that they caused. Even if their motivations were good, the consequences will hang over many people’s lives for decades. The witch hunts, where mothers are alleged to have killed their children and are then required to prove their innocence against unfounded medical opinion, need to stop now. That does not require a change to the law, but it does require a change to procedure.

Something has obviously gone badly wrong is a system which treats individuals in such an appalling way and destroys their lives and their families. Lemming concludes that,

We clearly need to separate out the child protection function from the supportive function of social services—under “Every Child Matters” it is being reorganised slightly anyway—and link child protection to the police rather than the local authority. The police are generally much better at handling such issues.

Which leads on to the legal aspect of the problem which I shall address at a later date. The above is by no means a full outline of John Hemming's speech. Given the constraints of length, here I have drawn attention only to certain passages selected because they help illustrate the effects false, or mis-, diagnosis of child abuse can have on individuals and their families. Many other examples of the individual consequences of the system's failures could be given, even from Hemming's speech, such as Yvonne and Tammy Cooper, Victoria Climbié and some not named. Indeed, the cases referred to here are only illustrative the tip of the iceberg.

Tags: Child abuse, Child protection, John Hemming

Child Abuse 1: A brief account of Dr David Southall's research.

After further research, I think I am now in a position to join up the dots sufficiently to create a coherent narrative of David Southall's journey from medical research to the GMC's disciplinary committee. I do not claim this post is either an authoritative or exhaustive account and would, therefore, welcome any corrections or amplifications. However, I am satisfied that it is a coherent basic outline of events which clears up the major confusions I had when I first read of Professor Southall's case.

We are dealing with one small corner of a much wider field of medical research known as Sudden Infant Death (SID), or cot death. The sudden, unexpected death of a significant number of babies under the age of about one year old has long baffled medical researchers. In 1977, Professor Roy Meadow, claimed to have identified a pattern of behaviour in which some mothers deliberately harmed, or even killed, their children. Meadow labelled such behaviour Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy.

It will be convenient to deal with Meadow at this point. Despite its wholly theoretical nature, over the ensuing decades Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy became accepted as a proven fact by the medical community and was even used by the legal system to convict individuals of murdering their children. In other words, the legal yardstick of proof beyond a reasonable level of doubt was replaced by statistical probability, as determined by experts such as Meadow in so-called "expert testimony" to the court. Meadow's statistical evidence has since been discredited and some of the convictions have been recently squashed by the Appeal Court. Hopefully, it is doubtful that any similar convictions will follow or that Meadow, or any one like him, will be giving such so-called expert testimony in future.

Returning to the 1980s, to be fully accepted as valid, any scientific research has to be capable of being repeated ( in the jargon, replicated) in order to show the results were reliable and not a freak outcome. Meadow's work presented obvious difficulties in this respect, not least persuading potentially infanticidal mothers to allow themselves and their babies to be observed, to see if they were actually harming or killing their children. Here David Southall enters the story. As far as I can work out, Southall decided to solve this particular problem by installing surveillance equipment so he could secretly observe mothers and their babies. In itself, that raises serious ethical research issues relating to an individual's privacy but Southall did not stop there.

Southall kept records of his dealings with parents in secret files, known as SC, or Special Case, files. It is not entirely clear exactly what was in the SC files. The parents involved are still trying to gain full access but it seems probable that they detailed his suspicions of child abuse based on no evidence stronger than his opinion. Indeed, Southall seems to have seen Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy everywhere. Notoriously, after seeing a television programme, he accused Sally Clark of infanticide by MSBP, a piece of arrogance which, after Clark's aquittal on appeal, led to Southall's first visit to the GMC disciplinary panel, in 2004. For reasons known only to themselves, the GMC were content with a ruling that Southall should not be allowed to work in child protection for a period of three years. In its (pdf) response to the ruling, the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health seemed to be more concerned that doctors should be able to continue making unfounded allegations than with any miscarriage of justice for which Southall was directly responsible.

Opinion-based serious accusations are bad enough but there is more. As far as I can tell, Meadow's work, on which Southall's secret surveillance sought to build, only interpreted the observed behaviour of the mothers involved. In the mid 1980s, Southall decided to take the next logical step and attempt to identify any medical factors which might contribute to SID (cot death). A laudable aim but with obvious difficulties in finding a of supply babies in the act of dying, in order to measure their responses. Southall solved the problem through not asking for parental consent and simulating the required environment by depriving the babies of oxygen and feeding them CO2. These experiments were codenamed Protocol 85/02. According to John Hemming, MP, (23rd August 2006) who has taken an active interest in the case, Southall does not appear to have published any results from the case. It is most unusual for any research not be published but it seems a reasonable assumption that the results are hidden somewhere in the SC files. Southall appears to have continued this line of research into the 1990s, with the ethical approval of his hospital (scroll down to "Commentary: Ethical approval of study was warranted").

Despite the disturbing nature of Southall's experiments, as John Hemming has observed, (15 November 2006) the GMC seems to be more interested in other, "relatively minor issues rather than the major issue of doing harm to patients (particularly babies) through dangerous research." Those relatively minor issues relate mostly to Southall's manner of dealing with records. There, for the moment things stand, with Southall's GMC hearing in progress. If this post either saves other people time in piecing together what happened or introduces readers for the first time to the nightmare innocent individuals found themselves suffering, it will have served its intended purpose.

Tags: Child abuse, Child protection, David Southall, Medical research, Roy Meadow

Profesor Southall: 6

The case of Professor David Southall before the General Medical Council continues with disturbing reports of a mother from Swansea's experiences with Southall. The mother, identified only as Mrs H, was suspected by Southall of of being a danger to the child's health, as a result of which Child H was made a ward of court.

Southall is accused of breaching confidentiality by unauthorised copying of a letter concerning his suspicions to a doctor not related to the case. He is also "...accused of tampering with medical records, keeping secret medical files and abusing his position in relation to four children."

The secret medical records are the files known as SC (Special Case) files in which he seems to have recorded his unfounded suspicions. Mrs H. has been trying, with only partial success, to find SC files relevant to her son.

icWales has the full story. I cannot help wondering why only the local press has picked up on a GMC hearing with obvious national implications.

John Hemming (19 November) has more on Sudden Infant Death.

Tags: Medicine, David Southall

Professor Southall 5:

Professor David Southall's controversial research from 1997, that I reported yesterday, was a continuation of earlier research from the 1980s in which Southall also experimented on babies by depriving them of oxygen. Moreover, Southall subsequently classified the research data as confidential in an attempt to keep it out of the public domain. On 23 August 2006, John Hemming posted the gory details:

The experiments based upon protocol 85.02 involved firstly stopping babies from breathing in when at “Functional Residual Capacity” (when they have breathed out) for 10 seconds on 10 different occasions. This was done with a face mask. It was done in both of two sleep states. The babies were subjected to 1.5% CO2 for 5 minutes in each sleep state. (normal CO2 level in air is 0.04%). Then they were given a 5 minute rest. Then the babies were subjected to 15% oxygen for 5 minutes. Normal atmospheric Oxygen is just under 21%. After this they were given 4% CO2 and the time was measured until they woke up or changed state."

"These experiments performed mainly on babies were not for the benefit of the babies, but to find out what effect it had. We have not been able to find any published results as to what happened to all of the children in Professor Southall's experiments and what overall impact the experimentation had on the babies and young children involved."

"Professor Southall has kept secret files known as Special Case files. These included medical records. This information needs to be transferred into the patients' medical records so that all the diagnoses are kept in one place and is available to benefit the patients."

See also: Mothers Against Munchausen Syndome By Proxy

I think it is possible to separate out at least three distinct areas of concern raised by this case. Firstly, the ethics of Southall's research, an issue which is a significant aspect of much wider debate on medical research. Secondly, the long- and shot-term consequences for the individuals concerned of the misdiagnosis of child illness or death and subsequent serious allegations against parents which can follow. Thirdly, something which I have only touched on tangenitally, the question of secrecy in family courts.

Tags: Medicine, Munchausen Syndome, Southall

Professor David Southall, 4: the research.

Following yesterday's post on Professor David Southall, I have been pointed in the direction of Southall's controversial research and I can hardly believe what I have unearthed. I originally thought the research was focused on secret video surveillance of mothers and children. Instead, I find, that at least some of the research of Southall and his fellow researchers was into the effect of high altitudes on babies,with some reference to sudden infant death syndrome (cot death).

The research methodology (how they did it ) involved subjecting healthy babies to oxygen deprivation (hypoxia) and administering carbon monoxide to induce cessation of breathing (apnoea). The results were reported in the British Medical Journal 1998 March 21; 316(7135): 887–894. I have come across similar high altitude research before, in accounts of Nazi experiments in concentration camps.

The BMJ reports that a follow up study found no long term damage had been done to the children involved and that the original researchers, indeed many in the medical profession, do not think the research was unethical. On the former, I wonder. Looking back at the link in yesterday's post to Lawrence Alexander's website, I would say the research has left behind a few mental scars on at least one individual. On the latter, I am not surprised.

Putting my academic hat on, I will say that I am basically an historian with a scepticism about any field of quantitative research. I have had the ethical argument with research scientists on more than one occasion and their line is always the same: complex safeguards are very carefully built in and the work is necessary to save lives. Southall appears to me to be entirely typical of a scientific arrogance which rejects any personal moral or ethical responsibility for any potentially fatal or damaging consequences of medical research. That arrogance over the right to carry out whatever research they, the medical research establishment, deem necessary is so engrained that I fear John Hemming will not get very far in his admirable attempt to reform the ethical controls on research.

NOTE: I Googled "Southall, research" but it was not till I added oxygen that I came up with the sources for the above. Google search results for Southall+research+oxygen.

Tags: Lawrence Alexander, John Hemming, Medical ethics, Medical research, Professor David Southall

Professor Southall 3:

Nothing new showing on Google News about Professor David Southall's disciplinary earning before the General Medical Council. However, I can add some further context to add to yesterday's post.

John Hemming, MP, is, quite rightly, being critical of the GMC for preventing five families involved in the case from speaking to the press. Hemming provides a link to the website of Lawrence Alexander. Alexander writes of,

...my parents being falsely accused of harming me and faking illness and my being subjected to, in my view, harmful and dangerous research by "world cot death expert" Professor David Southall when I was a baby, using his "state of the art" equipment.

Alexander is keeping a comprehensive database of press reports. I am sure that most people will wish him luck in his battle with the GMC.

The research referred to by both Hemming and Alexander appears to be Southall's so-called pioneering work, in an eight year study, with video surveillance in hospitals. From the BBC in 2004:

Professor Southall pioneered the use of covert video surveillance to detect cases of Munchausen's.

The eight-year study, which started in 1986, found that youngsters aged between two months and 44 months were being deliberately injured in cruel and sadistic attacks by their parents or step parents while in hospital.

The most common method of abuse was suffocation, but deliberate fractures and poisoning were also uncovered by CVS.

Following detection of the abuse, 23 parents or step-parents of the 39 children identified as at risk by doctors, social workers and psychiatrists, were found to be suffering from the attention-seeking disorder Munchausen's.

But despite Professor Southall, himself a father of four, being praised by a judge following a successful court action against one abusive mother, his efforts raised difficult ethical issues and sparked an angry response from parents.

Some parents complained that the hospitals involved - the Royal Brompton, in London, and the North Staffordshire Royal Infirmary, Stoke-on-Trent - were operating a policy of entrapment.

Covert filming led to a total of 33 parents or step-parents being prosecuted.

Seven complaints, believed to relate to cases where children were removed from families after Professor Southall diagnosed Munchausen's, are due to be heard by the GMC in January.

His research into CNEP ventilators at North Staffordshire has also provoked intense scrutiny because parents claimed they did not give consent to their children taking part in the trial and they claim their signatures were forged.

That is a lot of grief and suffering for a lot of probably innocent people, all caused by an epistemologically arrogant medical profession.

Tags: Child murder, false accusations, medical, Professor Southall

Professor Southall before the GMC: 2

Day two of the General Medical Council's hearing into the dodgy doctor, Professor David Southall. A mother, falsely accused of murdering her son after he committed suicide, has been giving evidence. The GMC heard that Southall, who alleged the mother was suffering from Munchausen syndrome by proxy, made her use a pencil and shoe-lace to demonstrate how her son had hung himself. The Daily Mail and the BBC have reports. The case continues.

Meanwhile, John Hemming, MP, has referred the GMC's conduct of the Southall case to the CHRE, a government advisory body, on the grounds that it is paying insufficient attention to the research issues surrounding Southall. I am not altogether clear what his point is. I think he is referring to the GMC's lack of interest in the research on which Southall based his accusations.

Tags: Child murder, false accusations, medical, Professor Southall

More false child murder accusations before the GMC.

Here we go again. Another case of false accusations of infanticide is up before the General Medical Council's disciplinary body. This time it is Dr David Southall, for whom it will not be a novel experience. You may remember Southall as the doctor who initially accused Sally Clark of child murder. Clark was cleared on appeal and, despite being censured by the GMC, Southall was not struck off but allowed to continue as a doctor with some restrictions. That was one of the cases through which Roy Meadow came to prominence. Now Southall is up for more arrogant incompetence. The Evening Standard:

A leading paediatrician accused a grieving mother of drugging and murdering her son, a disciplinary panel heard today.

Professor David Southall abused his professional position and acted inappropriately when interviewing the mother, called Mrs M to protect her anonymity, about the death of her 10-year-old son, who hanged himself in June 1996, it heard.

Prof Southall, who was found guilty of serious professional misconduct in 2004 after accusing solicitor Steve Clark of murdering two of his sons, faces fresh allegations today. They relate to several children in his care in the 1980s and 1990s.

The core of the story is that Southall made serious allegations based solely on his opinion.

The Guardian is also covering the story: here and here.

Tags: Child murder, false accusations, medical, Professor Southall

Doctors want to kill disabled babies

Not doctors in Nazi Germany, but their successors in the United Kingdom. The Sunday Times has uncovered the story:

ONE of Britain’s royal medical colleges is calling on the health profession to consider permitting the euthanasia of seriously disabled newborn babies.

The proposal by the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology is a reaction to the number of such children surviving because of medical advances. The college is arguing that “active euthanasia” should be considered for the overall good of families, to spare parents the emotional burden and financial hardship of bringing up the sickest babies.

A very disabled child can mean a disabled family,” it says.

The College itself has declined to comment on the report, except for the usual "nothing has been decided yet" line.

Tags: Euthanasia, Health, NHS, Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecology.

Inexpert witnesses

Nine murder convictions are to be reviewed because of doubts over expert evidence from Dr Michael Heath, a presumably still incompetent, but now ex-Home Office, pathologist. Talking to BBC Radio, David Jessel, a Criminal Cases Review Commission official, said that he also ...

had a general concern about the use of expert witnesses in the "gladiatorial" English legal system. "In particular in the area of shaken baby syndrome, there are many people who have been convicted on dogmatic scientific certainties which are no longer really sustainable".

It has taken a long time, but at least the message is getting through: theory is not to be mistaken for fact, however eminent the expert.

Previously on CS:

Marianne Williams 2: medical, legal and police stupidity.

Marianne Williams: not guilty.

Roy Meadow

Tags: Judiciary