Shaken Baby Syndrome or Vaccine-Induce Encephalitis?
The Story of Baby Alan

Harold E. Buttram, M.D. & F. Edward Yazbak, M.D.
Up Dated: 03/24/2001

Introductory Note: Among the many adversities and difficulties facing the American family today, the following article was written to point out a relatively new and growing hazard in which a parent or caretaker may be falsely accused of murdering or injuring an infant by the “shaken baby syndrome,” (SBS) when the true cause of death or injury arises from other sources. Very tragically, child abuse does occur and deserves appropriate punishment. However, it is equally tragic when a family, already grieving from the death of their infant, finds a father, mother, or a caretaker injustly accused, convicted, and imprisoned for murder of the infant, a murder of which he or she is innocent. The authors of this article have knowledge of an attorney, an anesthesiologist, a Mormon mother, an Amish mother and others accused and/or imprisoned (we believe falsely) on charges of injuring an infant by the SBS. It could happen to anyone regardless of race, sex, educational, financial or social status. It has and is happening to more than a few. The following article is a report of one case with which the authors have intimate knowledge.

The shaken baby syndrome (SBS), as reviewed in the Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine and other journals (David TJ, J Royal Society Med, November, l999; Weston IT, The Battered Child, l968; Caffey J, Am J Dis Child, 1972; Guthkelch AN, Brit Med J, 1971) commonly describes a combination of subdural hematoma, retinal hemorrhage, and diffuse axonal injury (DAI) as the triad of diagnostic criteria. The basic issue to be addressed in this review is whether or not in some instances, where a father has been accused of causing the death of his child from the shaken baby syndrome, the true cause of death was from a catastrophic vaccine reaction. The present reviewers believe that the demise of Baby Alan fits with such a vaccine reaction, and that the father was falsely accused and convicted of the murder of his son based on a mistaken diagnosis.

By definition, the word "syndrome" refers to a group of signs and symptoms that occur together and characterize a particular abnormality. The question in the present instance is whether or not the criteria of SBS may have more than one possible cause.

Vera Scheibner, Ph.D., Australian researcher, in an article reviewing the shaken baby syndrome,(Scheibner V, Nexus, Aug.-Sept, l998) stated her opinion that many of the cases attributed to this cause have actually been vaccinerelated injuries or deaths. After having reviewed the medical records of the present case, she came to the same conclusion. She offered the following comment in support of this opinion:

"Indeed, vaccines like pertussis are actually used to induce encephalitis (experimental allergic encephalomyelitis) in laboratory animals.(Levine S, Am J Path, 1973) This is characterized by brain swelling and hemorrhaging of an extent similar to that caused by mechanical injuries.(Iwasa, Japan J Med Sci Biol, April, l985; Steinman L, Nature, Oct., l982)

In a bulletin from the National Vaccine Information Center, similar instances of mistaken diagnoses were sited; that is, instances where vaccine injuries were mistakenly diagnosed as SBS, resulting in imprisonments.(Hanchette J, Nat’l Vaccine Inf Center: http://www.909shot.comgnsshake.him) One of the instances was reviewed in the article:

"Dr. Thomas Schweller, a San Diego pediatric neurologist, who testified (in a case in which a father was accused of brain injuring his child) that the brain damage from interior bleeding was likely triggered by the DPT shot, stressed this in a Gannett New Service Interview: is a tendency in some medical arenas to discount completely the history provided by the family if you find evidence of subdural hematoma  no matter what history is provided. Even a threefoot fall can cause fractures. It doesn't need to come from a shaking event. I'm always leery in medicine of saying something is always due to some factor, or that something is 100 percent."'

In the present case it is important to point out that a vaccine reaction was never mentioned by any witness as a possible factor in the baby Alan’s death.

Instances of shaken baby syndrome, tragically, do occur, but it is also tragic when fathers or other family members are falsely accused and imprisoned as the result of mistaken diagnosis, where the true cause of the brain injuries arose from vaccines.

The present case, which the authors have carefully reviewed, will be used as a model. Let the facts, as we understand them, speak for themselves.