Prof. Roy Meadow and cot deaths

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Prof. Roy Meadow and cot deaths

Mon, 27 Jun 2005 04:12:03 +0100

 

 

 

 

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

 

 

The rise and fall of a medical " expert " ?

 

Margaret Williams 22nd June 2003

 

 

Professor Sir Roy Meadow, the now notorious " expert " on Munchausen

Syndrome by Proxy (MSBP) who is best known for his involvement in

unexplained cot deaths but who also asserts that children do not have

ME, only parents who suffer from MSBP, is at last under (leisurely)

investigation by the General Medical Council, which is looking into

his conduct. A GMC spokeswoman said " We are aware that there are a

number of concerns about him. We are deciding if there is a case to

answer " . Notwithstanding, the Crown Prosecution Service states that it

is still happy to use him as an expert witness for the prosecution in

cases of alleged MSBP even though he has been exposed and discredited

in the Court of Appeal in the Sally Clark case as someone who

fabricates his " evidence " .

 

Born in Wigan in 1933 and a self-promoted " expert " on MSBP since he

first invented it when he burst to prominence in 1977 with a paper in

the Lancet entitled " Munchausen Syndrome By Proxy: The Hinterlands of

Child Abuse " , Meadow rose through Oxford to the Chair of Paediatrics

at St James' University Hospital in Leeds and was knighted in 1998 for

his services to child health. He was employed by everyone from social

services (where MSBP has deeply insinuated itself into their language

and thinking, especially in cases involving children with ME, where

the frequency of diagnosing MSBP now amounts to an epidemic, with sick

children being forcibly removed from their parents and home) to the

Crown Prosecution Service and family court prosecutors. In the past,

establishing a motive for the alleged harming of children by parents

was difficult, but with the advent of Meadow, all that became

necessary was for him to diagnose MSBP in the mother. In the family

courts, Meadow was often the only expert called to give evidence, and

his evidence has been upheld by judges across the land almost without

question, raising the grim possibility of serial miscarriages of

justice. The more mothers he diagnosed with MSBP, the more his

'expertise' spread: he was invited to give conferences around the

world and would regularly comment to the press.

 

After 25 years, the bubble burst when Meadow told the Sally Clark

trial that the odds of there being two unexplained infant deaths in

one family were one in 73 million, a figure considered crucial in

sending her to jail but a claim hotly disputed by the Royal

Statistical Society who wrote to the Lord Chancellor to complain.

Nothing was done, and the Crown has continued to use Meadow to convict

women in such cases. It was subsequently shown that the true odds were

in the region of one in 100.

 

Earlier this year Lord Howe, the Shadow spokesman for health in the

House of Lords, delivered a scathing attack on Meadow, calling MSBP

" one of the most pernicious and ill-founded theories to have gained

currency in childcare and social services in the past 10 to 15 years.

It is a theory without science. There is no body of peer-reviewed

research to underpin MSBP. It rests instead on the assertions of its

inventor. When challenged to produce his research papers to justify

his original findings, the inventor of MSBP stated, if you please,

that he had destroyed them " .

 

Other medical experts criticise Meadow for " cherry-picking' the facts

and for " fitting the evidence into a diagnosis " . As GP Dr Mark

Struthers so aptly asked: " When are paediatricians, particularly those

enthusiasts for MSBP, going to get the message? When are these

individuals themselves going to acknowledge their mistakes, accept the

blame, show contrition, apologise and make amends? "

 

It is time to re-examine other tragic cases in which Professor Sir Roy

Meadow may have been disproportionately influential, including cases

of ME, because the way in which medical evidence can actually pervert

the course of justice is nothing less than a scandal.

 

The ME community may wish to cite this case of a so-called medical

" expert " to demonstrate that what seems to be incontrovertible medical

judgment (for example, the notion promoted by some " experts " that

ME/CFS is a psychiatric disorder amenable to " behavioural

modification " ) can in fact be disputed.

 

 

References

 

*Mothering to death. Roy Meadow. Archives of Disease in Childhood

1999:80:359-362

 

*Perspectives, Autumn 1999 (the magazine of the UK ME Association)

reporting the view of Consultant Paediatrician Dr Nigel Speight, a

member of the Chief Medical Officer's Working Group on CFS/ME

 

*Watch out with Mother. Christine Toomey. Sunday Times Magazine, 27th

February 2000

 

*Scourge of the child snatchers. Evening Standard, 24th February 2003

 

*Rapid Response to Richard Wilson's review of 'Cot Death Mothers':

Arrogant

nonsense. Mark Struthers. BMJ: 16th February 2003

 

*Expert witness. Editorial, Evening Standard, 12th June 2003

 

*Case throws spotlight on 'hawkish' paediatricians. Clare Dyer. The

Guardian, 12th June 2003

 

*Medical expert in the firing line: Paediatrician who gave key

prosecution evidence in Trupti Patel trial faces questions over other

controversial cases he was involved with. David Cohen. Evening

Standard, 12th June 2003

 

*Trupti Patel and the rotten courts of Salem. Simon Jenkins. The

Times, 13th June 2003

 

*GMC probing Trupti expert. Nathan Yates. Daily Mirror, 13th June 2003

 

*Professor's obsession with child death has robbed me of my little

girl too. David Cohen. Evening Standard, 13th June 2003

 

*In the dock. Trupti Patel baby case " expert " facing probe. Grant

Rollings. The Sun, 13th June 2003

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