My name is Debra Grater and I live in Pennsylvania with my husband and two children.  I was a child care provider with a great love for children when I was accused and criminally prosecuted for alleged Shaken Baby Syndrome.  I am innocent and have always maintained my innocence.  That is the day my life and the lives of those I loved changed forever and this is my story.

It was December 15, 2000, a normal babysitting day for me until approximately 3:30 p.m. when I was catapulted into the world of false allegations.  I had been caring for a 4-month old boy for nine days and on the tenth day he was taken to his pediatrician for a Well-Baby-Check where he was vaccinated with DTaP, Hibiter, Hepatitis, Polio and Prevnar.  At approximately 10:00 a.m., he was dropped off by his mother at my home.  I checked on him regularly and he seemed fine until around 3:30 p.m. when I found him unresponsive and barely breathing.

I called 911 and even did mouth to mouth on him at one point because he stopped breathing altogether.  The hospitals he was taken to concluded his injuries were consistent with Child Abuse/Shaken Baby Syndrome.  I was in shock.

I was viciously interrogated for three and a half hours by police and was arrested on charges of Shaken Baby Syndrome.  I was out on bail after being placed in an "involuntary" medical hospital for a "psychiatric evaluation".

Upon my release I began to research this so called "Shaken Baby Syndrome" and found out that many times over, these adverse reactions to the vaccines, were being misdiagnosed as Shaken Baby Syndrome and that SBS is only a theory and never proven to be a truly understood entity.  By researching the medical journals it was clear that the experts in the field could not even agree on what SBS actually is!  Even more shocking was that I discovered many adverse reactions to routine vaccinations were able to mimic what is thought to be SBS.  Upon further researching vaccines I was shocked to see that Tens of Thousands of Children are damaged and even killed by vaccines.  I had always thought vaccines were safe.

I found that the ingredients in vaccines were nothing more than a witches brew of animal blood, toxic metals, viruses, bacteria,and even pesticides!  Yes Pesticide.  Thimerosal, a common ingredient in many vaccines is a registered pesticide with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).  Thimerosal is nearly 50% mercury as well and, that a routine "Well-Baby-Visit" can see a child get injected with up to 62.5 mcgs of Mercury!  The EPA guidelines for acceptable Mercury exposure are 0.1 mcgs. of mercury per kilogram of body weight per day. The child in my case was given over 40 times the "safe" amount in a matter of minutes-directly into his bloodstream and shortly before he was dropped off at my home.  As well this child had had an indication of possible neurological conditions as his head size was abnormally large.  The Physicians Desk Reference clearly states "that any child with an underlying neurological condition SHOULD NOT BE VACCINATED."

Even healthy children can have adverse reactions to vaccines and my son and daughter are perfect examples of that.  In March of 1997 at age 6  months my son started with episodes of vomiting and diarrhea and had poor weight gain.  At 9 months he was on the 5% on the weight chart.  Then in November of 1997 at almost 17 months it was noted that since 9 months he had lost 1-2 pounds and had more episiodes of vomiting and diarrhea.  Well at 6 months he was vaccinated then again at 9 months.  He recieved the HepB and Varicella at 12 months and the MMR and Hib at 15 months.  The doctors say it was lactose intolerance and Failure To Thrive but I feel now it was the vaccines that did it just look at the pattern.  If only I knew then what I know now.

In January of 2001 my daughter was given the Polio, Prevnar and Varicella shots and then in April of 2001 she was given the MMR, Hibiter and the Prevnar.  Both times she developed a high fever of 104.6 and went into hypo-tonic/hypo-responsive episodes.  She would not walk, talk, eat, drink or play.  She laid around like a rag doll.  I voiced my concerns to the pediatrician and they said "we do not usually see that happen" and brushed it off.  When I refused more shots for my children I was dismissed from their practice and told to secure medical care elsewhere.  Oddly my children are healthier now than they were when they were getting the shots.

Vaccines carry serious and sometimes fatal consequences and people need to know this so they can truly make an informed choice.  They also need to know what to do to avoid legal pitfalls in choosing what gets put into their bodies or their children's body.  No one can force you to do anything you do not want to do.

I was left no choice but to take a plea agreement of no contest as I could have faced up to 15 years in prison in the aforementioned case.  I chose not to risk what a jury would decide as most people (like myself at one time) believed vaccines were safe.  I chose to secure that my children would grow up with their mother.  I chose so I would not go to prison innocently, to accept a "NO CONTEST" plea.  I am slowly picking up the pieces and moving on.  I maintain my innocence and plan to make a difference by raising awareness.  The system needs help and parents/caretakers need to be informed.  In my case I believe this child was damaged by vaccines, and so did some doctors.  If you would like to know more about my case you can contact me at:  debbiehaven@msn.com

It was in the early morning hours on January 20th, 2002, Dwight "Nick" Davidson's nightmare began when his daughter, Alexa Nicole Davidson, stopped breathing in his arms.  Alexa's mother had just taken her to the Emergency Room for failure to feed and inconsolable crying.  She was discharged from the hospital, just 54 minutes before her last breath, as a "healthy, spoiled baby."

After the mother arrived home Alexa stopped breathing in her father's arms.  Alexa was rushed to Gateway Medical Center and transferred, via life flight to Vanderbilt Children's Hospital in Nashville, Tn.

The medical staff's findings were that Alexa had severe Shaken Baby Syndrome. They found old broken ribs missed by the Emergency Room and a closed head injury, they claimed came from severe shaking.  They found an old, healing fracture to her left tibia and an intra osseous line in her right tibia.  The doctor's also noted Subdural hemorrhage, Subarachnoid hemorrhage, Cerebral infarcts.  The next morning the doctor's at Vanderbilt declared Alexa "brain dead."  Nick never realized he was about to face not only loosing his first born child, but a fight to save his own life.

Just over 24 hours after Nick witnessed his daughter's final breath, he was arrested.  With no physical evidence, armed with nothing more then a theory, and inconsistent recollections, given by the mother, of the events surrounding her daughters death, the prosecution began targeting Nick as their number one suspect.  Alexa was disconnected from life support one hour after her father's arrest.  He was completely denied his right to say good-bye to his daughter.

Nick began a battle that has now lasted two years.  He fought with grief in his heart to prove that he had done nothing to hurt his daughter.  The investigation that surrounded his daughter's death lasted only 30 days.  It began with the medical diagnosis given by Vanderbilt Hospital and ended with a 31 page interview that Alexa's mother gave in exchange for "immunity against truthful statements."

The prosecution ignored several medical mistakes and the mother's inconsistent statements.  Driving on with their theory that Nick had snapped on his daughter, due to bent up tension from serving six months overseas, in the 20 common sense minutes he had his daughter in his care, while her mother took a shower.

The Emergency Room missed the old rib fractures, although the doctor had Alexa's chest X-rayed.  Gateway Medical Center noted that Alexa had a "slight cardiac enlargement."  Vanderbilt University also reported that Alexa's heart seemed "slightly enlarged," but did not do further medical testing to rule out other medical reasons for Alexa's heart to be enlarged.  The doctor's ignored the intra osseous line in Alexa's right tibia, a possible sign of brittle bones.  Vanderbilt missed a linear skull fracture and had misdiagnosed Alexa with retinal hemorrhages.  The medical examiner reported in his autopsy that Alexa had no retinal hemorrhages, he reported that she had optical nerve damage.  The medical examiner noted that Alexa had a swollen, movable lymph node in her neck but did not include whether or not he had removed and tested the lymph node for possible signs of infection.  The heart was donated, so was not present to be examined during the autopsy.

The medical staff and examiner did nothing to explore other avenues in connection with Alexa's death.  The possibility of the vaccine connection, that mirrors Shaken Baby, was not explored.  There was no bruising over Alexa's torso, where they claimed she was squeezed so severely as to cause broken ribs.  There was no evidence of squeezing present on her body.  The medical records had no notation of a contusion or even a bump on the back of head from the skull fracture.  They actually noted there was "no skull fractures," even after proper testing that included a CT scan.

At his trial in March of 2003, the doctor's who made these medical mistakes and the mother who continued to make inconsistent statements testified against Nick.  He faced two indictments; Count One for Aggravated Child Abuse and Count Two for Murder One, punishable with 60 years in prison, a life sentence without the possibility of parole.  The only evidence the prosecution had against Nick was circumstantial.  Circumstantial evidence that could have supported many other theories as to what happened to Alexa.

The trial lasted only two and a half days.  The jury deliberated for three hours, and returned a verdict to lessor charges of Reckless Aggravated Assault and Criminally Negligent Homicide.  Nick was sentenced to three and one half years at 30%.

Reckless Aggravated Assault  39-13-102
A person commits aggravated assault who, being the parent or custodian of a child or adult, intentionally or knowingly fails or refuses to protect such child or adult from an aggravated assault or aggravated child abuse.

Criminally Negligent Homicide  39-13-212
Criminally Negligent conduct, in Nick's case failing to protect his child, results in death.

During the sentencing the judge said, "I see no evidence that you did this."  Several times during the trial the judge said that there were two parents present during the time Alexa stopped breathing and that Nick was "ONE" of them.

Nick took on the prosecution with no expert witness.  Most have referred to this as "suicidal".  Nick's family could not afford an expert.  They had to have faith in the system and in the truth.  The jury found him guilty of failing to protect his daughter.  He sits in prison with no idea of whom or what he was supposed to be protecting Alexa from.  The prosecution makes absolutely no effort to solve the mystery.

Many have described Nick's outcome in his case as, "Lucky."  At first this was insulting to us, but as we further study into the epidemic of false "Shaken Baby" cases we realize indeed he was very lucky.  The prosecutors tend to feed off the emotion of the words, "Baby Murderer."  Until I have begun the research in Nick's case I am not so sure I would have been able to let some of these parents walk away either.  The public is completely uneducated on vaccine link to Shaken Baby or the lack of protocol to rule out other medical possibilities.  It is left up to the medical staff to make efforts to find other explanations as what else could have caused such injuries to a child.  This needs to change.  The medical profession needs to establish protocol in these cases to rule out all other possibilities for these children's injuries.  Innocent parents all over the world are suffering.  There will be many more in the future as long as the system continues to take a blind eye to true justice.

If the medical field and the prosecution is continuing to label Alexa's death a murder, we demand they find this "murderer" or re-open the investigation and find out what actually caused her death.

Finally, a tough question.  Was Alexa' murdered?  Dr. Michael D. Innis, Honorary Consultant Hematologist, Princess Alexandra Hospital, Brisbane, Australia reports that, "Infectious Mononucleosis from EBV infection was a factor in Alexa's demise."

"Children are vulnerable to deficiencies in Vitamins C, K and D as well as chemicals such as Calcium and Phosphorus, all of which are associated with rib and skeletal fractures, and with bleeding in some instances.  The possibility of both Vitamin C and K deficiency would need to be considered as both are capable of causing "fractures" as well as bruising and bleeding from the gut, and both may have a nutritional origin.  But no tests for these conditions were done.  However there is a significant abnormality in the Lymphocyte count which is approximately double the upper value of normal and should alert one to the possibility of a viral infection especially, at this age, the Epstein-Barr virus which would account for the infant's distress.

Alexa stopped breathing for several minutes before being intubated and, as has been pointed out by Geddes et al;, intra cerebral hemorrhages may result.  "Severe metabolic acidosis with inadequate resp. comp" was the comment of the Pathologist and I agree entirely that is the explanation of the Blood pH reading. Metabolic acidosis is the result of the body, including the brain, being deprived of Oxygen.  When the brain is deprived of Oxygen it swells causing cerebral edema and subdural hemorrhages.  The EBVirus causes Hepatitis which in turn causes a loss of the proteins necessary for the coagulation of blood.  One result is Vitamin K Deficiency Bleeding (VKDB) a well known complication of defective liver function, which would explain the fractures, bleeding and bruising seen in the child.

In support of the contention that a diagnosis of EB Virus infection is valid, is the finding of "one slightly enlarged soft, movable lymph node in the neck" which the Pathologist does not include in his summary of postmortem findings.  This finding is exactly what one would expect in EBV infection and has to my knowledge never been put forward as a sign of "multiple blunt force injury."

The father has given a clear description of the apparent life threatening event Alexa suffered which caused the Cardio-respiratory arrest, Anoxia and its fatal consequences.

Having contributed to the medical literature on this subject (Letter Lancet Jun 5 1978) I am confident with a reasonable degree of medical certainty that Infectious Mononucleosis from EBV infection was a factor in Alexa's demise.  Finally, since I believe EB Virus infection played a significant role in Alexa's death I have concerns that the donation of her heart may cause problems in the recipient."

As we continue to help others get a better picture of what the medical field and prosecution are lacking to bring true justice and rule out cases that are not actual abuse, we hope we can make a difference in how parents are treated in the future.  We as members of society must demand this change.

"If there is any greater crime or sin that we as members of the Human Race and citizens of this great country can commit beyond that of harming a child, it is to wrongfully accuse and/or persecute and innocent parent that has already suffered the loss or harm of one of their offspring."  Lee Woodard, Human Rights, USA

 Nick's full story
 Sign petition to help Alexa's father

Suggestions or comments for family can be sent to:  Justice4Alexa@charter.net

A baby girl is dead and the Chinese-American community is rallying behind the woman in jail for her murder because the evidence for 'shaken baby syndrome' is shaky, at best.

KATIE HONG HSIA walks into the basement courtroom of the Santa Clara County Courthouse with an anguished look on her face--a forest deer in a circle of armed hunters.  The slim, slightly-built 31-year-old Chinese-American woman with straight black hair falling into her eyes glances frantically around the courtroom for a friendly face, but there are none for her here, only blank stares in return. All eyes in the courtroom are on her, it seems. Most likely she is seeking out her husband, Ed Hsia, but he has disappeared before her appearance, put off, perhaps, by either a reporter's questions or the unblinking
eye of the Channel 11 news camera pointed in his direction.

For Katie Hsia, the only support in the courtroom this July morning is her San Jose attorney, Sam Polverino, and her attorney  cannot help her much in her first court appearance.  She stands alone amid a row of rough, hard-faced men in green or orange
county jail jumpsuits. Of them all, she is the only prisoner with her handcuffed arms shackled by chains padlocked to her sides. Of  them all, Katie Hsia is the only one this day charged with "shaken baby death," the murder of her friend's nine-month-old daughter, Michelle Gingin Tang.  When the judge affirms that Hsia's bail has been continued at $5 million, the courtroom of jaded onlookers gasps.

Santa Clara District Attorney Randy Hey calls Tang's death "one of the worst attacks on a child ever seen" in this county and says that a not-yet-released autopsy will support the case.  But observers in the Chinese-American and medical communities are not so sure.  Some say the Katie Hsia/ Michelle Tang "shaken baby case" represents a rush to judgment against an innocent woman, without witnesses or physical evidence, charged only on the basis of an unproven medical theory.

Attorneys for both the prosecution and the defense agree on practically all the elements of the case.  Michelle Tang's last day on earth began on a morning in late June when Michelle's mother, Xin "Cindy" Wang, dropped her off at the Hsia home on a quiet, cul-de-sac street in Saratoga. The only other person present at the Hsia house that morning was Hsia's 12-month-old daughter. Hsia and Wang, both natives of Beijing, China, were close friends, and Hsia often babysat while Wang attended classes at De Anza College. Hsia sold computer products online from home while taking care of her daughter.

Hsia told Santa Clara County sheriff's deputies that Michelle was "really irritable" that day and that while she tried to feed her "the child fussed, refusing to eat."  And then, two hours after arriving at the Hsia house, Michelle Tang suddenly stopped breathing.

The deputies' reports recount the frantic following minutes in which Hsia attempted to administer CPR and then called 911. Michelle was rushed to Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Gatos, where she underwent emergency surgery to relieve pressure on her brain and was put on life support.  Two days later, Michelle Tang died.

The prosecution and defense theories of the death differ significantly.  While she has not made a public statement since being arrested, Hsia's arrest warrant states that "suspect denied harming the baby and said no accidental injury occurred while the baby was in her care."  However, following an autopsy, a child protection expert physician from Valley Medical Center concluded that Katie Hsia had shaken Michelle Tang to death.  In a handwritten statement, Dr. Patrick Clyne wrote that "the nature of Michelle's injury is such that she would have immediate, profound neurological symptoms.  She would not have appeared awake, alert and normal after the injury.  There are no natural medical causes for these types of bleeding.  Resuscitation efforts by rescue personnel could not have caused the injuries.  Michelle Tang was the victim of an assaultive head injury and the assailant was the last adult with her immediately before the onset of her symptoms."

Based upon Dr. Clyne's conclusions, Katie Hsia was arrested and charged with second degree murder.  Her bail was set at $5 million because of the seriousness of the charges, and because prosecutors considered her, with family in China, a flight risk.

Michelle's father, Allen Tang, does not know what to make of it.  Asked if he and his wife think Katie Hsia is responsible for the death of their daughter, Tang says, "The only thing we can say is that we were really surprised.  We don't know what she did.  We just want to know the truth.  At this time we don't want to say too much."

However, Tang, a Chinese national who has worked in the Silicon Valley high-tech industry for five years, says he never saw anything in the past to indicate a problem with Hsia.  In particular, he says he never saw her mistreat either Michelle or her own child.  "She's a loving mother.  That's why we trusted her," he says.

Anguished, speaking slowly in a thick accent, Tang describes Hsia as a former co-worker (at a high-tech company he declined to identify) and as a close family friend who he considers to be partially responsible for the birth of Michelle Tang.

"When Katie got pregnant she told my wife, 'Why don't you get pregnant, too?' My wife said, 'No, we're not prepared yet.'" Tang gives a small laugh.  "But, surprisingly, we got a baby, too.  So we always thought that Katie Hsia brought the baby for us. After my wife got pregnant and had the baby, our relationship got even closer.  She was always doing things for us, like choosing the doctor, choosing the hospital, how to do this, how to do that.  We just followed her.  So when my wife asked her to take care of the baby for us, she was very happy to do that for us."

Tang says that his wife did not want to talk about the situation.  He has talked to the district attorney's office over the telephone but has not been interviewed.  Tang and his wife are still struggling with accepting the death of their daughter, regardless of the cause.  "We're Buddhists; we always ask ourselves, What did we do wrong?  If the child died, it must be the parents that did something wrong.  That doesn't mean we did something wrong in taking care of her.  We just must have done something wrong in other places.  It's all related.  That's how we are as Buddhists.  We pray.  We really don't know how this could happen.  We really don't believe our daughter is gone."

Other friends and acquaintances of Katie Hsia expressed disbelief at the charges against her.  "I can't imagine Hsia having any abusive or criminal part of her," says Mission College professor Marsha Chan.  Five years ago, Chan taught Hsia in the college's English as a Second Language department and visited the Hsias in their home.

Chan describes Hsia as a bright student, well-educated and responsible.  "I can't even conjure up any case where she was even mean to anybody. It just doesn't fit."

 At Hsia's bail hearing a week after her initial court appearance, a string of witnesses describe her as "a very caring, gentle girl" who had "never raised her voice or been abusive to anyone."  All described her as "good with children."  "My babies got noisy sometime around Hsia," said Harry Ni, a networking engineer in the city attorney's office.  "I never saw her upset with them."

Neighbors of the Hsia's agree.  "I never saw anything to cause alarm," says one, while another says, "The only strange thing about them was, they kept their Christmas lights up all year."
Without a witness against a well-respected defendant with no history of child abuse, what is the foundation of the case against Katie Hsia?  It is based upon three injuries noted during Michelle's autopsy: subdural hematoma and subarachnoid hemorrhage, which involve bleeding in and around the brain, and retinal hemorrhaging, which involves bleeding inside the eyes.  Since 1972, when it was first diagnosed, a majority of American physicians and forensic pathologists have concluded that the three symptoms combined can only occur when a baby has been violently shaken.  When death is caused by such symptoms, a majority of doctors have concluded that the visible effects of such injuries would be immediate.  In a letter called "a forensic pediatric response" following the Louise Woodward British au pair baby murder trial, Valley Medical Center's Dr. Clyne and a number of fellow pediatricians wrote: "Infants simply do not suffer massive head injury, show no significant symptoms for days, then suddenly collapse and die."

Applying this theory to the Michelle Tang case, Clyne's conclusion was that because Michelle was alert and active when her mother left her at the Hsia house, the baby was assaulted by Katie Hsia.  Calling such a theory "scientific garbage," Dr. John Plunkett says it is impossible to determine both time of injury and whether or not an incident is an assault based simply on the three "shaken baby" symptoms.

A forensic pathologist and deputy coroner for several Minnesota counties, Plunkett has testified in "well over a hundred" infant assault cases.   "What they are saying is contradicted by the knowledge of biomechanics that we have.  You cannot cause either retinal hemorrhage or subdural hemorrhage by shaking a baby, no matter how hard you try.  You can't generate enough force.  It requires an impact.  And an impact injury capable of causing this injury can come from a three-foot fall.  And its symptoms are not necessarily immediate."

Plunkett suggests three possible theories that investigators might look into to explain Michelle Tang's death: an old injury, a fall that might have taken place at the Hsia home outside of  Hsia's presence, or a congenital condition in Michelle Tang's brain.

"Nobody wants to see kids battered, all right?  But it makes me sick because people are getting convicted and spending many, many years in prison based on this absolutely faulty science."

A Palo Alto author of a book on shaken baby syndrome, Sue Luttner, agrees that prosecutors need to be cautious in relying solely on circumstantial medical evidence in so-called shaken baby deaths.  A former programmer and a mother of two herself, Luttner is closely monitoring the Tang/Hsia case.  Luttner cites five recent cases in which caretakers won either outright acquittal or were given reduced charges after initially being accused or convicted of murder in shaken baby deaths.

Support in the Valley's Chinese immigrant community is growing for Katie Hsia.  One week after her first appearance, some 20 friends and family members gather at the Santa Clara County Courthouse for Katie Hsia's reduced bail hearing.  Ed Hsia folds his hands in his lap, closes his eyes, and mouths silent prayers in the courtroom in the minutes before the precedings.  Katie Hsia says nothing during the hearing, listening through a Mandarin interpreter.  Her husband refuses to talk to the press referring all questions to Sam Polverino, his wife's San Jose attorney.

After the judge denies a reduction in Hsia's bail, her friends and family gather in a circle outside the courtroom to hear an explanation from Polverino.  Afterwards, Ed Hsia translates the presentation into Mandarin.  An articulate, medium-built man with a quietly commanding presence and the mental strength to mask his distress, it is clear that Ed Hsia would be a leader in this group even if it were not his wife on trial.

Meanwhile, Katie Hsia has her wrists padlocked back to the shackles around her waist and is led by a sheriff's deputy back into the underworld of the Santa Clara County jail system, where she awaits her next day in court.

On May 16, 2003 I arrived in Boise at the Ada County Jail after I was flying for 32 hours from Hobart to Sydney, then onto Los Angeles to San Francisco.  From Sydney to Boise I was escorted by 2 U.S.  Federal  Marshals.  My trial is scheduled for February 9, 2004.  My bond is set at $5,000,000.00(5 MILLION U.S. DOLLARS).  Legal authorities tell me my bond amount is what is typically 10 times higher than for an accused murderer. Typical bond for a charge of aggravated battery for an American citizen is anywhere between $5,000 to $7,000.  My bond amount is dictated by my Australian nationality not any severity of the charge.  My charge of aggravated battery stemming from an "alleged" offense in March 2001, a charge to which I strenuously plead my innocence.

It has been "alleged" that I shook a child, Dawson Stephens on March 14, 2001 while I was in Boise, Idaho on business.  The child of a Boise woman, Leann Stephens whom I was visiting at the time.  It is "alleged" the child suffered retinal and intracranial hemorrhages and doctors at St. Luke's hospital only offered Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) as the cause of injuries.  Extensive analysis of  all the St. Luke's doctors reports by neutral and unbiased medical experts in the U.S. and Australia, show no other possible cause of the "alleged" injuries was considered, let alone tested for by St. Luke's doctors.  These same medical experts say other possible causes such as a fall, otitis media, HLH, vaccine/immunization damage, antibiotic reaction and numerous other possibilities were never considered or tested for, although should have been.  This is despite all of these and other possible causes being proven throughout the world to cause SBS like injuries.  Fortunately the child only spent 48 hours at St. Luke's hospital and was released.  The child's release from hospital only came after my arrest, charge and jailing on March 16, 2001.

In March 2001, I was visiting the Pacific North West for a scheduled 6 weeks, including Boise on business as the CEO of Pro Hoops Australia (PHA), a business I had formed in 1996.  During my visit I was meeting with the Boise State University Men's Basketball program and head coach Rod Jensen in regards to recruiting more of their graduating basketball players to in Australia; organizing basketball games for visiting Australian teams who were coming to the USA in October & November 2001 to compete against Idaho schools such as Albertsons College, North West Nazarene, Lewis Clark State and North Idaho and other schools in the Pacific North West and to organize two charity games for a visiting Australian team to play a Pacific North West All-Star team in November 2001.  All of the proceeds from the two charity games were being split between a local high school, Children's Speech and Hearing Centers and Idaho School for the Deaf and Blind, courtesy of PHA and Kirk Pinner.

One of the most difficult things for me to comprehend is how it came about that Ada County authorities decided to only accuse me of the "alleged" offense and only consider SBS.  Over a dozen people had come in contact with the child in the time period the injuries could have occurred, even if it is SBS.  Here I was, doing work for people and schools in the state of Idaho, not costing them a penny, but the work I was doing creating these people and schools money, opportunity and an improved lifestyle.  Couple this with my personal history, it made the accusation against me even more absurd.  At the time I was a 29 year old (am now 32), family and community man with no criminal record- not even a speeding ticket.  I had worked at a Sydney pre-school as a part time volunteer for 3 years caring for children from 6 months to 5 years old.  I had worked for the government of Australia for 4 years in the Department of Community Services with my role dedicated to helping disadvantaged families and children, juvenile detention homes, juvenile court homes, abused children, foster children and pensioners.  I had over 10 years of charity and volunteer work to credit my benefiting children's charities, organizations, and hospitals and youth basketball clubs all throughout Australia.

Within my role of CEO and PHA from 1996 to 2001, I had organized 11 basketball teams from Australia to tour the USA, 9 teams from the USA to tour Australia, 22 young Australian players obtain US College Scholarships, and 87 American players to obtain professional basketball contracts in Australia-15 of these players from the State of Idaho, and from schools such as Boise State University, Idaho State University, University of Idaho, Lewis Clark State University and Albertsons College.

The de-registering and bankruptcy of PHA is my personal loss, and 6 years of pouring my heart, soul, determination, mind and finances into what I love.  This is also a loss, and 6 years of pouring my heart, soul, determination, mind and finances into what I loved.  This is a loss to the state of Idaho, it's schools, it's basketball players and the states economy.  Now no more Idaho basketball players obtain contracts in Australia, and no more Australian teams visit Idaho.  I have lost PHA solely due to the accusation of  me "allegedly" committing aggravated battery, and the subsequent detainment in custody.

After my release on bail from the Ada County Jail in April 2001, I remained in the USA for 7 months for court proceedings.  During that time I had no permanent home, no social security possibilities, no medical insurance to treat Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, no stable income, no family network or way to support my family.  I was losing business and contracts by not being in Australia.  I had no immigration Visa to remain in the US legally.   Immigration and Naturalization Services advised I leave the US under Federal Immigration Law, as that was the law I entered the US under and my Visa had expired.  I attempted to obtain a letter of support from the Ada County prosecutors office, so I could show INS to have them issue me a new Visa.  My attempts went unanswered.  INS were then of the view that regardless of any state imposed sanction for me to remain in the USA by Idaho for court proceedings, this did not alter US Federal Immigration Law, and I was to leave the US accordingly.

Ultimately I departed the US under the directions of Federal Authorities, and the Australian Federal Authorities legally.  Returning to my home, family, and business, having exhausted all avenues to remain in the USA legally.  Once arriving home I immediately brought ease to my family emotionally and financially.  I sought urgent medical attention for my Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and went about attempting to salvage what I had left of my business.  My 9 months in the USA had seen my business come dangerously close to bankruptcy.  I also contacted a prominent Melbourne legal firm in regards to the charge in Idaho.

In December of 2001, I was living in my hometown of Wynyard Tasmania with my parents and things were slowly coming together.  I had been home only for 7 months when on June 11, 2002 two Australian Federal officers had came and arrested me at the basketball stadium where I was coaching and consulting one of the best regional leagues in Australia.  I was arrested on an extradition warrant.  Ada County had requested the United States Federal Government to approach the Australian Federal Government, which was required to come under the provisions of the Treaty on Extradition between Australia and the US in 1974.  Ada County's request had to go all the way to the Secretary of State Colin Powell and Attorney General John Ashcroft for their signatures prior to being sent to Australia.  Subsequently the US application for extradition went to the Australian Federal Justice Minister, Senator Christopher Ellison for his signature.  Then came the issuance of the extradition on warrant which was signed by a Magistrate in the State of New South Wales.

With International Extradition typically being for charges of murder, drug smuggling, people smuggling, and embezzling millions of dollars and the like, there was no opportunity under the Extradition Act for me to be released on bail in Tasmania, my home state while waiting the Extradition proceedings.  I was remanded in a maximum security custody in a prison in Hobart, Tasmania where I eventually stayed from June 11th, 2002 to May 16, 2003 (over 11 months).  As a result my business became de-registered, bankrupt and extinct in a matter of months.

Despite over 150 family members, friends, and supporters writing to the Justice Minister Ellison from June to November 2002, and calling on him to abolish the Extradition court proceedings and deny Extradition immediately he denied to acknowledge the pleas.  I had one court hearing regarding extradition in front of the Magistrate who on December 4, 2002 deemed me eligible for extradition under the Extradition Act of 1988.  All the while I sat in prison in Tasmania unconvicted with no charge in my own country, for what the Federal Attorney General's Department referred to as an "administrative process".

I was permitted to appeal the decision by the Magistrate but I elected not to and let the Australian Government decide my fate.  I was also permitted to object to being extradited and objected to on the grounds of human rights.  Mr Ellison could not deny my extradition on the grounds and therefore supported the US application for extradition and signed the surrender warrant on April 24, 2003 for the charge of aggravated battery.

I was given 20 minutes notice to pack and vacate my prison cell prior to being collected by the Australian Federal police.  I was not even permitted to notify my family that I was going to be taken 10,000 miles away.  I have no fear of  going to trial for this "alleged" charge.  I actually welcome it.  I wrote a letter to Minister Ellison asking him to appear via video link up for the preliminary stages but was denied even though it is world wide and has been done before.

Combining the time I spent in custody pursuant to this charge in Idaho and the time in Tasmania it exceeds 18 months and come my trial in February 2004 it will be 22 months.  During this time I have missed the birth of my youngest son Maguire, my health is deteriorating, as well as the health of my parents.  My partner Tracy's quality of life deteriorates as well.  I lost my business and have not been able to be part of my oldest son Riley's life.  The only contact I have with my family in Australia is through letters which take 10 to 14 days via airmail.

My trial has been rescheduled 3 times and these were all against my requests.  The last one was due to my public defender needing more time to prepare for the trial and the prosecutor taking maternity leave till the end of January 2004.

At the end of this ordeal and injustice who reverses all the pain and suffering my family and I have had to endure?  Who repairs my reputation? Who gives me back everything I have lost these past 22 months?  Someone needs to be accountable for crushing a family's life.  All I want right now is to be back home with my family and attempt to make up for lost time, time that has been taken away from me by overzealous government officials with misguided agendas and who does not care about family values or human life.

Everything I write here is supported by documentation and nothing is hearsay.  There is much more I could write about but somethings are strictly for the courtroom and my trial.  In the interim I hope you will keep an open and objective mind and consider me as I should be and that is "innocent until proven guilty".  Unfortunately this term no longer seems to exist.  I trust true justice will finally be served, and I am vindicated or aquitted of this charge against me.

Kirk Pinner
Tassie man who hurt tot could be freed in a year
By LUKE SAYER
April 29, 2004

A TASMANIAN man (Kirk Pinner) who shook an 11-month-old baby was yesterday jailed for seven years in the US state of Idaho.

But former Burnie basketball entrepreneur Kirk Neil Pinner, 32, could be released in 12 months, after the judge took account of two years he has already served leading up to the trial, and suspended four years of the term.

In February a jury found Pinner guilty of shaking Dawson Stephens so hard that the child had haemorrhages in his brain and eyes.  At the time Pinner was living with the family while working on a basketball tour.

Ada County Judge Wetherell said Pinner had harmed the child and did so quite willingly by shaking him.  "You fled this nation when you knew you had a jury trial," Judge Wetherell said.  "You fled this nation because you thought you could get away with it.  "Based on the evidence, you strongly shook the child."  The judge said Pinner had claimed evidence of shaken baby syndrome was "junk science", but then relied on another syndrome, chronic fatigue, as a reason for leaving the US.

Pinner showed little reaction to the sentence, after speaking at length in his own defense with minimal emotion.  Court observers said Leann Stephens, the mother of victim Dawson
Stephens, was very unhappy with the sentence and began crying.  Ms Stephens said Pinner had got away almost scot free and it wasn't fair.

Ada County deputy prosecutor Shelley Armstrong had sought a 15-year sentence for Pinner but said she was pleased with the final result.

Defense attorney Gus Cahill said the judge seemed to be influenced by the good references for Pinner and his previous lack of legal problems.

Pinner's partner Tracy Anderson, of Burnie, insisted he was innocent.  "It's not in his nature to be violent, especially to a child, as noted by the judge," Ms Anderson said.  She said the family hoped Pinner could be sent home to serve the remainder of his sentence.  Ms Anderson said there had been no formal decision on a mistrial motion filed in March.  The motion claims the prosecution and sheriff's department threatened an expert witness with the sack if he testified for the defense.  "I remain hopeful that Kirk will be fully vindicated, and we will be able to overturn this conviction against him, no matter how long that takes," she said.

Pinner's mother Wendy said the family were shocked and devastated by the sentence.  "But I suppose it could've been worse with the prosecutor pushing for 15 years," Mrs Pinner said.

Braddon Labor MHR Sid Sidebottom, who has been working with the Pinner family, said he was sad at the result but pleased he had been given credit for time served.  "We will work ... to assist Kirk to return to Australia as quickly as possible," Mr Sidebottom said.

9.  Robbie was diagnosed with sinus-ethmoids disease.  It had been reported by family members that Robbie seemed to always have the snuffles.

10.  Robbie had a tracking problem as noted in his chart by his pediatrician in relation to his eyes.  There was also evidence of glaucoma found.

11.  Robbie suffered no bruising in his neck area.  This would be present had he been shaken as they claimed.

12.  There was not a single mark on his body to even suggest that Robbie had been shaken.  There were no bruises or red marks.

13.  It has been discovered that Robbie’s mother threw Robbie onto a bed during an argument with his father.  The police had also been to the residence numerous times for domestic problems.  Yet, no one investigated or charged anyone else.

14.  Robbie’s thalamus was the size of a 12 year old.  The thalamus is supposed to get smaller as we age.  It organizes sensory messages to and from the higher levels of the brain.

15.  In addition, Robbie’s immune system was virtually non-existent.  No doubt, his exposure to “hot lots” did not help.
 

The State’s theory was this: I was feeding Robbie and he spit up on a new shirt.  I then became enraged at him and shook him.  After realizing what happened, I allegedly conjured up a story and called 911.  Well, their theory would be completely wrong.  Even their own witnesses put holes in it.  First, they knew from Robbie’s own mother that she fed him and she burped him while I was outside.  Second, both Robbie’s mother and members of the rescue squad testified at no time was I wearing a shirt.  The rescue personnel even said he handed me a shirt before leaving for the hospital.
 

I later was told the reason I was charged is that I was the last person to be with Robbie.  Even though there was never any evidence of me being abusive towards him or any other child.  Robbie’s mother even said I was very loving and caring to Robbie yet here, I am in prison.  It made no difference that 911 were called less than 10 minutes after his mom left.  The doctors failed to thoroughly look at him and his medical history.  No other tests were done to rule out anything but “SBS.”  I did not do what I was accused of.  I am still fighting for vindication.  I loved my “little buddy” Robbie.  He was not my son but I cared for him as if he were.

In closing, I know that God and Robbie knew I did nothing wrong.  Robbie got sick and stopped breathing and I helped him.  Because of that, I am in prison.  I miss him, as I am sure many people do.  I am paying for a mistake made by a bunch of overzealous and negligent doctors.  They should have treated him instead of “waiting it out.”  If there is any negligence, it is on those who were in charge of his treatment.

There are many thanks to many people.  My mom and dad, who have been there from the beginning and still, support my innocence.  Dr. John J. Plunkett, who believes in my innocence and proved it during my trial, He has been a vital part of this case.  Dr. Ronald H. Uscinski, I cannot put into words the gratitude for all you have done.  You too have believed in me.  Dr. Vera Schreiber, words are not enough to thank you for what you have done for others and me.  Dr. Mohammed Ali Al-Bayati, a man who has taken on a large task and has uncovered things that promises to blow this wide open.  Dr. Harold Buttrham, your work has helped open up the eyes that once were shut.  The team of Ms. Toni Blake and Lauren Dillehay for their work and “SBSdefense.com.”  The Vaccine Adverse Effects Reporting System (VAERS).  Without it, people would have no idea how widespread the vaccine “hot lot” epidemic really is.

“I have a responsibility to prescribe a regimen of treatment for the good of patient according to my ability and my judgment and never do harm to anyone”  - Taken from the Oath of Hippocrates

Baby Robert Quirello's Case/Medical Analysis

The charge stems from Ryan's hospitalization for seizures at 5 months of age on the day of his second DTP, HiB, and oral polio vaccinations in March 1996. That was when the Careys lived in White House Station, N.J., just west of Bridgewater.  Now they live in Washington Township in Warren County, and Carey is on trial in Flemington, N.J.  He could get five to 10 years in prison.  Neither parent had ever faced criminal charges for anything before their son's health problems.

But the father was found not guilty Tuesday, Sept. 1, by a 12-person jury after two days of deliberation. The jury heard defense testimony that Ryan's symptoms occurred after a DTP vaccination that may have caused the seizures and brain damage. Ryan had reacted badly to his hepatitis-B and first DTP vaccinations -- the parents remember him crying inconsolably "day and night," arching his back stiffly, projectile vomiting, showing little appetite, sleeping most of the time, flushing hot and cold.  The medical records back them up. Symptoms were severe enough that Ryan was hospitalized twice shortly before Christmas 1995.  The diagnosis came back "milk intolerance" and "colic."

In the meantime, his head ballooned from 351/2 centimeters to 461/2 centimeters -- so noticeable that visiting relatives worried aloud; so large that instead of infant headgear, Ryan had to wear the hats of his older brother William, now 5, and so fast the pediatrician at one point worried about "water on the brain" but changed her recommendation for a CT scan after telling the parents the baby "had a big head because his father had a big head."

About four hours after his second DTP shot on March 22, 1996, Ryan -- recalled the father who was watching him -- "started screaming like he had never screamed before," rolled back his eyes, went stiff, then limp, then started gurgling. The paramedics gave oxygen and took Ryan to Hunterdon Medical Center, where the convulsion was noted as "most likely" an adverse reaction to DTP.

Transferred to Robert Woods Johnson Hospital the next day, Ryan continued to have uncontrollable seizures. Full skeletal X-rays revealed no broken bones, bruises or any sign of physical trauma. An MRI, a form of X-ray, however, showed three subdural hematomas "consistent with shaken baby syndrome." Child abuse authorities were called by the hospital. The next day, Ryan was taken from his parents and placed with an aunt.

In February 1997, he was indicted on the criminal charges, which just came to trial in August.  Carey's attorney, Joseph E. Krakora of Morristown, based his defense on "the pretty compelling case that the intracranial bleeding was connected to administration of a vaccine."

Defense witness Dr. Mark Geier, a Maryland pediatric geneticist, testified that the batch of DTP Ryans's shot came from was included in 17 other seizure cases that were reported to the Food and Drug Administration by parents and physicians. Dr. Jan Leesma, a Chicago pediatric pathologist, testified Ryan's interior brain bleeding was parallel with known reactions to the DTP vaccine which mimic symptoms of child abuse.

The lawyer told GNS, "There is no dispute Ryan had a neurological condition in March that contraindicated the second DTP vaccine. ... If the pediatrician had picked up on the initial contraindications, my man would never be in the courtroom."

Australian Doctor Weekly Article, New Jersey Law Journal, Vaccination Liberation, Red Book Magazine

Larry Gray -- When Christopher Gray, now 9, was born in Covina, California, his father, Larry, was 21, and his mother, Debby, was 18.  The day after his first DTP shot at six weeks of age, the previously healthy baby went into a seizure in his father's arms and stopped breathing.  His father gave him mouth-to-mouth resuscitation, and the infant spent the next four months in hospitals.  Queens Valley Hospital documented an acute encephalopathy (acquired brain damage) and took note that the seizure followed the vaccine, but at the second one, UCLA Medical Center, someone changed the diagnosis to "infant shaking syndrome."

Gray and his wife were told by social workers if they tried to visit the child again, they would be arrested.  The social workers sent the baby to live with his paternal grandmother, where the parents were allowed to visit their baby one hour a week.  "The social worker interrogated my mom as if she were a criminal, too," remembers the father.

Finally, in September 1989, remembers Larry Gray's current lawyer Curtis Webb of Idaho, "One of the doctors involved quietly told the detective that the DTP vaccine could do this damage, too, so the police didn't pursue it."  The baby was returned to the parents, but they broke up.  Larry Gray became his son's care-giver.  Lawyer Webb filed a claim with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.  It went to hearing in 1993.

"The Justice Department fought this with absolutely no holds barred," recalled Webb.  "They insisted the kid had been shaken.  The mother came back to testify along with the father.  They were both treated by the federal government as if they were child abusers."  The U.S. Court of Claims special master in charge of the hearing did not agree.  On Aug. 4, 1993, he ruled for Christopher Gray, finding the brain damage was clearly connected to the DTP shot.  In 1996, Larry Gray moved to Harrah, Oklahoma, where he has a cousin who could help take care of Christopher.  Now, five years after the compensation ruling, he still hasn't seen a penny.  Only in August did Gray, his lawyer, and the Justice Department reach final agreement on a life-care plan.  The first payment is expected in autumn.

"The compensation program drags their feet," the father said.  "It is not their life they are putting on hold, it is ours."  California doctors told Larry Gray his son would not live past 1998.  "As soon as we won," recalled Webb, "the Justice Department lawyers called me saying they still believed this child was shaken and the only way they'd agree to a settlement is if the money was put into a reversionary trust, meaning the money would revert back to the government if the child dies."

Webb, who has handled more than 100 cases before the vaccine compensation board, asked, "Do I think they're waiting for the kid to die?  I think there's something to that.  That surely is what Larry Gray believes.  In some cases, the delay on settlement is legitimate, but the Justice Department has contributed to the delay in this case."  The Justice Department denies this, blaming Gray's move to Oklahoma for the delay -- contending it meant starting all over on a life-care program for the child.

"Now, whenever I see a shaken baby prosecution, I wonder," Webb told GNS.  "It's usually exactly the same setting as this case.  The kid gets the DTP shot at 2 months or 4.  The kid goes into an epileptic state.  The kid is diagnosed with some sort of brain hemorrhage.  The kid is taken away from the parents after the hospital says it was shaken.  It makes me think this happens more often than you might think it does."  Seemingly healthy infants left debilitated.
National Vaccine/Gannett News Service, Vaccination Liberation

Jeffrey Johnson -- Court records showed that Jeffrey's son, Devin, born in the second week of 1993, appeared a healthy boy until May 19, when he was given his second set of DTP shots in a suburb of St. Paul, Minnesota.  For the next four days he was cranky, started frequent projectile vomiting, and kept spiking fevers.  At a St. Paul urgent care center, he was diagnosed with an ear infection.  On the evening of May 24, in the care of his father while his mother was at work, Devin went into convulsions while being changed and had trouble breathing.

Devin's father began mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.  Devin was rushed to a hospital where CT scans and MRI's showed retinal hemorrhages and serious brain injury: an accumulation of trapped blood under the skull in the spaces adjacent to the brain, caused by bleeding from nearby blood vessels -- subdural hematoma.  Devin continued to have seizures in the hospital.  The vertebrae in Devin's neck were normal, there were no fractures, no skin bruising, and there were no external signs of trauma. The hospital, however, decided Devin's injury "very clearly fits" shaken baby syndrome and notified police.  The father, Jeffrey, having been the last one with the baby, was charged by the state of Minnesota with first-degree assault and malicious punishment.

The case came to trial in April 1995.  Defense lawyers Barbara Z. Ashley and Louis Tourinus argued that Devin suffered from a reaction to the DTP, which they said exacerbated a prior subdural hematoma incurred during a difficult birth.  Jeffrey Johnson -- who had lost his car salesman job in the meantime -- was found not guilty on both counts by state Judge Gary R. Schurrer.

The judge ruled "the court cannot find that Devin suffered from shaken baby syndrome" and that prosecutors had offered "no evidence to establish beyond a reasonable doubt that defendant was any more likely than any other individual to shake or otherwise assault Devin."

From his brain injuries, according to court records, Devin suffered "significant difficulties in mental and behavioral development" and needs special schooling.  After the father's acquittal, lawyer Ashley filed a claim with the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program in Washington -- the agency set up a decade ago to help compensate families of vaccine-injured children.  Special master George Hastings, one of several appointed by the U.S. Court of Claims to hear such matters, threw the Johnson claim out: "Petitioner is not entitled to a program award."

In his written analysis, the special master said the ear infection "is simply a better explanation for the symptoms that Devin did display" after the vaccination.  Although Justice Department lawyers defending against the claim brought it up, Hastings insisted he was not influenced by the shaken baby charge on the father's record.  He wrote, "I should point out that I would resolve this case in the same fashion, even were there no evidence at all concerning the possibility that Devin was the victim of child abuse."

But then, in his case analysis, the special master meticulously detailed the suspicions of hospital physicians that Devin "very clearly fits the diagnosis of shaken baby syndrome" and concluded "the evidence pointing to trauma as the cause of Devin's injury is simply far superior to the scant evidence pointing to his vaccination."

Dr. Thomas Schweller, a San Diego pediatric neurologist who testified as an expert in both the Johnson and Gray federal claims hearings, contends the DTP vaccine -- while not a cause of original brain bleeding -- "in these cases is consistent with causation in rebleeding" if subdural hematoma has previously occurred.

The current shaken baby diagnostic process is based on conventional wisdom that doesn't hold up, according to Schweller: "You read in a scientific article that you can't develop a head injury unless you have a violent act or a 10-foot fall, and it doesn't fit the spectrum of injury that pediatricians and neurologists routinely see."
Petition Filed

Malcolm Scoon - The small nursery that Lois Scoon and her husband, Malcolm, of Queens, NY, lovingly wallpapered in little yellow and white roses is quiet now.  The crib is still there, but it is empty.  The stuffed toys-the giraffe, monkey, and lion that soothed baby Mariah to sleep every night were tucked alongside her in the coffin the tiny 5-month-old was buried in.

The death of a young child is devastating to any parent.  But Lois Scoon's grief has been compounded by the fact that her husband is not at home to share it with her.  A few months after Mariah died from a brain hemorrhage in March 1996, Malcolm Scoon was accused of causing her injuries by shaking her violently.  Convicted of second-degree manslaughter, Scoon, once a practicing anesthesiologist, is now serving two to six years in a medium-security prison in upstate New York.

To those who knew Malcolm Scoon as a gentle man who never lost his temper, the idea that he had caused his daughter's death was impossible to accept.  Mariah was the Scoons' only child, the baby Malcolm and Lois, both now 41, had struggled hard to conceive, undergoing in vitro fertilization three times.  Born almost three months premature in September 1995, weighing just over two pounds, the fragile baby spent the first two-and-a-half months of her life in a neonatal intensive-care unit, much of that time on a ventilator to help her breathe.  As she fought to survive, she would require six blood transfusions. "We were at the hospital every day," remembers Lois, then a teacher.  "I pumped breast milk to give her.  She was so small, with tubes everywhere.  The hardest part for us was that we couldn't hold her.  But we were thrilled she was alive.  No one can say we weren't attentive parents.  All the hospital records confirm this."  In fact, several respected medical experts insist that prosecutors fingered the wrong culprit in Mariah's death.  "I cannot understand why Malcolm Scoon was found guilty," says Patrick Barnes, M.D., former chief of pediatric neuroradiology at Boston Children's Hospital.  "I've been looking at injury to the brain for 22 years, and in that time, I've reviewed a lot of child abuse cases.  This was not one of them."  Instead, Barnes and others are convinced that Scoon is among a growing number of parents who are unfairly blamed for the side effects of vaccines given to millions of American babies each year.  It is a shocking trend, one that alarms both government officials and medical professionals.  "We are very disturbed to learn that there are a lot more injuries [from vaccines] than is realized," says Beth Clay, a staffer with the congressional Government Reform Committee, which has been conducting hearings on vaccine side effects for the past year. "A number of people have been accused of causing Shaken Baby Syndrome (SBS) and jailed."

"There is a sudden groundswell of these cases," agrees John Menkes, M.D., a pediatric neurologist at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles who is regarded by many as the "father" of his specialty.  Even when there is other, more likely medical explanations for a baby's injuries, Menkes says, prosecutors rush to judgment-and he is cynical about the reasons: "Ambitious prosecutors get their names in the paper.  It's a career boost for them."

Neuroradiologist Barns-who took the stand against British au pair Louise Woodward in the SBS death of Matthew Eappen in 1997-testified that the kind of blood clot Mariah had was caused by a meningitis-like infection triggered by the pertussis portion of the DTP vaccine, which in turn caused brain hemorrhaging, swelling, and inflammation of the brain and its lining.

With a child as frail as Mariah, he adds, emergency room doctors' attempts to give her CPR could also have put pressure on the blood vessels leading to her brain, contributing to her bleeding.

"Mariah Scoon was a very frail baby who died from meningitis, which at that age has a very high mortality rate," agrees Enid Gilbert Barness, M.D., a pediatric pathologist and professor at the University of South Florida who also testified for Scoon. "It was right there on her pathology slides.  A blind man on a galloping horse could have seen it.  But once it was decided this was SBS, they didn't look any further.  The guilty finding was an absolute miscarriage of justice."  Prosecutors made much of Scoon's admission that he slightly jostled his daughter, hoping to revive her that day he found her limp body in the crib.  Lois Scoon is also convinced that her husband's case was hurt by the media attention it received.  A frenzy of front-page tabloid headlines was triggered by Long Island Jewish Medical Center's recommendation that Mariah be taken off life support.  The deeply religious couple refused, and the hospital took them to court.  Eventually the late Cardinal John O'Connor, archbishop of New York, arranged for the baby to be transferred to St. Vincent's Medical Center, a Catholic hospital, where Mariah remained on life support until her heart stopped beating.  But the couple's battle with the hospital fueled suspicions that they were trying to delay the criminal investigation.  Lois maintains that she and her husband simply were hoping that a "miracle might happen.  We wanted to give Mariah every opportunity to live," she says.

WHEN VACCINES HARM
Mass vaccination is arguably modem medicine's most successful tool for preventing disease, disability, and death.  Vaccines have saved tens of millions of lives, eradicating smallpox and polio from most industrialized countries.  Dreaded killers like whooping cough (caused by the pertussis bacteria) and diphtheria are now almost unheard of in developed countries.  Most of the 4 million infants born in the U.S. each year are vaccinated beginning at birth and continue to receive booster shots for the next five years - a total of 33 doses of ten different vaccines.  No vaccine is 100 percent safe, and public health officials acknowledge that immunizations serve the common good at a high cost for a few.  In 1986 the federal government officially recognized that trade-off by creating the National Vaccine Injury Compensation Program.  Funded by a surcharge on every vaccine dose, the program has so far paid out more than $1 billion in settlements to the parents of brain-damaged and other seriously hurt children.  Almost 75 percent of those claims concern the DTP vaccine.

Few people wanted to look closely at the problem of vaccine injuries 18 years ago when Barbara Loe Fisher, 52, co- founded the National Vaccine Information Center in Vienna, VA, with other parents whose children had suffered devastating problems after being immunized.  "It's hard for me to express in words how tragic the denial of the reality of vaccine injuries and deaths has been," says Fisher, whose own son Christian, now 22, suffers from multiple learning disabilities as a result of a reaction to DTP.  Fisher, who now serves on vaccine advisory panels for both the Food and Drug Administration and the National Academy of Sciences, says that the success of the smallpox vaccine nurtured a belief that mass vaccination could save the world from all infectious diseases.  "The drug industry, the government, and the medical community raced forward developing all manner of vaccines," she says.  "In their speed to act and their hope of making the world a better place, they apparently did not consider that there may be a significant risk to the immune and neurological systems of some children."

While 150 new vaccines are now in development, Fisher, along with Congressman Dan Burton, a Republican from Indiana and chair of the Government Reform Committee, and others in Congress, is working to raise awareness of vaccine-related safety issues.  Among the concerns critics would like to see addressed:

What is the real rate of adverse reactions?  The federal Vaccine Adverse Event Reporting System receives between 11,000 and 12,000 reports each year, mainly from physicians and vaccine manufacturers.  But reporting is voluntary, and surveys show that responses vary widely from state to state, with as many as one in ten to as few as one in 100 doctors actually bothering to fill out the necessary paperwork when a child suffers a reaction.  In addition, some fatal injuries may be misclassified, as Sudden Infant Death Syndrome, for instance.

Why aren't side effects of vaccines studied?  The government spends $1 billion a year to develop and promote vaccines, but only a fraction of that goes to fund independent studies of side effects, says Fisher.  "Vaccine testing is done on too-small number of kids, and they are monitored for too short a time," says Mark Geier, M.D., a Maryland geneticist formerly with the National Institutes of Health and an expert on DTP.  "Previously undetected reactions can show up later, when larger numbers of children are inoculated.  I've seen a manufacturer insert in a vaccine that read 'Studies show no significant major reactions, but some may show up in the field.'  And they do."

—Why aren't hot lots immediately pulled off the market?  "Hot lot" is the term used to describe a batch of a vaccine that generates ten or more reports of illness or two or more reports of seizure or death.  "There is tremendous variability between a good lot and a bad one," says Geier.  "The endotoxin in DTP vaccine lots, for example, can vary 50-fold."  According to the National Vaccine Information Center, some vaccine lots have resulted in as many as 227 reports of serious reactions, and others in as many as 13 deaths.  But the Food and Drug Administration leaves it to drug manufacturers to voluntarily recall a bad batch.  And because lots vary dramatically in size, says Larry Gray's attorney Curtis Webb, of Twin Falls, ID, "it's hard to determine if eight to ten serious reactions are many or not," meaning that hot lots continue to be sold.

—How safe is it to give infants several vaccines at once?  Congressional investigators are concerned about the growing practice of giving a child as many as six separate shots or one "super shot" containing as many as nine vaccines in one visit. Pediatricians do this for convenience's sake or to keep the number of needle sticks per kid at a minimum.  "But everybody just guesses," says the Government Reform Committee's Clay.  "By introducing so many different vaccines at the same time, it's possible that we could be blowing a child's immune system, just like overloading the electrical system by putting too many plugs into one outlet."

"Federal policy makers are not paying serious enough attention to the dangerous side effects that are occurring," says Congressman Burton.  "We can no longer keep our heads buried in the sand on this issue.  The risks are too great for both parents and children."

As for Lois Scoon, she has faith that one day, her husband will be exonerated.  The $400,000 in legal fees wiped the couple out financially, so they are relying on a court-appointed attorney in their appeal.  Meanwhile, each Friday night Lois boards a prison charter bus for the eight-and-a-half hour trip to the Bare Hill Correctional Facility in upstate New York, near the Canadian border, where her husband is held.

"If anyone saw him, they would not believe what he has been through," says Lois, who attributes her husband's good spirits to his strong faith.  "He has been an encouragement to me."  The worst thing for her, she says, is the loss of a child she adored. "Mariah had just started smiling and cooing when she died," she says.  "Her little smile and that cooing sound are what I miss so much when I come home."

Ken Marsh's Story - Brenda's son, Phillip, age 2 ½ yrs old, died in 1983.  The day of his death, he fell from the top of a 4-5 foot sofa and hit his head on a speaker with an ashtray on top of it on the way down, striking the back of his head on the fireplace hearth.  Ken Marsh was babysitting Phillip and was charged with murder and was convicted of his murder in 1983.  Ken has always maintained his innocence.  I have kept up my fight to clear his name because I know that if I had been home with Phillip by myself that day; it would have been me that was charged with my son's murder.

Detective Armijo, of the S.D. homicide department, believed Phillip's death was an accident but the case was prosecuted as a murder/child abuse crime at the urging of Children's Hospital doctors.  Detective Armijo, the homicide team leader, has since come forward with a signed declaration to help free Ken stating that he believes that in his 30 years with the S.D.P.D., this is the one case that bothers him because he feels that an innocent man went to prison.

The medical staff that was treating Phillip at Children's Hospital the day of his death, ruled Phillip's death a murder.  In fact, when I arrived at Children's hospital before he died, the doctors immediately told me that Phillip had been murdered.  This was prior to any autopsy being performed.  Ken was arrested prior to the medical examiners report being issued on the cause of death, and before a death certificate was issued.  The Children's Hospital doctors all testified at Ken's trial in 1983 that Phillip could not have suffered traumatic brain swelling, and bleeding as a result of the fall and could not have died from a short fall. (We now have helmet laws to protect children from such short falls off of bicycles, scooters, etc.) .

Phillip had a prior undiagnosed bleeding disorder (Dr. Ruth Stern Phillips pediatrician called the ER crew to notify them Phillip had a blood dyscrasia and infectious mono).  But Dr. David Chadwick of Children's Hospital, summarized Phillips death and omitted all evidence of the coagulapathy.  All the other doctors relied on his summary for their diagnosis and did not review any prior medical records.  In a meeting with the doctors, at Children's Hospital I begged them to look for his illness.  They told me to separate myself from him and let go of the illness, it had nothing to do with Phillip's death.  To top it off Ken's attorney presented NO expert medical testimony in his behalf and did not get a second autopsy.

Ken was tried and convicted of 2nd Degree Murder in November of 1983.  He has spent the last nineteen years in prison because the jury never heard any evidence of Phillip's pre-existing medical condition.  The autopsy was performed by a Children's Hospital Doctor who had been a treating Physician during Phillip's emergency care.  It should be done by an independent doctor.  I have since discovered that this doctor, Dr. Roger Williams, was not qualified to render an opinion where causation of death is questionable because he was and still is not a board certified forensic pathologist and has no specialty training in forensic pathology.  Everywhere they touched him he bruised.  At trial, they had my baby's autopsy photos blown up life size on a wall.  That is not how I wanted my baby remembered.

No-one ever tested for a bleeding abnormality even though Phillip's prior medical history indicated had been bleeding internally 2 months prior to this accident.  A review of the the records would have shown them that he was being seen frequently for vomiting, bruising, distended stomach, and clotting symptoms which were documented by lab results.  From the moment of Phillip's birth he had medical problems.  The amniotic sack broke 18 hours prior to delivery.  He remained in the birth canal for a long period of time.  The doctors had to use forceps to deliver him and his head and face were mangled from them at birth.  He had broken blood vessels in each eye, jaundice, and chalmydia pneumonia.  And a huge fontanel that never totally grew together. In Jan. 1983, he lost a lot of blood.  This happened a few days's after I took Phillip to the Kaiser Hospital with vomiting and constipation and a hyper-extended stomach.  After several Kaiser visits, in January 1983, I took Phillip into the Kaiser emergency room because he was in shock.  I was screaming malpractice when Dr. Cashmore walked through the door in the ER, I believed that he misdiagnosed him a few days prior, he then filed a suspected child abuse report about Phillip.  This is the time when he threw up a child abuse flag and Phillips doctor happened to be part of the child abuse committee and her husband a physician at Children's Hospital.  From that point on no matter what I took him in for they made nothing but accusations in the chart, that I was never aware of.  They would make documents like new bruises noted, mother has no explanation.  That is why I was bringing him in regularly, it is all over his charts.  Mother bringing him in for " bruising, vomiting, etc". After putting our family through hell, it was dropped in March, about three weeks before Phillip fell.  The Kaiser doctor, Dr. Stern, took the case to the child protection committee at Children's Hospital.  Dr. Stern was a member of the child abuse committee, so the day Phillip died, the Children's Hospital doctors were well aware of his case.  They did nothing to help answer his internal bleeding issue.  In which Dr. Stern herself testified. "I wish they could have told us where the bleeding had gone."  This was a 2 1/2 yr old boy with 5 inches of medical records and for at least a year prior to Phillip's death, I had been taking him to the same physician at Kaiser Hospital on a regular basis and reporting abnormal bruising, vomiting, constipation, hair loss and petechiae and purpura (discolored spots on his body).

From that point on all my cries for help went unheard by the blindness of those I was supposed to trust.  When I entered Children's hospital the day that Phillip fell, a Children's Hospital Doctor in an outside area approached me immediately.  He told me my son had been murdered and that his death could not have been accidental.

Phillip fell at 11 a.m. and Ken called 911 immediately.  The records indicate that Phillip was going through a post-traumatic seizure - he had a pulse but low blood pressure and chopped breathing.  The forensic evidence immediately gathered by the police establishes that there was very little blood from Phillip's cut's to the back of his head.  He was sent by ambulance to Alvarado hospital without any neurology care.  When Phillip left Alvarado Hospital he was at least stable.  In the ambulance a pronounced period of Bradycardia is documented after an injection of mannitol (prior to a blood transfusion).  Soon after this point is where health care workers start seeing bruising and swelling appear before their eyes.  Around 1:30 p.m., Phillip was taken to Sharp Hospital, next door to Children's Hospital where he had a cat scan.  Phillip didn't arrive at Children's hospital until over 2 1/2 hours after he incurred a closed head injury.  During this 3 hour time period, the swelling in Phillips head grew without any medical intervention whatsoever.  And had been exaggerated in transport.

Around 1:40 p.m., Dr. Kenneth Ott from Children's hospital inserted an ICP monitor to relieve the pressure in Phillip's head. The medical records appear to establish that they were all witnessing swelling before there eyes.  Earlier, Kaiser had diagnosed Phillip with a ruptured spleen that was ruled out during his autopsy.  I believe that several of the doctors on this "child abuse" panel run by Dr. David Chadwick, and Dr. Williams were the ones treating Phillip the day he died and later testified that Phillips head injuries could not have occurred from a short fall.

I vehemently objected to Dr. Williams performing the autopsy since I felt he had a conflict of interest in determining the cause of Phillip's death.  Dr. Williams had treated Phillip at 1:30 p.m., when he was first admitted to Children's hospital and I felt he would not be objective, given the fact the Children Hospital doctors had told me that Ken had murdered Phillip.  In arriving at his opinion on causation, Dr. Williams did not look at the pre-existing illness and symptoms that Phillip suffered and that were documented in the Kaiser medical records from January to the date of his fall.  The autopsy report does not mention any pre-existing conditions.  Dr. Williams took evidence samples at the autopsy but had them destroyed without testing them.

At the time Ken was prosecuted, the County Coroner's Office was permitting Children's doctors to perform autopsies so that they could increase the child abuse prosecution conviction rate. (See LA Times Article).  Also, there were several other cases in which Children's Hospital doctors erroneously concluded that an accidental death was child abuse/murder and the Medical Examiner's office rubber stamped the autopsies resulting in criminal prosecutions.  I have collected several newspaper articles where the medical examiner's office had to back down when other doctors conducted an outside independent review of the case.  Had Ken had the benefit of an independent review from unbiased doctors, I don't believe he would have been convicted and sentenced to a life behind"Prison Walls".

Over the years I have written hundreds of letters to medical and legal professions urging them to review my case.  I have located a phenomenal Appellate Attorney, Tracy Emblem, who has dedicated thousands of pro bono hours and tears putting together a Writ of habeas Corpus petition.

We have received assistance from the California Western School of Law and several medical experts who reviewed Phillip's medical records.  After a careful review of all of the medical records, they have submitted there declarations for the Writ.  Finally I have the proof and answers I have needed, to understand why Phillip died as he did, and just what was wrong with him before he died.

I am joined by friends, family and legal and medical professionals all over the country who believe that Ken has been wrongfully convicted.  Here are just a Few!

Ken Marsh was convicted of the child-abuse murder of 33 month old Phillip Buell, a crime he did not commit.  Phillip was neither abused nor murdered.  The investigating police officers believed Phillip's death was the product of an accidental fall. Phillip's family knew little Phillip was not killed at the hands of Ken Marsh and have continuously protested his conviction from the outset, to this day.  Ken Marsh has maintained his absolute innocence, while remaining in prison buried alive and forgotten for the past twenty years.

No one ever saw Marsh do anything to Phillip.  No one said Ken Marsh had a motive to harm Phillip.  No one ever heard Marsh say that he had done anything to Phillip.  In fact, according to everyone, Ken Marsh had a loving and gentle history with Phillip.  He just happened to be the person at home when Phillip fell off a sofa and hit his head on the fireplace.

So, who said Ken Marsh killed little Phillip?  It was the doctors at Children's Hospital and they did it the very day he was admitted.

As set forth in some of the bullet points from the habeas petition, prior to his death, Phillip was a sickly child with a documented medical record of disease highly relevant to the cause of his death.  He had infectious Mononucleosis and a consequent bleeding disorder which inhibited his little body's ability to coagulate blood.  A short fall with his head hitting a hard surface would provoke his intracranial bleed.  Then, in an act that proved fatal, the doctors attending Phillip gave him a large intravenous injection of a drug (Mannitol) that immediately brought on a massive intracranial bleed leading to his tragic death.  Mannitol is a drug that provokes bleeding -- the exact opposite of what Phillip needed to stop his bleed.

The doctors who pronounced Phillip's demise to be the criminal product of human hands to the exclusion of all other possible causes, on the very the day of his admission to Children's Hospital, never mentioned a word of the above.  They gave the diagnosis popular at the time - if an infant is injured, the parents or parent surrogates are to blame.  Science and medicine were not consulted that day.

Now, highly qualified doctors have reviewed this sorry record.  These doctors are working for no compensation in the cause of innocence, as are the lawyers, to rectify the wrongs of their own profession.  The habeas petition documents why no competent physician could rationally find (then or now) that Phillip's death was caused by Kenneth Marsh.  Phillip hit his head on a fireplace causing an intracranial bleed.  His existing disease inhibited his body's natural coagulation defense to stop the bleed.  Phillip's limited natural defense was totally compromised by the doctors's administration of Mannitol.  Unmentioned at any previous proceeding in this case is a numeric code entry, scratched in the margin of Phillip's death certificate. This cryptic entry is an International Death Classification code showing that one of the causes of Phillip's death was toxic poisoning - the administration of Mannitol by Children's Hospital.  This is but the tip of an iceberg of cruel malfeasance in this case perpetrated on petitioner and Phillip's family by those in a position of trust, causing an immeasurable injustice.
WHAT WENT WRONG WITH THE MARSH PROSECUTION?
· Ken Marsh has maintained his innocence his story has never changed.  He has repeated it over and over again during several parole hearings.  The state prison psychologist, Dr. Terrini believes he is innocent.

· Phillip's family has always maintained he was very ill and that his illness was not properly diagnosed.  They all support review of his case.  Phillip's mother has begged every public official excluding the President to