57:. According to this diagnosis some parents, especially mothers, harm or even kill their children as a means of calling attention to themselves. Its existence has been confirmed by cases where parents have been caught on video surveillance actively harming their children, but its frequency is subject to debate as Meadow claimed to have destroyed the original data which he used to substantiate the law.
94:, or references to earlier publications. This is in striking contrast with the rest of the book which is replete with illustrative case histories and cites many references throughout. A recent examination of Meadow's own contributions to the medical literature has likewise failed to uncover supportive
194:
in which the probability of "cause given effect" (i.e. the true likelihood of a suspect's innocence) is confused with that of "effect given cause" (the likelihood that innocence will result in the observed double-cot-death). In reality, these quantities can only be equated when the likelihood of the
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nurse convicted of killing four children under her care and injuring five others, Meadow's ideas gained ascendancy in
British child protection circles, and mothers were convicted of murder on the basis of his expert testimony. Thousands of children were removed from their parents and taken into care
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probabilities by affluent non-smokers, Mathematics
Professor Ray Hill found that the probability of Clark's guilt could be as low as 10% (based solely on the fact of two unexplained child deaths, and before any other evidence was considered). In any case, a legal
214:") which might make some more vulnerable than others. The occurrence of one cot-death makes it likely that such conditions exist, and the probability of subsequent deaths is therefore greater than the group average (estimates are mostly in the region of 1:100).
46:, who until 2003 was seen by many as "Britain's most eminent paediatrician" and leading expert on child abuse. Meadow's reputation went into decline with a series of legal reverses for his theories, and in July 2005 he was struck off the medical register by the
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or fostered out because they were deemed to be 'at risk'. From 2003, however, the tide of opinion turned: a number of high-profile acquittals cast doubt on the validity of 'Meadow's Law'. Several convictions were reversed, and many more came under review.
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alternative hypothesis, in this case murder, is close to certainty. Since murder (and especially double murder) is itself a rare event, the probability of Clark's innocence was certainly far greater than Meadow's figure suggested.
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The "law" has it that because cot deaths are a rare phenomenon and difficult to explain by natural causes, it can be reasoned that "one is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder unless there is proof to the contrary."
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It is the authors' opinion that while a second SIDS death from a mother is improbable, it is possible and she should be given the benefit of the doubt. A third case, in our opinion, is not possible and is a case of
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must be proved on the basis of forensic and other evidence and not on the basis of these statistics alone. My own personal view that she is innocent is based on my subjective assessment of all the aspects".
171:, accused of murdering her two sons, Meadow testified that the odds against two such deaths happening naturally was 73,000,000:1, a figure which he obtained by squaring the observed ratio of births to
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events, governed by a probability common to the entire affluent non-smoking population. No account had been taken of conditions specific to individual families (such as a hypothesised "cot death
123:'One sudden infant death is a tragedy, two is suspicious and three is murder until proved otherwise' is a crude aphorism but a sensible working rule for anyone encountering these tragedies
90:. It is clear that the statement is the authors' opinion. It is not a conclusion reached by analysis of their observations; no supportive data are presented and there are no illustrative
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Professor Meadow did not originate the law. It appears to be attributable to D. J. and V. J. M. Di Maio, two
American pathologists who state in their book:
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is a discredited legal concept in the field of child protection, intended to be used to judge cases of multiple cot or crib deaths –
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562:"Genetics may free a woman convicted of killing her 4 babies and help other parents explain the unexplainable"
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The second criticism was that Meadow's calculation had assumed that cot deaths within a single family were
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for tendering misleading evidence. Meadow's licence was reinstated in
February 2006 by a London court.
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The formula is "clearly fallacious" according to Bob
Carpenter, Professor of Medical Statistics at the
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526:
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Dominic J. DiMaio and
Vincent J. M. DiMaio, Forensic Pathology, Elsevier, St. Louis MO, 1989, p. 291
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270:"The Prosecutor's Fallacy: How flawed statistical evidence has been used to jail innocent people"
140:, an expert witness in some of the trials where infant cot deaths were prosecuted as homicides.
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Meadow attributes many unexplained infant deaths to the disorder or condition in mothers called
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The Health Report: 24 January 2005 - Repeat Sudden
Unexpected and Unexplained Infant Deaths
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459:"Top doctor casts doubt on conviction of waiter Mohammad Ullah for killing baby stepson"
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Samuels, M. P.; McClaughlin, W.; Jacobson, R. R.; Poets, C. F.; Southall, D. P. (1992).
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Critics of Meadow's law state that it is based on a fundamental misunderstanding of
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case, Professor Ray Hill endorses a claim that Meadow did not originate the rule:
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An equivalent error is to accuse anybody who wins a lottery of fraud.
487:"Multiple sudden infant deaths – coincidence or beyond coincidence?"
119:, first published in the same year, Meadow wrote his formulation:
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Multiple sudden infant deaths – coincidence or beyond coincidence?
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289:"Kathleen Folbigg: Misogyny helped jail her, science freed her"
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is not to be rendered on the basis of statistics; Hill wrote, "
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Dr Glynn
Walters, Letter to Professor Ray Hill, published in
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by DiMaio and DiMaio in 1989, without mention of Meadow. In
304:"Kathleen Folbigg: Inside the case that gripped the nation"
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in affluent non-smoking families (approximately 8,500:1).
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Firstly, Meadow was accused of espousing the so-called
364:"Fourteen cases of imposed upper airway obstruction"
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Gene find casts doubt on double 'cot death' murders
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217:Combining these corrections with estimates of
138:London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
77:In a note to his mathematical analysis of the
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38:The name is derived from the controversial
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16:Discredited theory in child protection law
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178:This caused an uproar among professional
560:Hollingsworth, Julia (March 20, 2021).
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494:Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology
345:"Professor Sir Roy Meadow struck off"
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374:(2). BMJ Publishing Group: 162–170.
167:At the trial in 1999 of solicitor
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182:, whose criticisms were twofold:
111:The precept was published in the
60:As a result of the 1993 trial of
26:(SIDS) – within a single family.
506:10.1111/j.1365-3016.2004.00560.x
368:Archives of Disease in Childhood
572:from the original on 2021-03-20
287:Ritchie, Hannah (7 June 2023).
268:Mitchell, Joshua (2 May 2021).
302:Lane, Isabelle (5 June 2023).
1:
333:. The Observer; 15 July 2001
542:. www.docstoc.com. p. 6
343:Knight, Sam (15 July 2005).
98:evidence or references to it
55:Munchausen syndrome by proxy
24:Sudden infant death syndrome
457:Brown, A. (30 April 2010).
152:, particularly relating to
73:Attribution to the Di Maios
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423:"Timeline: Sir Roy Meadow"
208:statistically independent
202:Statistical independence
186:The prosecutor's fallacy
162:statistical independence
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48:General Medical Council
568:. Cable News Network.
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540:"Cot Death or Murder"
380:10.1136/adc.67.2.162
192:prosecutor's fallacy
602:Medical statistics
130:ABC of Child Abuse
117:ABC of Child Abuse
485:Hill, R. (2004).
219:successive murder
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20:Meadow's Law
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597:Criminology
313:30 November
291:. BBC News.
246:Sally Clark
169:Sally Clark
154:probability
79:Sally Clark
591:Categories
576:2021-03-20
546:2010-06-13
468:2010-06-12
433:12 January
255:References
173:cot-deaths
158:likelihood
150:statistics
144:Criticisms
66:paediatric
44:Roy Meadow
538:Hill, R.
351:. London.
349:The Times
570:Archived
514:15367318
308:SBS News
274:Cherwell
235:See also
126:—
101:—
88:homicide
398:1543373
389:1793411
224:verdict
40:British
30:History
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160:, and
490:(PDF)
228:guilt
510:PMID
435:2019
394:PMID
315:2023
212:gene
64:, a
566:CNN
502:doi
384:PMC
376:doi
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