j_p_ ,

I tried looking into why would they call the “shaken baby syndrome” “junk science”, since it’s a very real thing accepted by all the reliable sources I could google. I had to read into their linked sources to understand what part exactly is “junk”.

So just to clarify, it’s not that the “shaken baby syndrome” isn’t real. It is. The “junk” is the part in which scientists identified three symptoms (“bleeding between the tissue layers covering the brain, swelling on the brain, and bleeding at the back of the eyes”) that happen from shaken baby syndrome, and some forensic practitioners read that as a bi-directionally exclusive relationship: if the three symptoms occur, it must be shaken baby syndrome. There isn’t enough evidence to support that other issues couldn’t cause the same symptoms, and using that triad as proof of abuse is controversial.

But shaken baby syndrome is very real, and it causes those three symptoms. The wording of this article (including the subheading) repeatedly seems to imply otherwise, which spreads dangerous misinformation that reads as “shaken baby syndrome is a myth” and that “physically abusing children doesn’t cause shaken baby syndrome”. That is “junk journalism”.

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