The evidence that claimed to discredit Sir Roy meadows was it's self found to be wrong

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Why didn't the news make such a big thing pointing out that Professor Sir Roy Meadows was right? His Evidence still stands. The evidence they used to 'discredit' his findings was it's self discredited. He was right. Why do the media want to help child killers?

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This is the science bit. It shows/proves that the faulty 'evidence' used to destroy Meadows' word was faulty. I.e.- Meadows is right. His word still stands.

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http://news.independent.co.uk/health/article2785464.ece . Paper one
Paediatricians accuse General Medical Council of putting children at risk

Sarah Boseley, health editor
Monday April 2, 2007
The Guardian

More than 50 UK paediatricians today launch an unprecedented attack on the General Medical Council, accusing their regulatory body of deterring doctors from speaking out, and arguing that the stance could increase the risk of child abuse.
The doctors take issue with the GMC over its handling of the cases of David Southall and Sir Roy Meadow, two senior paediatricians disciplined in relation to the case of Sally Clark, the solicitor accused of killing two of her three children, who was jailed and later cleared and freed on appeal. Mrs Clark died two weeks ago. Her family said she had not recovered from the miscarriage of justice.

In an article in the American journal Pediatrics, written before Mrs Clark's death, the paediatricians claim the GMC does not understand child protection work. The GMC's actions "conflict with current child protection laws and guidance for professionals and already might have contributed to the reduction in the willingness with which doctors raise child protection concerns", they say.
Doctors are already fearful of raising concerns, they argue. The number of children being placed on child protection registers by the authorities dropped by 28% between 1995 and 2005, they write, yet the number of criminal convictions for cruelty to, or neglect of, a child increased by 247% between 1998 and 2005.
Professor Southall was disciplined for contacting police with his theories about the Clark case, in which he had no professional involvement, after watching a television interview with Mrs Clark's husband.
The paediatricians say he was justified. The European convention on human rights says citizens are entitled to voice concerns, subject to the law of defamation. In 2005, the doctors add, the Lords ruled that "when considering that something does not feel 'quite right', a doctor must be able to act single-mindedly" for the child.
The paediatricians also say: "The views of the GMC were contrary to current child protection guidance, which treats the child's safety as paramount - that is, 'the doctor is charged with the protection of the child, not with the protection of the parent'. We do not consider that the reporting of genuine concerns about the safety of a child to responsible authorities, within the confidentiality of established processes, brings the medical profession into disrepute, but the GMC did because it failed to understand the medical responsibilities in child protection."
Professor Meadow was struck off the medical register in 2005 by the GMC for giving misleading evidence in court when he said that the chances of two sudden infant deaths in an affluent family (the Clarks) was "one in 73 million". But, the doctors say, he had not set himself up as a statistical expert. Prof Meadow was reinstated to the register on appeal.
The Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health found in a 2004 survey that 14% of 3,853 member paediatricians had been the subject of a formal complaint. The paediatricians say a third of child protection posts are unfilled and many trainees do not want to enter the field.
"The actions of the GMC have been accompanied by an effective campaign led by a group of parents accused of abuse and supported by some influential journalists. One aim ... is to deny the existence of certain types of child abuse. This has resulted in politicians stating [in parliament] how fabricated and induced illness is a 'pernicious and ill-founded theory'."
The GMC said it had acted properly. "We agree that it cannot be in the public interest if doctors are inhibited from acting to protect children, or deterred from giving evidence honestly and truthfully ... But equally it cannot be in the public interest, or the profession's interest, if the GMC is not free to act when doctors practise incompetently or inappropriately. We have sought only to act to protect the public interest from doctors who fall significantly short of accepted standards."
The GMC says the paediatricians are making matters worse. "By overstating their case, they fuel a perception that the GMC is somehow bent on persecuting doctors involved in child protection work."

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http://society.guardian.co.uk/nhsperformance/story/0,,1512227,00.html Paper two

Q&A: Sir Roy Meadow
The paediatrician Professor Sir Roy Meadow has won his appeal against being struck off the medical register for "seriously misleading" evidence that led to Sally Clark's wrongful conviction for murdering her baby sons. David Batty examines the controversy

Friday February 17, 2006
SocietyGuardian.co.uk

Who is Professor Sir Roy Meadow?
Once considered one of Britain's most eminent paediatricians, Sir Roy Meadow has figured in the wrongful convictions of several mothers for killing their children. His role in the miscarriages of justice has tarnished his reputation as the first president of the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health and his discovery of a rare form of child abuse, which he named Munchausen syndrome by proxy (MSBP). This is a rare and bizarre form of child abuse in which carers - usually mothers - fabricate, exaggerate or induce symptoms of illness in their children to gain attention for themselves. Great Ormond Street children's hospital in London sees no more than 12 cases a year of MSBP, now renamed "factitious or induced illness". After he retired, in 1998, the 72-year-old continued to work as an expert witness in child abuse court cases. The General Medical Council (GMC) last year struck him off the medical register for what it called his misleading and erroneous evidence in one of those cases. But he won a high court appeal to overturn the ban.
What was the GMC inquiry about?
Prof Meadow was found guilty of serious professional misconduct over his testimony in the 1999 trial of the solicitor Sally Clark, who was wrongly convicted of murdering her two baby sons, Christopher and Harry, and jailed for life. Her conviction was overturned on appeal in 2003. A GMC disciplinary panel concluded he had "abused his position as a doctor" by giving misleading evidence in the trial. It said the consequences of his errors "cannot be underestimated".
What was his misleading evidence?
Prof Meadow told the jury there was a one in 73 million chance of two cot deaths occurring in the Clark family. With 700,000 live births a year in England, Wales and Scotland, it was an event that would happen by chance "about once in every 100 years", he added. But this evidence, besides taking no account of genetic or environmental factors, was also clearly wrong, with 25 years of research showing the odds of two cot deaths in one family were only one in 77. A study published in December 2004 in the Lancet found that second cot deaths in the same family were far more likely to result from natural cases than abuse.
When did flaws in his evidence emerge?
Flaws in the statistical evidence were apparent by the time Mrs Clark's case first went to the appeal court, in 2000. But she was not freed until her second appeal - after it had emerged the Home Office pathologist Alan Williams had failed to disclose microbiology tests on her son Harry indicating he could have died from natural causes.
Why did the high court overturn the GMC decision?
Judge Mr Justice Collins ruled that Prof Meadow's actions in Ms Clark's trial could not properly be regarded as serious professional misconduct because "he had acted in good faith". He said the GMC should not have brought misconduct proceedings against the professor because expert witnesses should be "immune" from prosecution or disciplinary action. The judge said it might have been fair to criticise the paediatrician for failing to disclosing his lack of expertise in statistics but this did not justify a finding of serious professional misconduct.
What is the likely impact of this ruling?
The GMC has warned it could have serious implications for all professional regulatory bodies. The council said the ruling would place doctors acting as expert witnesses in court cases beyond the reach its scrutiny. It added the only exemptions to this "immunity" for expert witnesses would be if the judge in a court case complained to the regulatory body. But the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health said the ruling should help encourage doctors to give evidence in child abuse court cases. Its research showed many medical experts were reluctant to act as expert witnesses after Prof Meadow was struck off.
Have their been similar cases?
Prof Meadow gave evidence in three other cases where mothers were accused of murdering their children. Seven years ago Donna Anthony was jailed for killing her infant son and daughter after the professor and another expert told the court the chances of two cot deaths in a case such as hers were one in a million. She was freed in April 2005 after the court of appeal quashed her convictions as "unsafe."
Angela Cannings had her conviction for killing her two baby sons overturned last year after serving 18 months in jail. The appeal court said that in future no prosecutions should be brought where medical experts were in dispute and there was no other cogent evidence. Trupti Patel, accused of suffocating three of her babies, was cleared of their murders in 2003. During the trial it emerged that Mrs Patel's maternal grandmother had lost five children in early infancy, suggesting that a genetic disorder could account for the deaths.
There have been challenges to several more child murder convictions in which the medical evidence is disputed. But a review of 88 "shaken baby syndrome" convictions of parents and carers over the past 10 years may not see a single conviction overturned, the attorney general said recently.
How have the wrongly jailed women reacted?
Ms Cannings said she was "very disappointed and disheartened " by the high court ruling. The father of Sally Clark, Frank Lockyer, described the ruling as "academic". Mr Lockyer, a retired police superintendent, said it did not change the fact that Prof Meadow's evidence was found to be wrong. Mrs Anthony said it seemed the paediatrician was "now able once again to ruin other people's lives just like he has mine."