Details about this story

• Source: Scripps Howard News Service
• Date: September 24, 2007
• URL: Read the story
• Bylines: Lee Bowman , Thomas Hargrove
• Topics: Death , Children
• Data Types: Federal Data
• Description/Excerpt: Every day in America at least 10 babies die suddenly and mysteriously. Yet some of the more than 4,000 victims of sudden infant death each year could be saved if there was a simple national standard for infant death investigations, a seven-month review by Scripps Howard News Service has found. In fact, we are getting further away from solving the mystery of Sudden Infant Death Syndrome because of sloppy procedures, manipulation of statistics, misguided efforts to protect the feelings of grieving parents, and deliberate attempts to make SIDS go away, at least on paper. The Scripps review of 40,000 infant deaths going back to 1992 revealed that the quality of infant death investigations, the level of training for coroners, and the amount of oversight and review vary enormously across the country. In many cases, professional bias -- both for and against a diagnosis of SIDS -- trumps medical evidence. As a result, the odds that an infant's death will be correctly diagnosed are often determined by geography rather than science. In other words, the same death might be called SIDS in one county and called something else just down the road.
• Database or Graphic: Go to site (com/sids/database/)