Lucy Letby - Specifically those who think she is guilty…

[BEAchDays2]

I’ve just been reading massive amounts of posts of Facebook following the new doc out about LL. (Blame a long train journey!) and it got me thinking, those who still think she is guilty what are your reasons?

It does feel like the tide has turned generally. I haven’t watched the new doc yet, likewise has anyone seen it, and is it worth it?

Which 6 babies do you think would still have been at COCH after the downgrade to L1?

@DistantEarlyWarning the 32+ weekers

@Oftenaddledthere was all sorts of gas in unusual places in these babies.

https://www.chesterstandard.co.uk/news/23392416.lucy-letby-trial-unusual-amount-gas-detected-baby/

He told the court: “This is gas throughout the gut. This degree of gas is quite unusual in a baby like this.”

He said potential causes were infection or necrotising enterocolitis (NEC), a common bowel disorder in premature-born babies.
An alternative explanation was the administration of air via a nasogastric tube, he said.
Dr Arthurs came to the same conclusions regarding an X-ray of Child O, captured hours before his death.
He said: “This shows a lots of gas in his stomach, small and large bowel. This is more than what would be expected in a normal baby.”

But multiples and any child with a complex obstetric history would not have planned births there after July 2016. That rules out Child D, O and P. The ICU cot was only for emergency cases to await transfer out. That rules out the first child who died in September 2015. Here is a description from the review by Dr Brearey and Eirian Powell of the second child to die in September 2015:

Multiple congenital abnormalities
PM: Orofacial digital syndrome type 6 (Varadi Papp syndrome)
Compromised from birth.

https://thirlwall.public-inquiry.uk/evidence/inq0001888-draft-paper-from-the-countess-of-chester-hospital-titled-position-paper-neonatal-unit-mortality-2013-2016/

A child recognised as compromised from birth would also be transferred out for ICU care elsewhere.

We have less detail about the last 32+ weeker to die but we know this was another child with congenital abnormalities.

Chester was no longer running an ICU ward after July 2016. They had one emergency cot to await transfer out for infants needing it. It wasn't simply a matter of not admitting children below 32 weeks. Those children were filtered out automatically - but Chester wouldn't accept or keep older children needing ICU care either.

I don't think anybody has ever argued that air from venous air embolism ends up in the gut. These were arguments for the now discredited theory of death via air in the nasogastric tube, famously altered by Dr Evans in the case of baby C to mean wind after all.

You are showing how it really doesn't help the prosecution case to handwave air in one location as having the same significance as air in another. These are completely different phenomena.

@Oftenaddled I'm sure Stephen Brearey and Ravi Jayaram are aware of what children they take on the new unit.

So all a serial killer needs to do is target multiples and/or babies with a mother who has a condition? That's probably most of the NICU. What babies are even being cared for there if you're saying oh that baby wouldn't have been there now for xyz reason. Obviously if they're in an NICU at all there's some support they need! It could be any baby and you'd think up some other excuse for why they wouldn't be on the new unit.

How do you deal with a serial killer whose favourite victims are multiples then? It's like half of the babies on the indictment were multiples, exactly because she targeted them. But you put it down to natural causes simply because they are multiples, it's circular reasoning.

Because a journalists knows much more about medical evidence than a surgeon😂
he said air would be seen on xray in the heart, my background is medical I don’t know.

No idea what you are on about here.

The discussion was around whether the drop in deaths after Letby was moved was as a result of COCH taking lower acuity babies following the downgrade, rather than because of Letby not being there.

You refute this by saying that all the babies born after 32 weeks gestation would still have been there.

Oftenaddled points out that you are wrong about this. Multiples, low birthweight babies, those with congenital birth defects and those with complex obstetric history would not have been there.

She’s not making it up. You can read the NHS criteria for admission to the various neonatal care levels for yourself if you like.

What does intestinal gas have to do with air embolism?

The consultants certainly would know what children they treated without an ICU, so their claim focusing only on gestation is clearly misleading.

Multiples are certainly more likely to die. That doesn't mean you just nod along, say they are more likely to die, and don't investigate their deaths. It does mean presenting them as having the same risk factors as other children is inaccurate, so arguing from statistics that they shouldn't die at higher rates than other children is unreasonable

I'm just going by what the consultants said. How very convenient for Letby that the only babies she attacked over 32 weeks were multiples and those with congenital abnormalities (we didn't even know she was involved in those deaths before) that still doesn't mean that they should've died. Regardless of them being taken on the downgraded unit or not. I guess Dr Brearey is lying about the almost 100% survival of 32 weekers or there was just a huge anomaly that year with six babies who just inexplicably died despite their odds being almost 100% of survival. Sounds plausible.

Didn't you say that you didn't care about statistics?

@FrippEnos it's more medical opinion than statistics.

The consultants sending a selective short paragraph on each death is hardly proof that Lucy Letby attacked the children. Remember - they had no evidence beyond her presence. They made that clear again and again.

It is hardly remarkable that the children over 32 weeks who died were multiples or had congenital abnormalities and complex obstetric histories. Dr Brearey gave the survival rates for children born from 32 weeks gestation generally, not for the more fragile children he was actually describing.

That doesn't mean you just nod along, say they are more likely to die, and don't investigate their deaths.

Well that's a relief. Yet it seems to be what you've been doing the entire time. Oh lets blame the triplet deaths on a birth injury that we don't know exists and can't prove or disprove. The weakest triplet survived oh well that can easily happen, something about birth injuries again etc. there is NO proof these triplets died naturally is there.

there is NO proof these triplets died naturally is there

What proof, exactly, would be certain to exist if they did?

@Dolphin37 not unexplainable liver injuries akin to a car crash for a start.

The legal problem is not to prove they died naturally, whether you like that or lot. It is to prove that they were killed

Where is the proof they were killed?

And given that most had autopsies and that the clinicians did not report suspicions before the last pair of deaths, how was the evidence that these children had natural deaths weaker than that of hundreds of others whose deaths are certified annually?

I believe we have alternative explanations for the nature of the liver injury. I hope they will be considered as appropriate before the court of appeal in due course.

Its still stats.

The legal problem is not to prove they died naturally, whether you like that or lot.

It isn't but when you've got severe injuries and no natural causes to explain it then what you're left with is deliberate harm unfortunately isn't it? Otherwise we're back to dismissing it simply because they were a higher risk birth (which you said you don't agree with doing) unless you actually meant "investigate but default go with natural causes anyway" which hardly constitutes an investigation.

Why are you saying there are no natural (or iatrogenic) causes?

@DistantEarlyWarning because I haven't seen any explanations with evidence behind them? What are they then?

If (as the judge said) no specific mechanism of harm needs to be proven to infer harm, then why must a specific mechanism of natural/doctor-caused death be proven to infer natural/doctor-caused death? If anything, the latter requirement should be much less strict, given that only reasonable doubt about purposed harm is needed.

Numerous investigations, before and since the police involvement, have found natural or iatrogenic causes for each death