- guardian.co.uk, Tuesday July 19 2005 09.00 BST
It is also sad to see the vehemently one-sided commentary in the media, which has completely missed the wood for the trees. The number of paediatricians doing child protection work will dwindle inevitably thanks to this verdict. So who loses out? Sadly, the small but significant group of children who will continue to be harmed in various ways.
Dr S Arun
Stockton-on-Tees, Cleveland
Professor Meadow certainly made mistakes. He failed to understand simple mathematics, but it would appear that he shares that failing with 99.9% of the population. He said: "I was just presenting statistics. I don't pretend to be a statistician." He failed to understand the difference between data (information) and statistics (processing that information mathematically and drawing conclusions). When he multiplied the 1 in 8,500 chance of a child dying from sudden infant death syndrome by itself and drew conclusions he was unwittingly "pretending to be a statistician".
But what of everyone else involved? The police had the data, as did the Crown Prosecution Service, various solicitors and barristers, judges and jurors. They all had a responsibility to point out that he had made a basic error. If it is appropriate for Professor Meadow to be struck off the medical register then surely there are police officers, members of the CPS, solicitors, barristers and judges who should all be collecting their P45s.
Shaun JS Pye
Leeds
It is outrageous that elements of the specialist opinions Prof Meadow gave as an expert witness were second-guessed by the GMC, the majority of whom had had no medical education. From judgments such as this, it is becoming increasingly clear that the GMC is forfeiting the trust of the medical profession and no longer reflects its collective conscience.
James Appleyard
Blean, Kent
