Government Child Protectionby
Vin Suprynowicz
Receiving word that her mother's husband had been diagnosed with throat cancer and might have only three months to live, Francine Yurko moved from Ohio to Florida with her 4-year-old daughter in July 1997. She was six months pregnant and not gaining weight. Francine's fiancé, Alan, soon joined them. Francine was so ill with group B strep, a chronic E. coli infection, and gestational diabetes that she had lost two pounds, as well as 90 percent of her amniotic fluid. Labor was induced on Sept. 16. Baby Alan was born five weeks premature. He had underdeveloped lungs and respiratory distress. He was sent home after seven days in intensive care, but he did not thrive. At two months of age – but only three weeks after his actual due date – the baby was given a routine dose of vaccinations. "He was given six vaccines in one day," Francine told me in a phone conversation last week. "He already had a compromised immune system. ... You have to keep in mind that our child was seen virtually every week from the time he was born to the time he collapsed, either by his pediatrician or by some other medical professional, so we're not talking that this was a healthy, thriving child. It just amazes me how they failed to recognize the connection." The baby's health spiraled downward. On Nov. 24, he stopped breathing. His young father, home alone with the baby, borrowed a neighbor's car and raced to the hospital with his son in one arm, trying to perform mouth-to-mouth resuscitation as he drove. The child reached the emergency room alive, but died soon thereafter. Police detectives arrived and questioned Alan at length. He was arrested and charged with killing his child through the newly recognized crime of "shaken baby syndrome." When Francine refused to cooperate and try to get Alan to make a secretly taped confession for police, Francine was also arrested. Her daughter was seized and placed in foster care, where she was molested. Alan was in an isolation cell for a year and a half, awaiting trial. Other prisoners threw urine and feces on him through the bars, calling him a "baby killer." The family had no money for a private attorney, but the sole expert defense witness did testify the baby had died of natural causes. Regardless, Alan Yurko was sentenced to life in prison. He and Francine were married in prison. Alan Yurko sat cross-legged on his prison bed, reading 12 to 14 hours per day, for seven years. He became a self-taught expert on "shaken baby syndrome," vaccines, forensic pathology, pediatric head injury, and iatrogenic (doctor-caused) injuries. His wife set up a Web site called "The Yurko Project." Laboriously, longhand, Alan Yurko wrote 828 letters, logging them all. He got one reply – from Dr. Jane Orient, of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, in Tucson, Ariz. One. It was enough. Gradually, more and more doctors started taking an interest in the case. And the evidence they compiled against the state of Florida – and on Alan Yurko's behalf – was devastating. The baby's death, the growing consensus held, was caused by a "hot lot" of vaccine that he should never have received, given his fragile health, and by overdoses of heparin and bicarbonate at the emergency room. Then there was the autopsy. The official state autopsy that sent Alan Yurko to prison with its diagnosis of "shaken baby syndrome" was of a 2-month-old black male child, and contained a description of an examination of the inner heart muscle. But the Yurkos and their baby were white. Baby Alan was 10 weeks old, and his heart had been donated before the medical examiner saw the body. They mixed up the babies. Francine Yurko filed a complaint with state medical regulators. In an unprecedented move, the state of Florida in February 2004 ordered Orange-Osceola Medical Examiner Shashi Gore to perform no more autopsies pending his June retirement. "It was the strictest discipline ever taken against a chief medical examiner in Florida," the Orlando Sentinel reported. "Commissioners said they were prepared to remove Gore from office if he weren't already planning to retire." Ah, government work. Alan Yurko's case was reopened. The judge looked over the new evidence, and vacated the conviction. After seven years, Alan Yurko was a free man ... right? Ha, good one. You're not thinking like a government prosecutor.
Vin Suprynowicz [send him mail] is assistant editorial page editor of the daily Las Vegas Review-Journal and author of The Black Arrow. Copyright © 2005 Vin Suprynowicz |
