The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation held a news conference last week outside the Apple Store in downtown Manhattan releasing the letter below to the Board of Directors of Apple and AT&T. While Apple has removed the "BABY SHAKER" application from its online store, Steve Jobs and Randall Stephenson have not issued a personal public apology. Apple has not issued a full accounting of how this was vetted and launched and Apple and AT&T have not offered a significant plan to mitigate the damages they have done to prevent child abuse. Until they do, The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation will continue to hold these organizations responsible for their actions. They have a fiduciary and corporate responsibility to ensure their companies do the right thing immediately!

Open Letter To the Board of Directors of Apple, Inc. and AT&T, Inc.;

Within the last 72 hours America has seen the soul of your organizations and something is very wrong. Your companies are reporting record earnings and yet you are showing no signs of corporate responsibility.

As you know by now, Apple released an iPhone application on Monday which simulated and encouraged the shaking and killing of babies called "BABY SHAKER". As the father of a 3-year-old daughter who was shaken when she was only 5 days old, breaking 3 ribs, both collarbones and causing a severe brain injury, I was shocked, appalled and angered! As the Founder of the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation, named after my daughter, with the mission to prevent pediatric acquired brain injury and to support the millions of children/young adults who suffer from the #1 leading cause of death and disability in the United States, the damage you have caused is immeasurable!

Apple displayed extreme recklessness in launching this application and the results were immediate and disturbing. Below are a few quotes from journalists and editors based on our press release yesterday who prove the seriousness of your actions. Go online and read the anonymous blog comments making fun of shaking a baby. The harm your organizations have caused in making light of harming and killing babies is enormous!

"I know! That baby shaker thing is so funny! We’ll mention your support in the review." - John Biggs, Editor-in-Chief, CrunchGear

"Uh, it’s a joke." - Ken Layne, Managing Editor, Wonkette.com

"Learn to take a joke." - Richard Nalley, Senior Editor, ForbesLife

"I couldn’t disagree with you more. The Apple App store is like a bookstore. It needs to be open to all the most repulsive ideas or we will have a regime of censorship. The next thing you know some corporate executive will decide that it is not politic to allow an app that furthers an idea you care deeply about." - Saul Hansell, Technology Reporter, The New York Times

While we are glad public outcry forced Apple to pull the application, the cynical way it was pulled without any explanation, any apology or any plans to rectify the damage they have already caused can only lead me to one explanation: this was a purposeful public relations effort coinciding with their campaign to promote their 1 billionth application download during Child Abuse Awareness Month and Shaken Baby Prevention week! The question I ask of you as fiduciaries of both Apple and AT&T is

        "How many babies is your 1 billionth application download worth?"

We have asked for a public apology from Steve Jobs and we would like one from Mr. Stephenson as well.

We would like a complete accounting as to who was responsible for the vetting and launching of this sick application.

We would like Apple and AT&T to develop a significant plan to reverse the damage they have caused.

Anything short of this will reinforce the belief this was a purposeful and cynical plan to reach a 1 billionth application download! As Directors of both of these companies you have a fiduciary and corporate responsibility and the authority to act immediately - we expect nothing less from you.

On behalf of the millions of families across this country who are dealing with a child who suffers from a pediatric acquired brain injury (PABI), we are demanding action.

If we do not receive an adequate response from Apple and AT&T by the time we begin our 15-city American PABI Tour on May 3rd (pabitour.com - to promote awareness and support families who are dealing with PABI) we will hold a demonstration in front of the Apple Store in all 15 cities.

Regards,
Patrick B. Donohue, Esq.
Founder, The Sarah Jane Brain Foundation
181 Broadway - Suite 300
New York, NY 10007
(212) 201-0599
www.TheBrainProject.org

The May 2009 Health Gazette ezine edition has been published on schedule today, May first. Subscribers will find it in their inbox and can also read it online in the subscriber-only archive.

This month's edition provides a response to the hype surrounding the so-called swine flu. We have not seen so much media hype since the so-called bird flu marketing exercise of 2005. The main article, Swine Flu: Avoid the Hype, encourages calm in the face of this episode and provides a more rational perspective than the mainstream media and many health authorities which seem to be dancing to the hype pedlars' tune. Read the article to learn what is an appropriate response.

A recent report in The New York Times indicated that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is holding a rare “all-hands meeting” to discuss strategic issues in the medical device division of the agency is a further indication that safety approval of medical devices has been compromised, putting patients’ health and safety at risk.  The meeting shows that the FDA sees an urgent need for reform in the agency especially when it comes to medical devices that have seen massive recalls and no recourse of litigation for those injured by these devices.

The American Association for Justice (AAJ) has been working with a large coalition of consumer and patient safety groups to pass the Medical Device Safety Act (MDSA), legislation that would restore the rights of medical device patients to seek justice in state courts when they have been harmed by unsafe medical devices. 

The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recently concluded driver fatigue, and the lack of federal safety standards protecting passengers on buses, contributed to the death and severity of the injuries sustained in the 2008 Utah bus rollover which killed nine and injured 43.  In response, the American Association for Justice (AAJ) is calling on transportation regulators to review pending pre-Obama administration regulations and open new rule making proceedings to enhance commercial transportation safety measures for both trucks and buses.

You can read more on the American Association for Justice's website here.
 

I recently received the February 2009 issue of the Archives of Clinical Neuropsychology.  The opening article is a position paper of the National Academy of Neuropsychology which is entitled “Secretive Recording of Neuropsychological Testing and Interviewing: Official Position of the National Academy of Neuropsychology”.  The authors of this position paper are Shane S. Bush, Patricia A. Pipental, Ronald M. Ruff, Grant L. Iverson, Jeffrey T. Barth and Donna K. Broshek.
 
There, NAN has taken the position that neuropsychologists do not and should not encourage, condone or engage in the secret recording of neuropsychological interviews or testing as such practice is both deceptive and inconsistent with ethical principles.  The paper also notes, in addition, that such a recording may affect the behavior of the examiner. 
 
Obviously, the issue of secretive recording of neuropsychological evaluations most frequently, if not always, arises in the context of forensic neuropsychological evaluations for litigation purposes.  Further, in most instances, the secret recording would be requested by the plaintiff’s attorney who was concerned about the impartiality of the defense neuropsychologist who is conducting the evaluation. 
 
While the position paper indicates that the examiner’s behavior may be affected, there is no support in the position paper nor any research cited in support of this statement. 
 
Furthermore, as has been indicated in other published papers, many defense neuropsychologists are paid tens of thousands of dollars to serve as a defense neuropsychologists.  Certainly, the payment of large sums of money to serve as a defense forensic expert would have a greater effect on the examiner’s behavior than that examiner recording the neuropsychological evaluation.
 
Finally, it is noteworthy that at the bottom of the position papers as well as all of the other papers published in this issue contain a section entitled “Conflict of Interest”.  In the position papers, all of the authors have indicated that they have no conflict of interest.  While I do not know any of the authors personally and assume and presume that they have undertaken their study with total integrity, it would seem that since this position paper as well as many papers that are published in the Archives involve forensic issues, that where an author is involved in forensic litigation, that neuropsychologist disclose his or her involvement in such litigation and how much of such litigation is on behalf of plaintiffs and/or defendants.  Certainly, if a neuropsychologist earns a great deal of his or her income from forensic litigation matters that a conflict of interest may arise and the readers of the Archives should be aware of such.