Over the last decade more and more scientific concepts and terms have crept into the mainstream vernacular, and with this introduction to scientific jargon a special type of pundit has been born. At Science on Trial, we have been subjected to an unhinged stalking campaign by an individual who literally uses the name of the Justice who presided over the Trial of Lucy Letby. The only distinction this individual makes is by placing ‘IP’ and ‘Girl’ at the end of the name Mr Justice Goss (Figure 1.). This individual must wish us to assume that they are by some means associated with the criminal justice system as it is quite a bold move to create what can only be described as an international campaign of stalking and harassment while impersonating a High Court Judge.
Still, this individual’s audacious impersonation of His Lordship, Justice Goss, referred to as Mr Justice Goss in the mainstream news, takes a similar approach to scrutinizing Science on Trial as often occurs when individuals seek to assert that they are qualified to assess scientific evidence! Mr Justice Goss Ip Girl, has demonstrated their exceptional capacity to stalk and harass Science on Trial and those working with the company. In an effort to discredit Science on Trial, Mr Justice Goss Ip Girl has created no fewer than 100 individual posts, on Science on Trial. Peculiarly, the one area that Mr Justice Goss Ip Girl failed to actually raise any doubt as to the validity is with regard the scientific analyses we at Science on Trial put together surrounding the Letby case, and presented to the court in June 2023.
It is apparently the hope of Mr Justice Goss Ip Girl that people will be as peculiarly intrigued by a scientist’s tawdry divorce, the finer details of what events occur with post-viva corrections, and whether people with the requisite skills, no criminal record, and valid immigration papers should be permitted to run corporations in the United States! Additionally, Mr Justice Goss Ip Girl has made it clear that they will only cease their ongoing harassment when Science on Trial stops conducting business!
Naturally, at Science on Trial, Inc, we look to the individual impersonating a high court Justice and ponder as to what has this person so aggrieved that they wish to violate numerous international laws by directly threatening to maintain their campaign of harassment and stalking of a U.S. registered Corporation until they put the entity out of business?! Not content with smearing a U.S. Corporation, this individual is also apparently using the name of a High Court Justice as some act of parody, mockery, or authority? Who is to know.
What we do surely know is that there is one element that Mr Justice Goss Ip Girl cannot attack, and that is the reality that every person involved in the Lucy Letby case acting as either an expert witness, or counsel, has a very tenuous grasp of science. That grasp of science is so poor that neither the prosecution nor defence appeared to recognise that the publication which was being relied upon to identify symptoms of venous air embolism did not in any way relate to venous air embolism. It is apparent that as of this very day none of these individuals cared to properly read the title of the paper.
A lesson in Reading Scientific Papers
Had any person who relied on this paper, or even sought to defend the paper similarly conducted a simple Google search of the terms “Pulmonary Vasculature” they would have immediately understood that this paper cannot be used as a basis for describing the antecedents of venous air embolism. The reason that it cannot be used in such a manner is because this paper does not describe venous air embolism. Nor does the phenomena described in this paper occur in venous air embolism.
This paper, as Science on Trial, Inc, informed the trial court in the Lucy Letby case, in June 2023, describes a distinct phenomenon which occurs solely due to artificial ventilation in neonates at high oxygen pressures (Lee and Tanswell, 1989; Kondza and Skaric, 2018). The only words that are relevant to the claims made by the prosecution are the words ‘air’, ‘embolism’, and ‘newborn.’ However the inclusion of the words ‘pulmonary vascular’ is sufficient to ensure that this paper should never have been used by a credible medical expert to describe venous air embolism, because it does not describe any such phenomenon. This is supported by more recent publications which literally describe pulmonary vascular air embolism in the context of neonates as follows:
"Pulmonary vascular air embolism is a rare complication of positive pressure ventilation in premature neonates with respiratory distress syndrome." (Kondza and Skaric, 2018)
As previously intimated, there is a tendency amongst those who know just about enough science to be able to accurately pronounce some of the technical jargon, to narrowly select only those areas they can comprehend and apply their flawed and inaccurate reasoning to their sense of authority, and limited scientific knowledge and deduce that they have arrived at a scenario which is certain, unequivocal, and true. It is striking that this same dogmatic, and stunted attitude exemplifies the peculiar obsession presented by Mr Justice Goss Ip Girl in the cache of screenshots they have posted in their effort to suggest that they can know the personal and private details of individuals running businesses 5500 miles from the U.K.! The desire by so many in the U.K. to indulge wholly inaccurate, undeveloped, and specious claims, while failing to directly engage with the truly relevant matters is quite exceptional.
Pulmonary Vascular Air Embolism in the Neonate
Still, let’s turn to the proof that nowhere in the paper cited by the prosecution in the case of Lucy Letby does it state the antecedents of venous air embolism because, nowhere in the paper does it describe venous air embolism.
Firstly, the pulmonary vasculature (Figure3.) describes those veins and arteries associated with the lungs and the heart. More specifically, the pulmonary vasculature describes those arteries and veins that connect the heart and the lungs. They do not describe any other vessels in the body. Briefly, blood returns to the heart via the veins, and enters on the right side (left side of looking at the image). This blood is coloured as blue in diagrams, as it lacks oxygen. The deoxygenated blood passes through the two right hand chambers of heart to the pulmonary artery. The pulmonary artery connects the deoxygenated blood with the lungs.
The oxygen is breathed in through the lungs and is picked up by the blood. Once the blood is oxygenated it returns to the left side of the heart via the pulmonary vein. The blood is then pumped from the heart where it travels around the body through the arteries. In the diagram above, the blue blood depicts deoxygenated blood, which travels from the heart to the lungs and the red blood depicts oxygenated blood, which travels from the lungs to the heart. You can see from the diagram that the deoxygenated blood travels to the lungs and then returns to heart as oxygenated blood.
The paper used by the prosecution describes a phenomena where high ventilation pressures damage the lining of the lung, and this causes the oxygen being delivered, via the ventilator, to leak out of the lung. This loss of air results in the formation of air bubbles in the vasculature that is picked up in the process of oxygenating the blood. The air bubbles entering the blood block the return of blood to the heart and this causes the heart to overwork and eventually collapse. In this case, the air bubbles are not derived externally, they occur internally due to the loss of pressure that arises with the air leak in the lungs. It is important to note that air embolism that occurs via this route does so very slowly and can take a number of hours before actual cardiac failure (Kim et al., 2009; Kondza and Skaric, 2018). This is one of many distinctions between what is described in the Lee and Tanswell paper, relied on by the prosecution, and what occurs in the case of venous air embolism.
None of the phenomena that is described in the Lee and Tanswell paper, as it relates to the symptoms described by the paper’s authors are events attributed to venous air embolism . The described symptoms relate to their specific study focused on pulmonary vascular air embolism which occurs due to high ventilation pressures. This describes a scenario where air bubbles form in the pulmonary vasculature and this causes respiratory collapse and a host of other symptoms. Those symptoms are not related to venous air embolism and nor do the authors of the paper even suggest that one could use pulmonary vascular air embolism to describe the symptoms of venous air embolism due to deliberate or accidental introduction of air in the venous system (Sowell et al., 2007).
Lucy Letby was not convicted of harming babies via pulmonary vascular air embolism - which she would only have been able to achieve by increasing the pressures on a ventilator, an impossible task where many of these neonates were not on ventilation, and the air embolism would only occur with accompanying lung damage. Letby is described as causing venous air embolism, this is where air is introduced via the vein and a bubble forms. That bubble makes its way to the heart, and on the way a clot forms, the clot consists of dead cells, and other proteins that attach to the bubble and move through the blood. When the air bubble arrives in the heart, it gets trapped in the pulmonary artery. This prevents the blood returning to the heart from being oxygenated by the lungs and results in a fairly rapid cardiovascular collapse (Sowell et al 2007).
Crucially, the allegation of venous air embolism in the Letby case does not result in air lock forming in the pulmonary vasculature in the manner described in the paper used by the prosecution. The Lee and Tanswell paper describes air bubbles that form in the returning oxygenated blood, from the lungs to the heart. Venous air embolism causes air lock in the heart this is why the demise is so rapid as described in the case of the sudden collapse of an infant (Sowell et al., 2007) (Figure 4.).
"When a venous infusion of maintenance fluids was started, the patient immediately went into cardio-respiratory arrest and was pronounced dead after resuscitation efforts failed."(Sowell et al., 2007)
In pulmonary vascular air embolism the bubbles that form can be sufficiently small that they pass through the pulmonary vasculature and return to the heart, where they can be pumped out throughout the body. This claim is literally made by the prosecution when the experts state they detected air bubbles in the brain, and elsewhere. Where bubbles are pumped out of the heart this describes arterial air embolism, and although may be coincident with venous air embolism, is not the cause of heart failure.
Ultimately, the prosecution based their entire air embolism case on a paper that describes a wholly different phenomena, which does not occur as a consequence of venous air embolism. The defence, were apparently equally unable to comprehend basic human biology since they failed to recognise the distinction between the pulmonary vascular air embolism described by Lee and Tanswell and the rapid venous air embolism that was promoted by the expert witnesses.
Invitation to Speculation - Expert Witnesses in England and Wales
With regard the expert witnesses, they too failed to grasp the distinction, which is likely because none of them had any experience conducting valid scientific studies, nor had they any first hand experience dealing with air embolism of any variety. Many in Britain felt that it was impossible that ‘expert witnesses’ could be so wrong about their claims surrounding phenomena they had never witnessed at any point in their professional careers! They stated how skilled and qualified these expert witnesses were and that any person or entity who challenged them, including Science on Trial, Inc, must be a conspiracy theorist or some sort of ‘fake scientist.’
Returning to the individual impersonating a High Court Judge, Mr Justice Goss Ip Girl went from claiming that anyone associated with SoT was supporting a ‘fake scientist,’ to actively stalking our business clients, and stating that those individuals were supporting a grifter. Other issues Mr Justice Goss Ip Girl had regarding Science on Trial, seemed to surround people getting divorced and generally making money from their skills and training! Much like the individuals involved in the Letby case this individual is unconcerned with realities! Presently, they are of the view that where a person is a published scientist, who has presented their work at international conferences they must also be a a ‘fake scientist’ simply because someone masquerading as a High Court Justice cannot obtain any of their educational records because they are protected under various laws surrounding one’s right to privacy!
Peculiarly, few people have sought to assess the actual educational background of the expert witnesses used in the case. It appears in the majority of cases none of these individuals have studied basic biological sciences for more than two years. And the majority are permitted to use the title of Dr. not because they actually have a doctoral degree, or even pursued doctoral studies. In the UK a medical doctor is permitted to use the title of doctor as an honorific. This was even introduced as a possible concern in the House of Commons in prior years.
"I should like to hear the Minister's views on whether a medical practitioner is misleading the public, solely by reason of his not holding a doctoral degree, if he accedes to the title "doctor" out of courtesy or long usage when he has no legal title to have the word used to him or to use it himself." (Mr. Michael Stern: Title Of Doctor. Volume 269: debated on Friday 19 January 1996
The majority of medical doctors who testified as expert witnesses, completed a five year medical degree, which consisted of two years of basic biological sciences and three years of clinical training. It is for this very reason that we should never be permitting such individuals to carry out scientific investigations (such as that which occurred in the Letby case) because they have less basic biology education than a third year undergraduate in biological sciences!
Advancing Scientific Theories in English Courts
In the Letby case, medics came up with a scientific theory as to how these babies died or why they appeared to become unwell. The issue is that they were not practicing medicine, they were practicing science. They developed a theory and attempted to use a publication from 1989 to justify core elements of their theory. However, this is not the business of medics, and the paper they cited did not support their theory because it described a completely different scenario to that which they had based their theory on. Such a crude, and silly error, is the hallmark of a rank amateur, and because there was not a single person who was not a medic, lawyer, or police officer making these claims there was no opportunity to actually look at this matter from the angle of forensic science. Note it is forensic ‘science’ and not ‘medicine’
The experts ask us to be patient while they trial their theories. This begins by the apparent requirement that we ignore the fact that nowhere in the world of scientific theories would one be permitted to base their theory on a single publication which is not even an actual scientific study, but is instead a scientific review. Once that hurdle is cleared we are then supposed to overlook the reality that it far exceeds the bounds of the educational skills and background of a medic to develop scientific theories as to the cause of death of neonates where none of those individuals have first hand experience of the phenomenon they claim to have discovered. If one takes this scenario at face value they can conclude the English Courts have become an incubator for the advancement of novel theories on human physiology!
On a more serious level, the failure to limit this conduct presents a question of our criminal justice system - is this really good enough? Is this really sufficient? A collection of medics, with no scientific background are permitted to advance their scientific theories in our criminal courts, they are free to make up science, cite irrelevant studies, and speculate about complex biological phenomena which occurs at the molecular, and cellular level, of which they have only two years worth of education and that was obtained forty years ago?
The criminal courts in England and Wales have permitted medics to masquerade as scientists and the result is convictions based on theories, that are refuted in the literature. This reality never makes its way to court because there is a total ignorance to the deceit that is being practiced on the court. Both the prosecution and the defence are officers of the court, tasked with ensuring the integrity of the proceedings, they are the final front before falsehoods can make their way to a jury. However, in many cases, the exuberant arrogance of these individuals can mean it is impossible to to make them see the errors of their ways.
A Shameless Failure to Safeguard the Reliability of Scientific Evidence
The Lucy Letby case represents a gross failing of both the criminal justice system and of medicine. A paper describing pulmonary vascular air embolism was used to describe venous air embolism, and these are distinct phenomena with totally different symptomolgy. This terrible inaccuracy was introduced to the court by way of medics, who refused to accept the limitations of their understanding of complex biological phenomena. They refused to appreciate that their two years of education into biological theory was wholly insufficient for them to be creating theories and advancing them in criminal courts, in order to secure a conviction.
Despite the starkness of the situation, the criminal justice system will convince itself that it has performed its duties, as required under the law. We are left to accept that the medical profession should bear no penalty, scrutiny, or investigation for moonlighting as scientists. However, we would not permit such individuals to represent themselves as scientific investigators or experts in any other arena, yet it is apparent that the courts in England and Wales have carved out an exception for the medical profession. They have permitted, for years upon years, medics to assert they have expertise, where they have no first hand knowledge of what they are testifying to and they have no experience of conducting scientific investigations, and thus have no way of knowing how to develop and assert a scientific theory from a literature review. Still, the court will entertain the scientific theories of these ‘fake scientists’ while apparently sending out the police to threaten real scientists when they deign to challenge the gross errors that were made by ‘experts’ with no expertise in to that which they have been retained to testify.
It is ironic that the greatest critic of Science on Trial is a person using the name of a High Court Justice - Mr Justice Goss. This individual, going by Mr Justice Goss IP Girl, condemns science, they believe that somehow if Science on Trial does not exist then this will improve some element of their life. The deficits in reasoning are striking, the science in all cases predicated on false and erroneous claims will always be false and erroneous irrespective of whether SoT or any other person/entity points this out. The science in the Lucy Letby case will always be based on the theories developed by a medic who had two years of basic biology theory, and who used the title of Dr. as an honorific. It will always be based on the descriptions made of pulmonary vascular air embolism, and it will always be the case that those descriptions do not apply to venous air embolism. If Science on Trial stopped existing tomorrow, none of these realities would change.
What is increasingly clear, as we draw back the curtain on other scandals involving our criminal justice system, it has been determined that there is no longer a requirement for evidence to be accurate, logical, and presented by actual experts. This makes it increasingly easy to comprehend why some individuals would perceive that by removing the source of the information, which counters the claims promoted by the prosecution, it would be sufficient to prevent anyone from uncovering the reality that the Letby case was devoid of credible scientific evidence because it lacked credible scientific experts. Indeed the court made itself clear that it did not want to know that the experts in the case were deceiving the court. When approached by a scientist, the court apparently sought to threaten arrest to any person who questioned the credibility of the experts. It is odd that such aggression could be evoked by so many by simply suggesting that the experts were incorrect. This is especially so given that all one has to do is read the title of the paper that the experts relied upon to see that pulmonary vascular air embolism is not the same as venous air embolism. This fact will always remain - it was the most overt evidence that this case was being led by people who were either dishonest or incompetent.
The erroneous and specious reasoning of a collection of medics was only given life because the prosecution and the defence welcomed this information into a court and gave deference to it without ever questioning how medics are free to conduct scientific investigations, which involve the development of theories and the construction of evidence, where there is no element of medicine that trains a medic in this practice! Very simply, a medical expert is one that has actual experience with the phenomena being described. In the event they lack such hands on experience they are not an expert, they are just a medic! If you wish for a suitably trained person to conduct an investigation, to identify the general body of knowledge as it concerns given phenomena which is described in published studies, this is the job of a scientist.
The Criminal Justice System must install limitations to the use of medics as experts where they are called to speculate. However, the Criminal Justice System appears indifferent to the extreme act of vandalism being carried out by permitting the court to become a realm where medics can pretend to be scientists. Instead, as we at SoT saw, first hand, courts in England and Wales would rather embrace scientific deception and falsehoods, look the other way when experts make up science, and invite a jury to guess as to whether they believe the nonsense claims made by experts with no expertise in the area to which they testified. At some point one must ask, if the Justices of our courts will not protect the criminal justice system from abuse and scandal then have we abandoned all semblance of what it means to be a civilized nation?
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At Science on Trial, we stand ready and willing to ensure that Lucy Letby receives the scientific integrity, and insights that should have been guaranteed from the outset. We will work with any individual who is committed to ensuring that all the scientific evidence is brought out in this case, as only when that occurs will it be possible to demonstrate just how truly poor the scientific standard was in this case.
References
Kim, Myo & Yu, Hee & Lee, Cha & Park, Soo & Chang, Yun Sil & Park, won soon. (2009). A case of pulmonary vascular air embolism in a very-low-birth-weight infant with massive hydrops. Korean Journal of Pediatrics. 52. 10.3345/kjp.2009.52.12.1392.
Kondza, K.1; Skaric, I.1. Abstract P-598: PULMONARY VASCULAR AIR EMBOLISM IN PREMATURE NEONATE. Pediatric Critical Care Medicine 19(6S):p 234, June 2018. | DOI: 10.1097/01.pcc.0000538055.59462.e4
Lee SK, Tanswell AK. Pulmonary vascular air embolism in the newborn. Arch Dis Child. 1989 Apr;64(4 Spec No):507-10. doi: 10.1136/adc.64.4_spec_no.507. PMID: 2658851; PMCID: PMC1592039.
Sowell MW, Lovelady CL, Brogdon BG, Wecht CH. Infant death due to air embolism from peripheral venous infusion. J Forensic Sci. 2007 Jan;52(1):183-8. doi: 10.1111/j.1556-4029.2006.00307.x. PMID: 17209934.