These endotoxins sometimes make the walls of blood capillaries more permeable, according to numerous researchers and the American Medical Association's official encyclopedia of medicine. Scoon was sentenced to two to six years on Rikers Island when a jury believed shaken baby charges in the February 1996 death of his daughter, Mariah. Scoon was released from Rikers in mid-August while his conviction is appealed. Despite her premature birth, her pediatrician put her on an accelerated vaccination schedule. This relatively new vaccine protects against Haemophilus Influenza Type B, which can trigger meningitis.
Some scientists believe adverse reactions to that inoculation include contraction of the disease.
The autopsy showed no broken bones or bruises, a sole mark on one arm, but bleeding behind the eyes and in the brain cavity. Mariah was rushed to Long Island Jewish Hospital, where, according to court testimony, the father's request that she be intibated to assist breathing was ignored, and several other treatment mistakes made, including 40 minutes when no one paid much attention to the desperately ill child at all. The hospital quickly reported Scoon for suspicion of shaking the baby, and he was questioned by detectives even before the little girl died. Harvard neuro-radiologist Patrick Barnes testified at Scoon's trial that Mariah died from brain damage caused by a clot in a vein in the brain, but he didn't believe the prosecution's shaken baby theory. He said it was possible the DTP vaccination seven days before could have caused an infection leading to the clot.