But you do need to be a pathologist to have a thorough understanding of how cause of death is determined, the contribution of any disease processes or interventions, and the interpretation of post or ante mortem findings. Anyone can sit down with a big stack of notes and look for patterns, but I am increasingly uncomfortable with the lack of scientific rigour in some of his claims and in the conclusions which have been drawn.
You absolutely don't.
Most of these babies did not undergo postmortem. Therefore there are no 'post or ante mortem' findings other than notes and imaging for most, and their bodies have likely decayed or been cremated, so there's no exhuming them. There are no samples for the pathologist to look at under a microscope and there never will be. We can't do a purely scientific study of it.
Most of BM's questions to them are 'this is infection' - a pathologist cannot say so without a sample, which doesn't exist for most of these babies. However, DE and SB who have treated tens of thousands babies between them, can say that in their experience babies with infections usually decline gradually, they don't suddenly arrest like these did. They can say that in their experience they've never seen optiflow fill a baby's bowel with gas like it did for Child I. They can say that they've treated a lot of babies with NEC, and this isn't how they typically behave. They can say that they don't see babies vomiting and having the vomit land 2 feet away. They can say that in their experience, neonates do not shriek unless they are in pain, and therefore their assumption is that these babies are in pain. They can say what equipment is easily accessible that on the ward is hard and rigid, and can fit down a baby's throat to cause injuries like in child E. They can say whether it is usual practice to put insulin into a TPN bag.
A pathologist can answer none of those things - they don't see live babies. This is why, in a coroners case, the neonatologists would also be giving the bulk of the statements here.
All of BM's discrediting comes on the particularly blatant cases. Child I, Child G, Child E, Child C. All ones where there's either pathology findings, or blatant contradictions in LL's story or notes. The only blatant one he didn't pull it on is Child F where it's 100% confirmed that the baby was injected with insulin by blood results.
