A personal message from Alive & Well founder Christine Maggiore

Thank you for visiting our web site.

Please note that following the September 2007 announcement posted in our News & Updates section is a collection of thought provoking articles from June, July and August. These articles include an update on boxer Tommy Morrison’s flip-flop HIV tests, a report on the failure of a “female friendly” anti-HIV microbicide, news from Botswana on the devastation caused by anti-AIDS measures, an interview with Christine Maggiore from a cover story in The Mother Hood, an expose on exaggerated AIDS cases in India, and an entertaining and informative account of how mainstream AIDS experts ducked out of a televised AIDS debate with cameras still rolling. Be sure to scroll down and check out the articles, all of which are full of information you might not find anywhere else.

But before you click back to the site, I want to offer my apology for the delay in getting out Alive & Well updates during these past few months. I also want to let you know I’m back with renewed commitment after a summer of full-time motherhood and other important work, including the kind that actually pays the bills!

In addition to working my “day job,” I also spent time this summer developing a new non-profit endeavor called The Shaken Justice Project. Shaken Justice serves as a legal, medical, and peer support network for parents erroneously accused or unjustly convicted of having caused the sudden death of a child, most commonly through a misguided diagnosis of Shaken Baby Syndrome. As a mother who suddenly and unexpectedly lost a child and endured a year-long police investigation into potential criminal charges based on erroneous allegations, I want to help parents dealing with the heartbreak of losing a child when that loss when is multiplied by wrongful arrest, conviction and imprisonment.

One of the goals of Shaken Justice is to create the possibility of new trials for three people here in Los Angeles wrongly accused of murder by the same coroner who put forth false evidence in my daughter’s case. All three cases involve the sudden and unexpected death of a child, and all of the accused are currently serving life sentences. So far, Shaken Justice has assisted with the production of new evidence and the completion of an appeal on behalf of an innocent mother who’s spent the past 12 years in jail.

Another goal of Shaken Justice is to inspire critical examination of the non-specific symptoms used to diagnose Shaken Baby Syndrome and create awareness of how misguided interpretations of medical evidence frequently cause innocent parents to be accused of SBS. Toward that goal, I pitched a story on SBS to a journalist whose investigative report will appear in a national magazine before the year’s end. His article highlights the case of a couple I met from Champagne, Illinois who were unjustly accused of harming their then four-month old son by violent shaking. After losing their baby to a year-long stint in foster care and spending close to half a million dollars for their legal defense, the couple were found innocent thanks to experts who proved that all alleged evidence of abuse was actually damage caused by medical interventions gone awry. Once the publication date for this article is confirmed and imminent, I will announce the name of the magazine and the issue in which it will appear.

I was also busy this summer with work on my own family’s bid for justice. Our law suit made it past the first hurdle a few weeks ago when a motion to dismiss the charges we filed against the LA County Coroner’s office and Dr. James K. Ribe was denied by the judge in our case.

Until last month, I thought our family would be the first to bring a civil suit against the coroner’s office and Dr. Ribe, but I learned instead that another couple, Jose and Rocio Gonzalez of Long Beach, is currently involved in a civil suit with the coroner’s office after Dr. Ribe falsely accused them of having caused the sudden and unexpected death of their son Jared by starvation.

Unlike our case in which analysis and review of Ribe’s conclusions by an independent pathologist prevented the District Attorney from filing criminal charges, Mr. and Mrs. Gonzalez were arrested and imprisoned for several months and lost their surviving son to foster care for close to a year before an independent expert discovered the unfounded conclusions in the autopsy report and Dr. Ribe admitted he was wrong.

I observed some of the proceedings in the Gonzlez case this summer and spent time with the family and their attorney, Robin Perry at the courthouse. Mr. Perry told me that after a local paper ran a story on the Gonzalez case, another couple Ribe had wrongly accused of starving their child to death contacted him. They too were arrested but not convicted thanks to medical experts who proved Ribe was wrong once again.

How long will Dr. Ribe continue to falsely accuse citizens of Los Angeles of murder and abuse? Anyone wishing to follow our efforts to answer that question, please check in at http://www.JusticeForEJ.com for the latest news.

In happier news, my son Charlie turned 10 last month, an event celebrated with almost all the children and parents from his fourth grade class (and which kept me up the night before making six dozen organic chocolate cupcakes!)

Charlie started playing cello this summer as an adjunct to the piano lessons he began last fall. I’m proud to report he excels at both instruments and has a lot of fun at his recitals including one this past weekend with an orchestra of 40 cellists ranging in age from four to 18 years old. He’s also way into rollerblading, baseball, making stop-motion animation, riding a unicycle, magic and reading, with the Harry Potter series on his current list of favorite books.

Other happy news: My husband Robin and I celebrated our 11th year anniversary this month and I’ve got another party in the works for my mom’s 80th birthday (but this time my brothers are bringing the desert!)

And, as you’ll see at our web site, there’s good news at Alive & Well. I completed a revised fourth edition of my book “What If Everything You Thought You Knew About AIDS Was Wrong?” after overcoming out-dated computer files, irretrievable cover art, and no funds for printing. Thanks to Joyce and Barbara at Crest Graphics in Valencia, and a new group of supporters I met as an invited speaker at the Concord School of Philosophy and American Literature in Massachusetts, the book is back in stock.

All of this is to say that I’ve had a heck of a summer and I’m sorry for the prolonged delay in getting out regular email updates and fulfilling orders for books. Please know that you can count on me to stay in touch with monthly news, and to be here with books to share and a lighter heart for having taken some big steps forward with my work on another issue of human rights and medical justice that means a lot to me.