Why the ‘anal scarring’ argument doesn’t hold up

Has anyone else noticed that the Hoaxtead witch-hunters’ alleged stack of ‘evidence’ has dwindled steadily of late, to the point where they’re really only down to two…neither of which can stand up to any scrutiny at all.

Aside from Abe & Ella’s fantastical obsession with marks of the devil tattoos, birthmarks, and piercings (handily drawn by Abe, but for some reason never submitted to the police as evidence), their last bastion seems to be the much-debated ‘anal scarring’, initially reported by Dr Hode, and then withdrawn by her.

We’re going to get into a discussion of anal scarring here, so this probably isn’t a post for the squeamish.

Let’s start with this comment (quickly deleted, it goes without saying) on Abe & Ella’s blog:

Not only did Dr Hodes and her colleagues reconsider and amend her findings regarding the scars, to be other irregularities in the folds and ruggae, but they have also redefined RAD.

The video is discussing the 2015 Signs of Sexual Abuse review, updating from the 2008 edition. It discusses RAD and 4 studies. Within those studies RAD was found in non-abused children. However, the numbers depended on which position the children were examined in.

For example, the Myhre study found that 13 children showed RAD when examined in the ‘Knee Chest’ (KC) position, while only 2 children showed RAD when examined in the Lateral Left (LL) position. Another study found that children with regular constipation or enemas, would also show RAD.

Thus, a child showing RAD when examined in the LL position is more likely (not definitely) to have been abused, than a child showing RAD in the KC position. That is because RAD is rare in the LL position but not so rare in the KC position. Therefore, they now recommend that the medical examiner always records the position.

In this case, Dr Hodes did record the position. The first examinations were carried out in the LL position. There was no RAD found in either child. Judge Pauffley asked Dr Hodes why she carried out a second examination and Dr Hodes stated that she wanted to examine them in the KC position.

When examined in the KC position, the girl showed RAD. Therefore, because she did not show RAD in the ‘very rare’ position, but did in the ‘non rare’ position, it cannot be said that the RAD was due to sexual abuse. Especially when you consider that a witness told the court that Ella gave them enemas, which the Sfriso study found was a possible cause of RAD.

The only injuries confirmed in the medical examination were those inflicted by the convicted child abuser, who is on the run from the law…Abraham Jemal Christie.

So Dr Hode found nothing unusual on her initial LL exam, but then for some reason decided to do a second exam, the kind in which RAD is more likely to be found, but less likely to point to sexual abuse. Why did she do this?

Some clues may be found in this extract from the IPT Journal: Medical Examination for Sexual Abuse: Have we been misled?

One piece from that article might possibly explain Dr Hode’s strange decision:

Dr Hode was aware that the children were being examined to determine whether they’d been sexually abused. For whatever reason, she felt unable to accept her own initial observation that no RAD was visible in the LL position, so she went looking again. She wanted the diagnosis to be ‘consistent with the given history’, even though she had no evidence that the given history was correct.

When she discussed it later with her colleagues, though, she realised that she’d allowed her own bias to affect her work, so she did the right thing and withdrew her initial conclusion.

As if that weren’t sufficient evidence to take ‘but what about the anal scars!’ off the Hoaxteaders’ ‘evidence’ list, here’s another comment, backing up ‘Normal Variant’:

Case closed.