Sprott enters lion's den on cot deaths

By Martin Johnston

Cold, scientific logic descended into a "yes you did, no I didn't" slanging match with a touch of the biblical when controversial Auckland scientist Dr Jim Sprott was ushered into the heart of the world's cot death research establishment yesterday.

The organisers of the international conference on Sids (sudden infant death syndrome) at Auckland University gave Dr Sprott a special 20-minute slot in which to justify his conviction that poisonous gases from mattresses cause all cot deaths and mattress wrapping is the answer.

He spoke after Bristol University paediatrician Professor Peter Fleming, who said that in a three-year British Sids study no evidence was found to support Dr Sprott's toxic gas hypothesis.

Three Sids deaths occurred on wrapped mattresses.

Dr Sprott's theory, also promoted by a British scientist in 1989, is that a fungus, Scopulariopsis brevicaulis, reacts with chemicals that can occur in mattresses, producing the toxic gases phosphine, arsine and stibine.

Dr Sprott advocates securely wrapping mattresses in thick, clear polythene sheeting, or using a specially made mattress cover available commercially.

He claims the proof of mattress-wrapping is the continuing decline in our cot-death rate since 1994 (when he began publicly promoting wrapping) and the lack of any new official advice to parents since then.

Plunket says the advice has been more thoroughly distributed.

"The score is 400 to nil," Dr Sprott said, comparing deaths after 1994 on unwrapped and wrapped mattresses.

"The day of retribution will come one day. I wouldn't be in your shoes for anything," he told delegates in the Maidment Theatre crowd of 200, some of whom thought they were getting a sermon.

As soon as he finished his speech, hands shot up from paediatricians and other cot-death experts keen to probe his theory.

Lady Limerick, who chaired a British Government investigation that concluded the toxic-gas hypothesis was unfounded, demanded that Dr Sprott substantiate his claim that arsine and the other gases were nerve gases.

He retorted that the evidence came from one of her own team.

Lady Limerick: "That's not true."

Dr Sprott: "It is true."

Interjector: "No it's not."

There were angry exchanges between Dr Sprott and his cross-examiners. After a collective moan from the crowd he warned: "It's no point just booing me."

A leading cot death researcher, Dr Ed Mitchell, of Auckland Medical School, said health workers would take away the message that the toxic gas theory did not stack up, and predicted that would end confusion for parents.

Besides mattress-wrapping, other issues raised at the conference included whether babies should sleep in bed with their mothers and dummy-sucking.

Researchers have found that babies who suck dummies have half the Sids risk of non-suckers, though paediatricians warn the practice is linked to reduced breast feeding and increased risk of ear, airway and stomach illnesses.

Bed-sharing was discouraged in the big cot death prevention campaign in the early 1990s. But by mid-decade, after New Zealand's world leading cot death researchers rechecked their data, the message changed: bed-sharing helped to prevent Sids, as long as the mother was not a smoker.

The earlier message on bed-sharing may have alienated some Maori from other Sids information, the conference heard.

The anti-bed-sharing campaign backed Maori women into a corner as it was in conflict with traditional practices, said Dr David Tipene-Leach, medical director of the Maori Sids Programme, The Maori Sids rate, at 3.5 deaths out of every 1000 live births in 1997, was still well over twice the level of 1.4 for all ethnic groups. Almost half of Maori women smoke, compared with just over a fifth of Pakeha women. About half of Sids deaths are thought to be due to smoking.

Dr Tipene-Leach said that while his group had publicly ignored bed-sharing as a risk factor, its workers advised Maori women who smoked to cuddle and feed their babies in bed but then put them to sleep in a cot-like environment.