Personal Injury Law

Shaken Baby Used To Market Apple App

By Jane Akre

Testing the bounds of marketing

Apple has decided to kill its iPhone application called "Baby Shaker" after public outcry.  

"Baby Shaker" was released Monday and shows pictures of crying babies. To make them stop crying, shake the phone and Xs appear over the babies eyes.  TechCrunch and Cnet began writing about it and Apple rethought the shaken baby app sometime Wednesday, pulling it from the market. 

Shaken Baby Syndrome causes the death of approximately 5,000 babies each year from traumatic brain injury or TBI.

The National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome reports that crying triggers frustration or anger from perpetrators and can have long-term consequences such as learning disabilities, physical disabilities, blindness, cerebral palsy, seizures, or death. 

Many veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan suffer the permanent effects of TBI.

The founder of the Sarah Jane Brain Foundation wrote to Apple urging them to show some restraint. 

"As the father of a 3-year-old who was shaken by her baby nurse when she was only 5 days old, breaking three ribs, both collarbones and causing a severe brain injury, words cannot describe my reaction," wrote Patrick Donohue reports sfgate.com.

Apple has approved applications for the iPhone such as "Beer Goggles" and farting sounds, but has shied away from blatant sexual, drug or violence themes.

Applications allow the iPhone to access programs that allow users to play video games, to access social networking sites such as Facebook, to add a GPS device, and read barcodes on packaging, among other things.  #

Full post as published by InjuryBoard on April 23, 2009 (boomark / email).