Influence of the Public on a Scientific Revolution

Abstract

The course of research into sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS) is traced. In the early 1970s there was a revolution in the underlying philosophy of the research community working on SIDS. This coincided with both a marked change in composition of this community and a large injection of funds for research resulting from political action by public pressure groups of SIDS parents. Reciprocal influences of knowledge creation and diffusion, on the one hand, and public communication and political action, on the other, are described. It is concluded that this scientific revolution was greatly influenced by pressure from the public. Researchers and public were carried along by shared optimism about the usefulness of breathing momtors in their research and as a SIDS preventive, respectively. However, subsequent research doubts about the relevance of monitors to SIDS have not been so readily accepted by the public but have tended to make researchers cautious over further public comment while not destroying their faith in a respiratory pathway for SIDS.