Astrid Heppenstall Heger

Astrid Heppenstall Heger is the Executive Director of the Violence Intervention Program (VIP) and Chairperson of the program’s affiliated non-profit organization, VIP Community Mental Health Center, Inc. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Astrid Heppenstall Heger, M.D |url=http://www.violenceinterventionprogram.org/vip/DrHeger.html |quote=Dr. Heger is an internationally recognized expert on the medical diagnosis of child abuse and neglect and sexual assault in all ages. The need for improved technology resulted in her pioneering the use of photo-documentation to document injuries associated with child abuse and sexual assault. Dr. Heger developed and implemented the first telemedicine link to provide quality case assessments at remote sites within the United States and around the world. Her groundbreaking work in child abuse has become the international standard of care and is the basis of her textbook, Evaluation of the Sexually Abused Child, published by Oxford University Press. |publisher=Violence Intervention Program |date= |accessdate=2007-08-21 ]

She was an expert witness at the McMartin preschool trial. [cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=Judges Ruling Stops Defense in Abuse Case. |url=http://select.nytimes.com/search/restricted/article?res=F60810FC385F0C748EDDAB0994DD484D81 |quote=Central to the prosecution case is the testimony of Dr. Astrid Heger, a physician who examined many of the 14 children and testified that those she examined had been sexually molested. The defense said they wanted to call a medical expert, whom they did not name, to rebut the testimony of Dr. Heger. She is the chief examining physician of the Children's Institute International of Los Angeles, a nonprofit agency that investigates sex abuse charges. |publisher=New York Times |date= |accessdate=2007-08-21 ] Journalist John Earl believes that Heger’s findings were based on unsubstantiated medical histories. [ [http://www.ipt-forensics.com/journal/volume7/j7_2_1_4.htm#en17r Children's Institute International] ] Critics have alleged that the questioners asked the children leading questions, repetitively, which, it is said, [Fischer, Mary, "A Case of Dominoes?" Los Angeles Magazine, September 25, 1989, p. 132] always yields positive responses from young children, making it impossible to know what the child actually experienced. Others believe that the questioning itself may have led to false-memory syndrome among the children who were questioned. Ultimately only 41 of the original 360 children testified during the grand jury and pre-trial hearings, and less than a dozen testified during the actual trial. One of the children recanted in 2005.cite news |first= |last= |authorlink= |coauthors= |title=I'm Sorry; A long-delayed apology from one of the accusers in the notorious McMartin Pre-School molestation case|url=http://www.freejesse.net/LATimes/Introduction.htm |publisher=Los Angeles Times Magazine |quote=In the decade and a half since the defendants were set free, research psychologists have shown that it's easy to pressure children to describe bad things that never happened. False memories can feel real, though, not just for preschoolers but for older children as well. But Sapp, now known as Kyle Zirpolo, says he never had false memories: He always knew his stories of abuse were made up. The adults at the McMartin Pre-School "never did anything to me, and I never saw them doing anything," he says today. "I said a lot of things that didn't happen. I lied.|date=October 30, 2005 |accessdate=2007-08-21 ]

Publications

*Evaluation of the Sexually Abused Child: A Medical Textbook and Photographic Atlas ISBN 0195131266

References

External links

*imdb name|2227320
* [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/dr-astrid-heger Astrid Heppenstall Heger] at Huffington Post
* [http://www.educationupdate.com/archives/2002/mar02/htmls/cover_heger.html Astrid Heppenstall Heger] at Education Update
* [http://www.violenceinterventionprogram.org/vip/DrHeger.html Astrid Heppenstall Heger] at Violence Intervention Program