Apple Inc. pulled an iPhone game called Baby Shaker, which encouraged players to quite a crying baby by shaking the child, after advocates and medical groups complained that it made light of a potentially deadly medical condition.

Advocates complained that the 99-cent game made fun of the real dangers of Shaken Baby Syndrome.

In an e-mail to Apple CEO Steve Jobs, a copy of which was sent to the media, Patrick Donohue, founder of the “Sarah Jane Brain Foundation”:http://www.thebrainproject.org/default.asp, an advocacy group for parents of children with traumatic brain injury, wrote:  “As the father of a 3-year-old who was shaken by her baby nurse when she was only 5 days old, breaking 3 ribs, both collarbones and causing a severe brain injury, words cannot describe my reaction.”

The “National Center on Shaken Baby Syndrome”:http://www.dontshake.org/ also condemned the game.

The app, developed by Sikalosoft, begins with this description: “On a plane, on the bus, in a theater.  Babies are everywhere you don’t want them to be!  They’re always distracting you from preparing for that big presentation at work with their incessant crying.  Before Baby Shaker there was nothing you could do about it.”

It then allows the player to shake the virtual baby to silence it.

Apple spokeswoman Natalie Kerris said “Baby Shaker” went on sale Monday, and confirmed that Apple removed it Wednesday, the Associated Press reports.

She would not comment on why the program was initially approved for sale nor about how many people downloaded the game. Apple itself screens each iPhone application, a process some prospective iPhone application developers have complained can take weeks or months. Others have said Apple gives little feedback when it accepts or rejects a program.