I think that's being way too charitable.
In a world where people are incarcerated on a scale unprecedented in all of human history, and where prosecutorial success is measured by number of scalps taken, the assumption that this is plain malice designed to let the state rob a few more individuals of their freedom makes much more sense than it all being just a big pile of incompetence and misunderstandings.
Of course it makes much more sense that there was a massive conspiracy across the medical, legal, prison industry, and press to put more people in prison. Rather than some doctors and legal professionals assuming SIDs was a simple explanation for a not very well understood medical phenomenon probably with many causes.