Occupational medicine expert Dr. Mohammed Ranavaya is an expert witness in a case concerning pulmonary illness in first responders to the World Trade Center attacks on 9/11. Ranavaya is chief of the division of occupational and disability medicine at the Joan C. Edwards School of Medicine, WV, and will determine the nature and extent of lung injuries sustained by firefighters and first responders as a result of the World Trade Center disaster.  Ranavaya says many first responders were exposed to various toxic pollutants when the towers came down, from dust and debris to fumes. "As a result of that, they developed the pulmonary problems and they were diagnosed with a variety of ailments by the local doctors," he said.

Many first responders began applying for medical benefits related to ailments such as asthma or bronchitis after 9/11. "One of the questions is, how much of their lung problems were related to the exposure during the World Trade Center disaster and how much was pre-existing?" he said.

Excerpted from Herald-Dispatch.com.

Jeffrey Segal, a retired neurosurgeon, launched Medical Justice 10 years ago to fight frivolous malpractice suits.  He now encourages doctors to require patients to sign a "mutual privacy agreement" before treatment to prevent patients rating them on Web.  By signing, the patient promises not to post critical comments about his or her care on the Internet without the doctor's permission.  Segal says it is a lack of oversight and accountability on the Web sites that troubles doctors.  "People are free to post any type of commentary," said Segal. "Most of these sites have only two, three, four reviews on a physician. There's no verification that the person was a patient. They could be a disgruntled employee, an ex-spouse, a competitor -- anyone trying to create some havoc."

Segal argues that doctors have no way to challenge unfair or inaccurate ratings -- federal patient privacy laws prevent doctors from responding.  Segal acknowledged that online ratings are here to stay, so his group is working on a site of its own that will require verification that the poster actually was a patient of the physician, that a minimum of 50 reports come in before a rating is posted, and that a medical expert back up a patient's criticism of the medical care.  With those protections, he said, "I think we can get physicians to buy in."

The Arizona Supreme Court ruled on Friday to uphold the 2005 law allowing state lawmakers to limit who qualifies as a medical malpractice expert witness. The statute says anyone who wants to testify as an expert witness against a physician in a medical malpractice lawsuit must be licensed as a health care provider, a specialist in the same area as the defendant, and actively practicing or teaching in that area.

The Court of Appeals in 2008 ruled that the teaching or practicing requirement was unconstitutional because the rules of evidence enacted by the Supreme Court said that an expert witness must be qualified "by knowledge, skill, experience, training or education." The state Supreme Court justices noted that generally they have the constitutional right to decide the rules governing how trials are conducted, but that the Legislature can enact "substantive" policy changes dictating what plaintiffs who file civil suits must prove to win their cases (Fischer, Arizona Daily Star, 3/15).

In a pretrial proceeding AstraZeneca's attorneys tried to convince Judge Joseph Slights III to throw out testimony from pharmacology expert witnesses who connected Seroquel drug use to diabetes. Attorneys and plaintiffs are now watching to see how Slights will rule. A win for AstraZeneca could avert a trial scheduled to start June 29. 

The case was brought by Kansas resident Nina Scaife, 46, who started taking Seroquel in May 2003 and was diagnosed with diabetes a year later, according to testimony.  AstraZeneca, which has said that it will litigate each Seroquel case on its individual merits, argued that Scaife's expert witnesses failed to examine the scientific issues rigorously enough to satisfy legal requirements.

In What Is the Role of Pathologists In Law and Order, the Star Tribune writes on medical experts:

Thomas and some other Minnesota forensic pathologists say they have an obligation to lend their expertise to either side in a criminal trial, because their loyalty is to the truth, not to one side or the other.

But Backstrom argued that the practice of county-employed coroners testifying for the defense could jeopardize future cases and that it hurts the credibility of medical examiners, and by extension, county attorneys.

"If you wish to be a defense expert, you should not be a public official representing Dakota County as our coroner," Backstrom wrote in one of his e-mails to Thomas.

Jim Franklin, executive director of the Minnesota Sheriffs' Association, agreed with Backstrom.

"One moment you're working for the Dakota County government structure. The next minute you're working for a private entity as an expert witness of a defense case in another particular county," Franklin said. "Where do you turn your county medical examiner experience on or off? Where's the light switch to do that?"

But Dr. John Howard, president of the National Association of Medical Examiners, said it's not that simple.

In What Is the Role of Pathologists In Law and Order, the Star Tribune writes on medical experts:

In Dakota County, an intriguing argument is raised over whether medical examiners should be allowed to testify as defense experts. When medical examiners step inside the yellow crime-scene tape, they bring expertise held by just a handful of people in the state. But do they do so as impartial sleuths who simply "follow the evidence," to borrow a phrase, or as public employees with their own loyalties and biases?  Or are they both?

The question is at the heart of an unusual dispute stemming from a Dakota County deputy medical examiner's work with a defense attorney in a Washington County murder trial last year. Dakota County Attorney James Backstrom took exception to a representative of a public office potentially calling prosecution evidence into question during a criminal trial, and his sharp e-mail exchange with medical examiner Dr. Lindsey Thomas led to accusations of coercion when the deputy medical examiner withdrew from the trial.

In Analysis of Computer Games for Violence Potential, forensic psychology expert

Dr. Julie Armstrong writes:

When a person begins spending an inordinate amount of time playing computer games, we can be sure that they are struggling to keep these violent feelings under control. When a suspect writes his own versions of the game, what we may call add-on scenarios, we can analyze them to better understand this gamer’s emotional world.

In addition to the main play of the game, the gamer puts in subtle and obvious details that give us information about how he perceives the world… his world. From this information we can make some interpretation about his state of mind. When integrated with other information we have, we may be able to take actions that prevent the acting out of violence.