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Month: February 2016

Gynecology Expert Testifies In Johnson & Johnson Trial

Posted on by Burton Bentley II, M.D FAAEM

Gynecology expert witness Daniel Cramer, MD, ScD, testified at the Johnson & Johnson trial regarding the link between talc powder and ovarian cancer. The St. Louis jury awarded $72M to the family of Jackie Fox. Fox died of ovarian cancer after using Johnson talc powder products for 35 years. The jury found Johnson & Johnson guilty of failing to warn the public and keeping information about the possible link between their product and ovarian cancer from the public. The world’s sixth-largest consumer health company was ordered to pay $10M in compensatory damages and $62M in punitive damages.

Dr. Cramer is an obstetrician/gynecologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and wrote the first study linking talc powder with ovarian cancer in 1982.

The Dana-Farber / Harvard Cancer Center website describes Dr. Cramer’s research.

Dr. Cramer’s research focuses on the epidemiology of ovarian cancer with the goal of developing a model to explain risk factors for the disease and biomarkers that might correlate with risk. There are three events which increase risk for ovarian cancer that are associated with chronic inflammation affecting the lower or upper genital tract. These include: cosmetic talc powder use; repeated ovulation not interrupted by pregnancies, breastfeeding, or oral contraceptive use (incessant ovulation), and endometriosis.

Dr. Cramer is a Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School Of Public Health, Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School, and Professor of Gynecology and Reproductive Science at Brigham And Women’s Hospital.

Child Abuse Pediatrics Experts

Posted on by Burton Bentley II, M.D FAAEM

Child abuse pediatrics is a specialty devoted to the issues involved in alleged child abuse. Expert witnesses in this specialty may report and testify regarding non-accidental trauma, shaken baby syndrome, fatal neglect, as well as other criminal cases involving injured infants and children. To better understand how medical experts define reasonable medical certainty in the context of these cases, Dr. Mark S. Dias, Professor of Neurosurgery and Pediatrics, along with investigators at Penn State Hershey Medical Center and Penn State Dickinson School of Law, surveyed medical specialists who testify in cases of suspected abusive head trauma. The results are described in The Penn State Journal Child Abuse and Neglect article, Better definition needed for reasonable medical certainty in child abuse cases.

Physicians use different definitions of “reasonable medical certainty” when testifying as expert witnesses in child abuse cases. The variability is troubling because it could result in flawed rulings, according to researchers at Penn State College of Medicine.

In court cases involving alleged child abuse, expert medical witnesses are asked to testify if abuse has occurred and when. Attorneys commonly ask expert witnesses to express their opinions in terms of reasonable medical certainty. However, there is no clear legal definition for the term.

In many cases, the threshold of probability that constitutes reasonable medical certainty is left to the discretion of the experts. And despite the court’s reliance on this opinion in reaching a verdict, experts are seldom asked to share this probability with the court during their testimony.

Other investigators on this project were Susan Boehmer, Department of Public Health Sciences, Penn State College of Medicine; Lucy Johnston-Walsh, Penn State Dickinson School of Law; and Dr. Benjamin H. Levi, Department of Pediatrics, Penn State Hershey Medical Center and Department of Humanities, Penn State College of Medicine. Read more at EurekAlert.org.

Pulmonary Pathology Expert To Testify In Phillip Morris Lawsuit

Posted on by Burton Bentley II, M.D FAAEM

Pulmonary pathologist Dr. Lucian Radu Chirieac will testify for the defense in Nikki Pooshs’ case against tobacco companies. Pooshs has sued Phillip Morris as well as other tobacco companies after being diagnosed with lung cancer. She argues that the manufacturers hid health hazards and the addictive nature of their products.

Pooshs’ legal team tried to exclude Dr. Chirieac’s testimony  but California U.S. District Judge Phyllis J. Hamilton ruled the objection was filed too late. The pulmonary expert is an Associate Professor of Pathology at Harvard Medical School and Associate Pathologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. Dr. Chirieac is also a member of the Dana-Farber/Harvard Cancer Center which conducts research on the causes and pathogenesis of lung cancer.

Program members (approximately 60 researchers in total) are based in multiple institutions, departments, and disciplines and have expertise in smoking cessation, genetic susceptibility to tobacco smoke, the genetic changes in lung cancer, mRNA expression patterns, and novel therapeutic approaches, including pre-clinical modeling, conducting clinical trials of novel therapies, and characterization of acquired resistance.

The University of Pittsburgh Schools of the Health Sciences publishes a list of the changes that happen to the lungs and airways of a smoker. These include:

The lungs’ cleaning system not work well.

The lungs age faster and can be destroyed.

Cigarette smoke has chemicals that can make normal cells change into cancer cells.

Pulmonary medical professionals treat chronic obstructive pulmonary disease and asthma as well as mesothelioma and lung cancer. Expert witnesses in this field may consult and testify on causation and standard of care.