Forensic Pathology News
Dr. Young will post links to news articles that interest him about
forensic pathology, medical examiners, coroners and death
investigation in this section.
Pathology in the News
- California father buries wrong man after coroner's mistake
- California: "Orange County coroner's officials had misidentified the body, the Orange County Register reported Friday (http://bit.ly/2tZSyZj)." To err is human, we know, but sometimes we err in ways that are horrendous.
- Medical examiner releases Jayden Glomb autopsy report
- Tucson, AZ: ACCPE: "The Pima County medical examiner just released its autopsy report in the death of 13-year-old Jayden Glomb. The report says she died from strangulation and had small marks on her neck as well as bruises on her head and torso." "Glomb was found dead in a desert area in Vail last month. Glomb's stepfather, Josh Lelevier, was charged with her murder."
- As drug deaths rise, St. Louis County may use portable morgue meant for disasters
- St. Louis, MO: "The opioid tsunami."
- South Africa: National Pathology Committee Rubbishes 'Untrained' Post-Mortem Claims
- "Recent reports that untrained forensic officers have conducted post-mortems unsupervised for the past 10 years are grossly inaccurate, the National Forensic Pathology Service Committee said on Friday." Yeah, right! It happens in the US, so it shouldn't be a surprise that it happens in South Africa.
- Would Your Dog Eat You if You Died? Get the Facts.
- Yep.
- Local program prepares doctors for Medical Examiner's office
- Cleveland, OH: Interesting to see an advertisement for a fellowship in the local news.
- Family files claim against OC coroner after man wrongfully ID'd as dead
- Orange County, CA: Situations like these occasionally occur.
- Will mortuary strike finally end?
- South Africa: "The standoff between Forensic Pathology Officers and the Gauteng Health department remained unresolved, with hopes to find a solution pinned of the resumption of negotiations today."
- Unsupervised post-mortems conducted in WC due to overwhelming workloads - claim
- Cape Town, South Africa: "Untrained forensic officers with only matric qualifications and driver's licences have been dissecting organs from corpses at the Tygerberg mortuary without supervision for well over 10 years, a forensic officer has claimed."
- 6 Michigan counties suddenly in market for medical examiner
- Get your bids in!
- Medical examiner: Fentanyl responsible for 83 percent of fatal overdoses in Anne Arundel
- Maryland: "Statistics released by county police this week show that the synthetic opioid and variants of it, such as carfentanil, are largely responsible for 47 of 56 confirmed opioid-related deaths in the county this year through June 14. Fifteen deaths were attributed to a 'heroin/fentanyl mix.'"
- Ohio coroner: ‘We have seen fentanyl mixed with marijuana’
- Cincinnati, OH: “Essentially, the message we’ve tried to get out there, is if you are using any form of street drugs, count on them having some form of synthetic opioid mixed in.”
- LETTERS, June 21: Not all ‘science’ is equal
- First the quotation, then the comment: "Finally, among the historical sciences, such as evolutionary theory, climate change, etc., studies are more akin to forensic science, where extant data is used to extrapolate and make tentative predictions. There is no single, well-defined theory that makes predictions that can be experimentally tested, and thus falsify the theory. Here one is certainly dealing with the whole of reality -- the physical/nonphysical/supernatural aspect of nature." First, forensic science is technically a "historical science" because it deals with past events. Secondly, the standard scientific method does not work for past events. Period. What does? The Inferential Test, of course, along with the Forensic Scientific Method.
- What an autopsy could tell us about Otto Warmbier’s death
- Nobody knows what an autopsy would or could "tell us" until an autopsy is performed.
- Sparrow and Ingham County spar over medical examiner payments
- Mid-Michigan: "More money..."
- Monroe Co. flies NYC doctors to cover Medical Examiner cases
- Rochester, NY: More doctors...
- Overwhelmed ME office asks for $4.5M budget
- Jacksonville, FL: More money and more staff...
- Toxicology Tests Detect Variety Of Drugs In Carrie Fisher, But Their Role In Her Death Isn't Clear
- Los Angeles, CA: Sleep apnea doesn't typically kill anyone because someone typically wakes up before it does.
Pathology Links
- ACCPE means Affirming the Consequent for Complex Past Events
- Whenever an expert states the past events that occurred on the basis of looking only at the physical evidence without reference to eyewitness statements, he or she is Affirming the Consequent for Complex Past Events. This is not only logically invalid and unsound, it never works in practice, Sherlock Holmes, CSI and Bones notwithstanding. Whenever ACCPE is listed in my comments to a news article, recognize one more tragic example of how this fallacy can destroy lives. ACCPE can also be understood as "backward reasoning,""effect-to-cause reasoning," or "abductive inference."
- American Academy of Forensic Sciences
- ForensicScienceDegree.org
- For further information on forensic science.
- National Association of Medical Examiners