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
- ‘It’s essentially junk:’ $7.5M bite mark settlement underscores national call for better forensic evidence
- Another hit piece that blames flawed forensic science evidence and not flawed logic. It is as if all these "experts" sit in the same room, saying the same things at each other over and over again, never listening to anything else.
- Shakopee day care provider trial continues. Child abuse doctor claims injuries 'inconsistent' with household fall.
- "If you're too young to cruise, you're too young to bruise." What if the bruising has nothing to do with the cruising?
- The 'Ghosts' of 2 Unknown Extinct Human Species Have Been Found in Modern DNA
- A funny, inferential train wreck.
- Medical examiner: South Barrington woman's 2000 drowning death a homicide
- Former Cook County Medical Examiner Stephen Cina testified Tuesday he found no evidence Cynthia Hrisco's drowning death 19 years ago in a tub at her South Barrington home resulted from an epileptic attack, seizure, heat stroke or other undiagnosed malady. ["No evidence" is not "evidence."]
- The Jackson County Medical Examiner's Office shorthanded
- KANSAS CITY, MO (KCTV) -- Nationwide, there is a shortage of qualified forensic pathologists, but in the metro, the Jackson County Medical Examiner’s Office performed nearly 800 autopsies last year alone. Traditionally, there have been four pathologists at the Jackson County Medical examiner’s office. They are now down to two.
- New interim chief medical examiner says office 'going in the right direction'
- JACKSONVILLE, Fla. - Monday was the first day of work for the new interim chief medical examiner for District Four, which is responsible for reviewing every homicide and unintended death in five Northeast Florida counties -- Duval, Clay, Columbia, Nassau and Hamilton. Examining dead bodies is a unique profession, but Dr. Boguslaw Pietak told News4Jax that it's his duty to tell families the truth about how their loved ones died.
- How much should juries rely on expert testimony?
- Journalist Radley Balko and others continue to bark up the wrong tree.
- Medical Examiner: The words on a death certificate don't paint the whole picture
- The 911 call came in at 6:09 a.m. “Can you please send a police car to the InTown Suites at 1990 Willow Trail?” a woman asked the Gwinnett County E911 call-taker. “There’s a body — a dead body — in the lake right next to the Krystal’s. The bridge, right next to the Krystal’s, there’s a dead body floating in the water.”
- Twin Falls coroner wants new system to investigate deaths
- With the implementation of a state forensic pathology department, Turley predicts autopsies could be completed the same day as the death occurred. The ideal scenario, he stated, would be to have forensic pathologists in four regions: north Idaho, southwest Idaho, south-central Idaho and eastern Idaho.
- Industry News: FBI Approves Thermo Fisher Scientific Forensic Sequencing Solution for National DNA Index System
- The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has approved Thermo Fisher Scientific's Applied Biosystems Precision ID System mtDNA analysis solution for use by forensic laboratories to generate mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) profiles for submission to the U.S. National DNA Index System (NDIS) CODIS database. The use of mtDNA in forensics over the past several decades has played a pivotal role in helping to solve missing person cases and identification of remains recovered from mass disasters.
- New medical examiner set to take over troubled NE Florida office
- The medical examiner's office responsible for reviewing every homicide and unintended death in Jacksonville, Clay, Columbia, Nassau and Hamilton counties is getting a new boss. Dr. Robert Pietak, who is currently the interim medical examiner in Kansas City, was selected by a search committee for District Four and will take over an office that has been at the center of controversy for years.
- Coroner: Man whose remains found in suitcase was strangled
- INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The Marion County coroner says an autopsy shows that a man was strangled before his remains were stuffed into a suitcase and left alongside a creek in Indianapolis. [Sherlock alert!]
- Renowned forensic scientist's testimony comes under question
- Dr. Lee is under the gun once again.
Pathology Links
- ACCPE means Affirming the Consequent for Complex Past Events. It is The Sherlock Effect.
- 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