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
- Study: Opioid prescriptions have dropped 29 percent since 2011
- The study from the IQVIA Institute for Human Data Science finds that opioid prescriptions peaked in 2011 after rising throughout the previous decade to an average of 72 pills per adult American. Since then, opioid prescriptions have dropped to 52 pills per adult, still well above the level in the early 2000s.
- San Joaquin County Should Install Independent Medical Examiner, Audit Finds
- An audit of San Joaquin County’s sheriff-coroner operations, made public Wednesday, concluded that removing the sheriff from death investigations and instituting a medical examiner's office run by a physician is the best way to ensure the probes remain independent from law enforcement.
- Biases in forensic experts
- Assessments of forensic science have too often focused only on the data and the underlying science, as if they exist in isolation, without sufficiently addressing the process by which forensic experts evaluate and interpret the evidence.
- REFORM PENDING FOR NEW JERSEY’S MEDICAL EXAMINER SYSTEM
- Gov. Phil Murphy recommitted to reforming New Jersey’s beleaguered medical examiner system and is now reviewing bipartisan-backed legislation to create a more accountable, comprehensive, and professional process for investigating mysterious and suspicious deaths.
- Pregnant woman's death not a weightlifting accident, coroner suspects
- When Snezana Stojanovska was found dead in the garage of her Australian home she was lying on a makeshift benchpress made out of an ironing board, propped up by telephone books. A 30 kilogram barbell was lying across her neck, making her death looked like a freak weightlifting accident. But State Coroner Sara Hinchey suspects the young woman - who was three months pregnant at the time - was strangled and her death staged. [Note from Dr. Young: The coroner believes too much from the detective novels she reads.]
- Forensic science: the tip of the iceberg?
- There is a problem, but it is not what author Ruth Morgan thinks. Read The Sherlock Effect when it comes out, Ms. Morgan.
- Improbable Cause
- The title of this lengthy and silly "detective thriller" says it all. What is improbable is the conspiracy theory promoted in this article. Just because the police got someone to "confess" to their theory does not make the theory any less improbable. Read The Sherlock Effect when it comes out in a few days and you will understand why.
- Ah'Kiell 'suffered unsurvivable brain injury after being starved of oxygen' jurors told as parents' manslaughter trial continues
- News flash from the UK. Errant doctors backwardly reason like Sherlock Holmes in the courtroom (ACCPE). All the while, we never hear about what happened from the defendants or any eyewitness.
- Yoga instructor Kristin Johnston died within five minutes: medical examiner
- Dr. Marnie Wood and ACCPE.
- Senate committee chairwoman: Coroner training bill is "necessary"
- JEFFERSON CITY - The Senate Committee on Professional Registration held a public hearing for a bill designed to fund training for the county coroners in the state. The bill would add a one dollar fee to death certificates, putting the money toward training. It would also penalize coroners who do not attend training by stripping their ability to sign death certificates.
- An examination of forensic science
- Weird.
- Trial to decide if coroner is unfair to black funeral homes
- JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — A federal trial is scheduled to start Monday over claims by six black-owned funeral homes that a Mississippi Gulf Coast coroner illegally discriminates in favor of two white-owned competitors...U.S. District Judge Keith Starrett, in pretrial rulings, has indicated the key question will be proving whether longtime Harrison County Coroner Gary Hargrove made the decisions about where to direct bodies in each instance. That suggests a long slog could be in store for the Gulfport court.
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