July|August 2004

DOCTORS ON THE STAND

In her article "The White Wall" (March|April), Stephanie Mencimer practices her form of yellow journalism on the Coalition and Center for Ethical Medical Testimony, which she characterizes as "the latest and most aggressive attack on expert witnesses." The purpose of CCEMT is to attack dishonesty, not expert witnesses. We encourage testimony—truthful testimony.

Mencimer wrote that I [A. Bernard Ackerman] said "many of my colleagues didn't just judge the truth, but lied outright"—I actually said "fudge," not "judge." In addition to misquoting me, Mencimer did not carefully read the cases on which she bases her accusations. She asserts that after a trial in which I was a defendant, I "launched a crusade to discredit four of the doctors who served as experts" for the plaintiff.

The facts are these: I called into question the veracity of the testimony of three of the witnesses for the plaintiff and marshaled evidence on behalf of my propositions. In further describing this case, Mencimer wrongly lists Dr. Milton Okun as a fourth expert for the plaintiff. Ms. Mencimer has mistaken Dr. Okun's role for that in another case. Dr. Okun was never called to testify against me. Mencimer muddled her facts and came to incorrect conclusions.

She also made misstatements in her description of a case involving Dr. Gary Lustgarten, a neurosurgeon who lost his doctor's license because of testimony he gave in a malpractice trial. Mencimer incorrectly states that Lustgarten's case was the first instance in which a state medical board revoked a physician's license for giving court testimony. It was not. Mencimer appears to have allowed Lustgarten's lawyer, Seth Cohen, to instruct her as to the truth in the matter without conducting independent investigation or verification of her own.

Perhaps there should be a Coalition and Center for Ethical and Accurate Investigative Journalistic Reporting.

A. Bernard Ackerman
Louise B. Andrew
Coalition and Center for Ethical Medical Testimony


Stephanie Mencimer responds:

No doubt I should have been clearer that other doctors have been disciplined by state medical boards based on testimony in court. But doctors have not been sanctioned for criticizing other doctors. For instance, a doctor in Washington, D.C. was once disciplined after he testified falsely that he was a board-certified surgeon when he was not. Dr. Gary Lustgarten is the only doctor, to my knowledge, who has lost his license for expressing a medical opinion on the witness stand.

Despite Dr. Ackerman's assertion, I was well aware before writing my story that Dr. Milton Okun never testified against him in the courtroom, which is why the story does not say, as Ackerman claims it does, that Dr. Okun took the stand in the Lilly Dubin case. Both Dubin's attorney and Dr. Okun told me that Okun was retained as an expert witness for the plaintiff in the case against Ackerman, but that Dr. Okun was not ultimately called to testify in the trial.

I apologize for misquoting Dr. Ackerman and regret any confusion this may have caused.

PRISON RAPE LEGISLATION

One small point needs correction in Daniel Brook's article, "The Problem of Prison Rape" (March|April): The recent act of Congress aimed at prison rape is not called "The Prison Rape Reduction Act." Rather, the law as enacted was titled "The Prison Rape Elimination Act." 

Apparently Congress decided to grant the act a grander name despite its woefully limited purpose: the funding of a survey and a study. Perhaps keeping the original title of "Reduction Act" would have exposed Congress's unwillingness to take measures, financial and otherwise—such as having more room and more guards per prisoner—that would actually fight the problem.

Ben Trachtenberg
New York, N.Y.