Posted on 05/20/2005 7:40:19 PM PDT by aculeus
BOSTON (AP) - The family of the late paleontologist and evolutionary scientist Stephen Jay Gould sued two Boston hospitals and three doctors Friday, alleging the famed author would still be alive if they had properly diagnosed his cancer four years ago.
The doctors all failed to recognize a 1-centimeter lesion on a chest X-ray taken of the Harvard professor in February 2001, according to Alex MacDonald, the lawyer for Gould's survivors.
Thirteen months later, when another chest X-ray was taken, the lesion had grown to 3 centimeters and the cancer had spread to Gould's brain, lungs, liver and spleen, MacDonald said.
"All of a sudden, it was like out of the head of Zeus, he's got fourth-stage cancer," Gould's wife, Rhonda Roland Shearer, said in television interviews Friday. Gould, 60, died 10 weeks later, in May 2002.
"We have a film that clearly shows a lesion that was missed by three doctors, and it should not have been," MacDonald said. "If it had been recognized, professor Gould would still be teaching at Harvard College today."
Gould's family is seeking unspecified damages in the lawsuit, which alleges negligence by the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and Brigham and Women's Hospital, as well as Drs. Robert Mayer, Rebecca L. Dyson and Salvatore G. Viscomi. It was filed in Middlesex Superior Court in Cambridge.
Dana-Farber, where Mayer is director of the Center for Gastrointestinal Oncology, released a statement saying the charges are "misleading and inaccurate."
"The claims against Dr. Mayer, who is a medical oncologist, are without merit and there is simply no basis for holding him responsible for the alleged failure to diagnose" the cancer, the statement said.
Brigham and Women's, where radiologists Viscomi and Dyson worked, released a statement that said "the legal process is the appropriate forum to respond to the allegations."
Mayer did not immediately return a telephone message left at his office. A telephone number for Viscomi was not in service. A man who answered the telephone at Dyson's home in California said she would have no comment.
Gould had a long-standing relationship with Mayer dating to 1982, when Gould was diagnosed with another form of cancer, peritoneal mesothelioma, according to the lawsuit. Gould was cured of that illness and saw Mayer a number of times a year for cancer screenings, the lawsuit said.
Although Gould's original cancer was unrelated to the lung cancer that ultimately killed him, because of Gould's cancer history, doctors "would have a heightened duty to look for lung cancers," MacDonald said.
Gould's cancer history "was a literal flashing red light warning," according to the lawsuit. "That warning was inexplicably, negligently and ... grossly negligently ignored by the three defendants."
Gould became one of America's most recognizable scientists for his voluminous and accessible writings and his participation in public debates with creationists.
He also was at odds with other evolutionists for his suggestion that evolution proceeds in fits and starts, a pattern dubbed "punctuated equilibrium," rather than slowly over time.
Gould's book "The Mismeasure of Man" won the National Book Critics Award in 1982 and was No. 24 on the Modern Library's list of the 100 greatest English-language nonfiction works of the 20th century. His more recent popular books included "Dinosaur in a Haystack" and "Rocks of Ages: Science and Religion in the Fullness of Life."
Although Sagan was a mewling, puking liberal, he was no commie--unlike Gould. And, his science had much more integrity than Gould's. But then again, the only scientists the media loves are left of center--no question.
Aren't we all?
The demonstration by some here of both ignorance about Gould's work and malevolence toward him personally is revolting. (But I do agree that there are a lot of worthless lawsuits, and this may be yet another.)
Gondring: Wow, cool...it was literally a flashing red light warning!! Wish I coulda seen THAT!
ROFLOL
He's a monkey. You're a monkey. I'm a monkey. We're all monkeys!
In fact, this is a popular teaching exercise.
Every lung cancer can be seen in retrospect on the last "normal" chest X-ray, assuming enough X-rays exist for comparison. There is a point at which the tiny cancer looks like the hundreds of other innocuous lung shadows, and the radiologists are perfectly right not to call it.
This discussion should cross-post to all the "why is medical care so expensive" threads-if the Goulds win, every chest X-ray in America is going to have to be followed up by a CT scan and a PET-type scan. This will require hundreds of new scanners (at least), legions of newly-trained radiologists, and will add multi-billions to the national tab.
And, for nothing-since resecting those tiny cancers does not affect the cure rate, as has been pointed out.
Should the decision that every chest X-ray needs a CT and PET scan be made by twelve residents of Boston chosen because they are too stupid to evade jury duty?
Is there any evidence that he, personally, did not?
In Greek mythology the goddess Athena "sprang full grown from the forehead of Zeus."
Women have been a headache ever since.
My reaction was to remember all the times Gould wrote an essay in which he ridiculed some deceased scientist (usually American and what Marxists call "bourgeoisie") for having made some terrible mistake attributable to the evils of the capitalism mindset. I also recall he accused other dead scientists of scientific fraud and that other investigators claimed it was the accusers who were dishonest. (Read Fletcher on the Marxist gang-bang of Cyril Burt for example.)
It was his stock-in-trade and the fact that he is not immortal should not be a reason for granting him a pass.
As for his science I think his work confirms the efficacy of the IQ tests he took as a youngster on which he received a not-outstanding score. He admitted (bragged about?) this in an NYRB article (March 29, 1984):
I am hopeless at deductive sequencing ... I never scored particularly well on so-called objective tests of intelligence because they stress logical reasoning.
Time will judge him harshly not only for his bullying dishonesty but for his inability -- despite a decades-long personal encounter -- to think-through the relationship between cancer and evolution.
Sometimes, ideas take time to catch on. Remember plate tectonics, which languished for decades.
You're kidding, right? Do you not know that expression?
It comes from the myth of Zeus getting a headache and Athena popping out of his head, fully grown, after Hephaistos whacked him on the head with an axe. No offense meant, but I suppose now that our education system is down the toilet and few people read anymore, we need to start relying on new expressions rather than the Classics.
How about "sprang out like a podcast popup ad"?
Or instead of Opening Pandora's Box...maybe "dropped your firewall and ran a Trojan"...
Oh, but wait..."Trojan" is a Classical reference...what are we going to do? ;-) I suppose we can pretend it refers to a consumer brand of latex products...the schools can cover that.
They should sue God for playing a cruel joke.
My immediate first thought. I can't believe his heirs couldn't see the irony. Oh well.
I beg to differ. Sagan's "science" was often years or decades out of date, and he wrote--as if he were an expert--in fields totally outside his knowledge or understanding.
I am very much in favor of spreading science beyond the ivory tower, but bypassing peer review is not a good idea.
Still, when he was in his element, he could write some very good pieces. In fact, I even made one of them required reading for my students.
I guess I am too churched (or when young, synagogued) to get the "proper" Zeus allusion. Too much Judeo-Christianity! I suhpoze having a head stuffed full of a ready to hatch Athena would be vaguely analogous to having a body stuffed full of cancer.
If she is serious about this lawsuit, she needs to not get bookish like that. That either sounds kooky to those not in the know, or overconfident to those who are. She needs to sound to the jury like a simple minded bimbo totally undone by the experience.
But what about survival time from appearance? Given that the doctors, once they had found the cancer, would look for more related to it.
Unless some salient point of appellate law is set, this will be a data point of one. You don't get to argue to juries that other juries have turned out jackpots.
I'd take the lawsuit, highlight that sentence, and place it in the "histrionic exaggerated claims" pile.
But juries won't be deciding to do the CT scans-risk managers will.
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