Evidence
Profit Drove Doc’s Diagnoses, Motion Says
Posted Oct 1, 2007, 06:52 am CST
By Debra Cassens Weiss
A doctor who provided testimony on the proper standard for the diagnosis of asbestosis and silicosis is himself under fire in an asbestos lawsuit in Philadelphia.
A motion filed in the case says Mississippi physician Jay Segarra has made $10 million as “a professional witness,” Adam Liptak writes in his Sidebar column for the New York Times. It claims he “has ‘diagnosed’ an astonishing number of would-be plaintiffs with asbestosis and/or silicosis—not for any valid medical reason, but solely for profit.”
U.S. District Judge Janis Graham Jack of Corpus Christi, Texas, cited Segarra’s testimony on proper diagnosis two years ago when she criticized medical screening companies that set up trailers in parking lots to screen for the diseases. The companies were affiliated with plaintiffs lawyers.
One screening company found more than 4,000 such cases, she wrote. “These diagnoses were driven neither by health nor justice,” Jack said. “They were manufactured for money.”
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