Request Expert

Forensic evaluations of affected people, including evaluation of available medical records, and industrial hygiene, environmental engineering, and microbiological evaluations of the nature, magnitudes, and other characteristics of exposures. Determination of what medical effects affected people have suffered and whether the weight of evidence supports conclusions to a high degree of medical certainty that particular environmental and workplace exposures caused specific medical effects. Evaluation of whether medical diagnoses in affected people are adequately evidenced by evaluations performed previously. Clear explanations of all conclusions and findings.

Evaluation of workplace disease clusters, sick building syndrome, video-display-terminal-related symptoms and signs, and disorders caused by poor ergonomics and how to prevent them, and of environmental and workplace mold and mold toxin exposures and indoor air quality problems.

Support for government, state, and emergency response agencies concerning medical toxicology and exposure characteristics and clinical presentation and management of chemical and biological weapons and other weapons of mass destruction. General awareness training for terrorist attacks involving weapons of mass destruction.
In-depth training in emergency and medical management of casualties for respondents and the entire team of medical providers. Medical and epidemiological evaluation of exposures and their medical effects.

Litigation consultation for attorneys and others about the medical toxicology of chemical and biological weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

Services to assist attorneys to define and present toxicological and medical causation issues in their cases.
Ongoing consultation to aid in understanding and countering assertions of opposing counsel and their experts.
Support of plaintiffs, defendants, claimants, and responsible parties in lawsuits and regulatory and administrative claims, like Workers= Compensation claims and federal and state environmental and workplace health agency actions.

As a litigation consultant, Expert recommended a strategy to counter the medical defense in a suit by several hundred plaintiffs about adverse medical effects suffered because of prolonged polychlorinated biphenyl exposures near a plant which manufactured them.

He evaluated the medical complaints of people in an area supplied by a water company in the region. A group of several dozen plaintiffs attributed their medical problems to herbicide and other exposures from water being supplied to them. They made a class action suit, and a leader from their group had a radio program and campaign for the state legislature largely based on their complaints. Expert determined that there were other causes for their specific medical problems. He presented these conclusions using risk communication methods he practices; he presented them to the group of plaintiffs in a mediation. All of the plaintiffs decided withdraw from the litigation that day, except the group leader, who decided the next day to withdraw from the litigation and her political campaign.

Services to address and resolve public medical concerns. Definition of the gaps between technical evaluators= assessments of the seriousness and severity of toxicant and hazard exposures and those of the potentially affected public. A long track record of successful application of methods developed to reduce and resolve
such gaps. A full spectrum of evaluations of exposed people from individual evaluations and counseling to small group meetings to town-hall meetings. Definition of the specific medical problems and risks about which the public is concerned. Consultation to medical providers, regulatory and administrative officials, and responsible parties about actions needed to reduce or eliminate public concerns, in addition to remediating problems identified by technical experts.

MD, MPH, FACOEM, CHCQM, is certified by the American Board of Preventive Medicine in Occupational Medicine and is a Fellow of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (FACOEM). He trained in Epidemiology at Johns Hopkins and in Clinical Occupational and Environmental Medicine at Emory University. For 19 years, he served as course director for Environmental Health, a required graduate course, at Emory.

For many years, he was an Occupational and Environmental Medical Consultant for the U.S. Public Health Service and for Aon Insurance, and a District Medical Consultant for the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Department of Labor. At the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health and the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry at the Centers for Disease Control, he developed information and methods for and performed evaluations of workplace toxicant exposures. At the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry, he received the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) Superior Accomplishment AwardBSpecial Act or Service, the second highest award given by DHHS, for implementing expert opinion groups to define the current state of usefulness of neurobehavioral test batteries to identify people with significant exposures to toxicants in the environment.

Expert served clients, including the U.S. Army Materiel Command, Chemical Materiel Agency, Army Corps of Engineers, and Army Medical Command, the Department of Justice, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Office of Naval Research, and Marine Corps War Fighting Laboratory in teaching courses and conducting and evaluating exercises and simulations for stockpile and non-stockpile chemical weapons demilitarization and chemical, biological, and other weapons of mass destruction counter- terrorism. He was a member of the U.S. National Guard Bureau Delegation to Assess Japanese Readiness for Terrorist Attacks with weapons of mass destruction in the aftermath of the Tokyo subway attack. He was a member of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Board of Investigation for the Chemical Release at the Munitions Demilitarization Building, Umatilla Chemical Weapons Depot, Oregon. He epidemiologically and clinically evaluated workers concerned about claimed chemical weapons agent exposures. His evaluation formed the basis of the successful defense of the U.S. in a subsequent lawsuit; and this outcome was important to the U.S. meeting treaty obligations with the Soviet Union.