Physician Qualify Thyself: The Latest On Irving Selikoff

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Brent C. Taggart

This just in from the British journal, Occupational Medicine (2010 60(1):53): “The Strange Case of Irving Selikoff.” The author traces Selikoff’s 1941-45 educational odyssey from the U.S., to Scotland, to Australia, back to Scotland, and back to the U.S. He concludes, “it is apparent Selikoff had an early struggle to qualify, but qualify he did.” That, and many of the other conclusions and suggestions of this paper may find their way into the asbestos courtroom, if they have not already.

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Industrial Hygiene Survey, Navy Yard, New York, NY 1943

Posted on August 31, 2009 by David Oliver

Dr. Leonard J. Goldwater, whom I was fortunate to get to know and with whom I corresponded for several years after finding him alive and well after an expert witness in one of my cases testified that "Dr. Goldwater, if he were alive today, would tell you that by 1939 it was known that benzene caused leukemia", gave me this document out of his trove of articles and letters that he'd collected over a long and especially distinguished career. 

In subsequent posts I'll relate some of his stories ranging from his testimony at the 1936 Gauley Bridge Disaster hearings before the U.S. Congress, to his work on benzene and blood dyscrasias in the late 1930's and early 1940's, through his extensive work on mercury and to his deposition testimony in the 1980's about the history of the knowledge of asbestos all gleaned from his work with the New York Department of Health, as Industrial Health Officer responsible for Navy shipyards during World War II and as a researcher and academic.

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