The US System for Investigating Deaths is Dysfunctional

This press release isn't international, but it's so horrifying I decided to share it anyway.

While CSI and detective novels give the impression that America's morgues are staffed by highly trained professionals equipped with the most sophisticated tools, a new investigation by ProPublica, NPR and PBS Frontline reveals a starkly different reality - one that is a dysfunctional system, short of qualified people, that is squeezed for resources with no national standards and little oversight. According to our findings:

* 1 in 5 physicians working in the country’s busiest morgues – including the chief medical examiner of Washington, D.C. -- are not board certified in forensic pathology, the branch of medicine focused on the mechanics of death;

* the country has fewer than half the specialists it needs;

* even physicians who flunk their board exams find jobs in the field. Uncertified doctors who have failed the exam are employed by county offices in Florida, Michigan, Pennsylvania, and California;

* a recent National Academy of Sciences’ study shows that coroners and medical examiner offices are struggling with inadequate resources, poor scientific training, and substandard facilities and technology.

The results of A.C. Thompson and Mosi Secret's investigation were published today by ProPublica. Reports will air today and throughout the week on NPR and a Frontline documentary will air tonight at 9pm Eastern. Ryan Gabrielson of the Center for Investigative Reporting’s California Watch and the Investigative Reporting Program at UC Berkeley will have additional stories in the coming days. A special "Autopsies in the U.S.A." database accompanies the story and features information on the 69 largest coroners offices in the U.S. and how many autopsies they performed, how many forensic pathologists were employed to perform those autopsies and whether their current staff includes board-certified forensic pathologists.

Thompson's report examines several specific incidents in New Orleans, as well as problems in California, Massachusetts, Oklahoma, Michigan and Kentucky that show how politics, lack of training/expertise and other errors by coroners and forensic pathologists have allowed potentially guilty perpetrators to go free, and the innocent to be accused of crimes they did not commit. The qualifications of those who oversee death investigations vary widely from state to state -- and, in some areas, from county to county. But the main divide is between medical examiner systems, run by doctors specially trained in forensic pathology, and coroner systems, run by elected or appointed officials who often do not have to be doctors.

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This press release is reprinted by Alanna Shaikh out of an obscure sense of guilt. It does not represent the opinions of Alanna Shaikh or any of her employers.