Carrie A. Wrisberg coauthors paper in December 26 issue of Neurology

Tuesday, December 26, 2006 - Carrie A. Wrisberg coauthors The impact of litigation on neurologic research published in Neurology.

The lead author, Brad A. Racette, MD, associate professor of neurology, treats patients and performs research at Washington University School of Medicine. Dr. Racette joined forces with coauthors Ann Bradley, JD, Joel S. Perlmutter, MD and Wrisberg to discuss how litigation and its peripheral effects may bias investigators, impede research efforts, and harm research participants. Solutions are proposed including rigorous enforcing of policies to prevent researcher conflicts of interest and enacting comprehensive legislation to designate medical research study data and protocols as privileged.

Personal experience provides foundation for the paper. After Dr. Racette published research results potentially linking welding to increased risk of Parkinson's Disease, attorneys in state and federal welding fume lawsuits served Racette with numerous extensive subpoenas attempting to force disclosure and testimony regarding underlying research data.

Carrie A. Wrisberg and Ann Bradley successfully represented Dr. Racette and Washington University in efforts to protect patient privacy and the privacy of the research data.

For more information, see the complete article. Racette BA, Bradley A, Wrisberg CA, Perlmutter JS. The impact of litigation on neurologic research. Neurology 2006; 67:2124-2128.