Pete - Specifically, what was it in Allen's post that motivated your riff against lawyers? (Down boy. Down!)

Seriously, we all feel for Allen, who's biggest immediate problems appear to have little to due with the CYA tendancies of the medical profession, and everything to do with the (potentially) bad practice of medicine.

But if we need a face for the poster, consider that of Scott S. Reuben, MD the prolific anesthioslogy researcher who managed to insinuate himself - even in minor roles - in almost all of the papers that were published on using continuous regional anesthesia on CRPS patients undergoing surgery, while never neglecting his day job: falsifying date in support of the prophylactic pre-op use of celecoxib (Celebrex) and pregabalin (Lyrica), both manufactured by Pfizer. For a reprint of the Anesthiology News article that broke the story, go here http://lcmedia.typepad.com/pharmola/...community.html And unfortunately, although Dr. Reuban admitted to falsifying result in what was origionally estimated as 21 of the 71 published papers he at least co-authored: thereby wiping out virtually all of the published literature on CRPS and subsequent surgeries, these papers having been withdrawn by the journal publishers.

Check out the RSDSA Medical Article archieve page at http://www.rsds.org/2/library/articl...x.html#Surgery What used to be a bevy of articles we could just hand to prospective surgeons who had little if any experience with CRPS (other than inducing it on occasion) has been decimated, on account of which we how have to say "psst, call Dr. Schwartzman."

Allen - Not a fun time to have to muddle through this. Sorry about that, bro.

Mike