Medico-Legal JournalPub Date : 2024-09-01Epub Date: 2024-02-09DOI: 10.1177/00258172231214767
Dubravko Habek, Jurica Habek
{"title":"Reverse case in child sexual abuse.","authors":"Dubravko Habek, Jurica Habek","doi":"10.1177/00258172231214767","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258172231214767","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Child sexual abuse is a public health and medico-legal problem in developed and developing countries. Prompted by rare presentations of cases from this issue that change the course and outcome of events, we present the completed criminal-medico-legislative procedure as a contribution to the dynamics of the investigative process from my own many years of forensic practice. Two preschool teachers of late reproductive age from a home for neglected children reported to the State Attorney's Office a former ward of the home, now an older minor, and an auxiliary employee of the same home, for having sexual relations with a two-year-old girl. But the state attorney also ordered an examination of the reported young man, so the reported case that the teachers \"saw\" penetrative intercourse was rejected by the expert and the state attorney as an action impossible without injuring the girl at that age. Further investigation proved the continuous sexual abuse by two teachers of the young man since he was 13 years old, i.e. for three years, which he did not report for fear that he would be kicked out of the home. He had sexual relations with each of them several times during those incriminated years. After his statement, other employees of the home were questioned as witnesses who confirmed the suspect boy's claims. He was then released from custody, and the teachers were dismissed from their jobs and accused of years of sexual abuse of minors and abuse of their position and authority as competent persons.</p>","PeriodicalId":35529,"journal":{"name":"Medico-Legal Journal","volume":" ","pages":"158-159"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139708076","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Medico-Legal JournalPub Date : 2024-09-01Epub Date: 2024-02-10DOI: 10.1177/00258172231218862
Bajrang K Singh, Mahendra Sharma, Surya Prakash Lra, M Chauhan
{"title":"Death of a child due to venom toxicity following multiple honey bee stings: A case report.","authors":"Bajrang K Singh, Mahendra Sharma, Surya Prakash Lra, M Chauhan","doi":"10.1177/00258172231218862","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258172231218862","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Most bee stings are not life-threatening. Bee venom often causes local, mild allergic reactions in people, but even a single bee sting may induce a fatal anaphylactic reaction. Usually, anaphylactic reaction is the cause of death, but, when a child suffers multiple stings (more than 30), direct toxicity of venom can also be fatal. A three-year-old male child was brought to the hospital with pain, swelling and redness at the sting sites. He had more than 35 stings at various sites over his face, on his tongue and over his body. He died 10 hours after the incidence of the honey bee stings and was maintaining oxygen saturation until the terminal stage of his life. At autopsy, the honey bee sting sites showed redness, swelling and a small effusion of blood surrounding the stinger tracks. On the tongue two stingers were found in situ. Facial puffiness and eyelid swelling, along with congested organs, were also found, but features suggestive of anaphylactic death like airway oedema, mucous plug or cyanosis were absent. Hospital treatment records show that blood pressure remained low with tachycardia despite treatment. Having regard for all the evidence it was concluded that death was due to multiple honey bee stings that caused direct venom toxicity.</p>","PeriodicalId":35529,"journal":{"name":"Medico-Legal Journal","volume":" ","pages":"160-163"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139716465","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Medico-Legal JournalPub Date : 2024-09-01Epub Date: 2024-05-17DOI: 10.1177/00258172241235016
Marc A Golstein
{"title":"Diagnostic errors in rheumatology and medico-legal consequences.","authors":"Marc A Golstein","doi":"10.1177/00258172241235016","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258172241235016","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Medical errors and adverse effects of treatment are inherent to medical practice. Like any other medical specialty, rheumatology is not exempt. Although the problem is imprecisely quantified, according to some authors it affects up to 10% of hospitalised patients. Describing and qualifying misdiagnoses in rheumatology will help us to understand and reduce these. Further, misdiagnosis generates unjustified costs and medico-legal consequences with errors in initial diagnosis the basis for medico-legal disputes involving assessment of work incapacity.</p>","PeriodicalId":35529,"journal":{"name":"Medico-Legal Journal","volume":" ","pages":"139-144"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"140959562","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Brute forcing on secured shell servers emphasising the role of cyber forensics - a quali-quantitative study.","authors":"Atul Raj, Mohit Chauhan, Virender Kumar Chhoker, Mukta Rani, Bajrang Kumar Singh, Roshan D'Souza, Jatin Bodwal","doi":"10.1177/00258172241236269","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258172241236269","url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Background: </strong>Increasing numbers of cyber attacks threaten us personally and professionally. Cyber crimes include obtaining sensitive information (medical or financial) but may extend to organising heinous crimes including murders and aggravated sexual assaults. A major vector of cyber crimes is brute force attacks on secured shell servers.</p><p><strong>Aim of study: </strong>This research highlights the prevalence of the intensity of brute force attacks on secured shell servers via quali-quantitative analysis of cyber attacks.</p><p><strong>Methodology: </strong>The brute force attacks were recorded over a period of 20 days with the help of logs taken from five dedicated servers installed in a production environment.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>There were a minimum of 6470 and maximum of 22,715 attacks on a server per day. The total number of attacks on all the servers during the study period was 1,065,920. The brute force attacks were mainly targeted at the service network accounts.</p><p><strong>Conclusion: </strong>Growth of the field of cyber forensics is the optimal solution to prevent the malicious use of internet services and the commissioning of crimes by this means.</p>","PeriodicalId":35529,"journal":{"name":"Medico-Legal Journal","volume":" ","pages":"152-157"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141318514","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Medico-Legal JournalPub Date : 2024-09-01Epub Date: 2024-05-21DOI: 10.1177/00258172241251684
Eleanor Jane Turner, Diana Brahams
{"title":"The right to privacy for people in the public eye. Can hospital information technology systems keep their data safe from threats?","authors":"Eleanor Jane Turner, Diana Brahams","doi":"10.1177/00258172241251684","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258172241251684","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":35529,"journal":{"name":"Medico-Legal Journal","volume":" ","pages":"114-116"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141071590","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Medico-Legal JournalPub Date : 2024-09-01Epub Date: 2024-02-09DOI: 10.1177/00258172231214902
Isabella L Pecorari, Vijay Agarwal
{"title":"Medical malpractice and cerebrospinal fluid shunts: An analysis of 36 cases.","authors":"Isabella L Pecorari, Vijay Agarwal","doi":"10.1177/00258172231214902","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258172231214902","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Many physicians, particularly neurosurgeons, face malpractice claims during their career. The aim of this paper is to identify which factors increase the risk of litigation and influence legal outcomes relating to cerebrospinal fluid shunt management. Westlaw, an online legal database, was used to identify all medico-legal cases pertaining to cerebrospinal fluid shunts. Information regarding plaintiff demographics, defendant specialties, reasons for litigation, and trial outcomes were analysed. Thirty-six cases met criteria for inclusion. Most cases returned a defence verdict (44.4%), with delayed treatment or failure to appropriately treat patients with shunts the most common reason for litigation (66.7%). The average plaintiff verdict payout was $4,888,136.75 and average settlement $1,362,307.69. Delay or failure to treat resulted in the largest average payouts for plaintiff verdicts and settlements ($5,329,299.14 and $1,531,500.00, respectively).</p>","PeriodicalId":35529,"journal":{"name":"Medico-Legal Journal","volume":" ","pages":"145-151"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"139708074","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Post-mortem tetramorphism: Four morphological changes within the same corpse.","authors":"Claudia Zanovello, Margherita Pallocci, Pierluigi Passalacqua, Daniela Mazzuca, Lucilla De Luca, Valentina Caparrelli, Filippo Milano, Michele Treglia","doi":"10.1177/00258172231182588","DOIUrl":"10.1177/00258172231182588","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>Transformative processes generally occur singly and jointly involving the whole body. Rarely, they appear simultaneously as distinct transformative phenomena. The case study relates to a corpse found inside a storage tank in a rather unusual position, during the winter months. On external examination carried out at the crime scene, both legs and feet were out of the well bending over the storage tank and showing skeletonisation and tissue defects due to biting inflicted by the environmental macrofauna. The thighs were also skeletonised, inside the well but not immersed in the water, as was the torso which, however, was entirely corified. The colliquated shoulders, head and upper limbs were fully immersed into the water as well as the macerated hands. The corpse was exposed simultaneously to three different environmental conditions: the external setting with changes in temperature, rainfall and the action of the macro fauna, the unventilated and humid setting inside the tank, and lastly the stored water. The corpse, lying in a specific position and being exposed to different atmospheric conditions, underwent four post-mortem changes at the same time, making it challenging to estimate the time of death, based only on the available data and macroscopic findings.</p>","PeriodicalId":35529,"journal":{"name":"Medico-Legal Journal","volume":" ","pages":"164-168"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-09-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"9746391","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Enhancing trauma evaluation: Comparative analysis of post-mortem computed tomography and autopsy findings in abdominal stab wounds.","authors":"Darshan Galoria, Srushti Shukla, Shridhar Dave, Preeti Tiwari, Prateek Rastogi, Pradeep Rana, Dhara Goswami, Arijit Datta","doi":"10.1177/00258172241245556","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00258172241245556","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>In cases of traumatic deaths, accurate assessment of injuries is essential for both legal and medical purposes. This case report compares the findings of post-mortem computed tomography with conventional autopsy methods in assessing abdominal stab wounds. A 34-year-old woman with multiple stab wounds in the abdomen underwent post-mortem examination, including computed tomography imaging. Computed tomography revealed specific breaches in the skin's continuity and internal injuries, including perforation of the stomach. A conventional autopsy confirmed the presence of multiple stab wounds and associated injuries to internal structures. However, additional injuries to major blood vessels, such as the abdominal aorta and inferior vena cava, were only detected during manual exploration of the peritoneal cavity. This case highlights the complementary roles of post-mortem computed tomography and conventional autopsy in evaluating traumatic injuries. While computed tomography imaging offers non-invasive visualisation of injuries, manual examination remains essential for identifying certain injuries, particularly those affecting major blood vessels. The integration of computed tomography imaging with traditional autopsy methods enhances the accuracy and reliability of forensic assessments in cases of traumatic deaths, particularly in complex cases involving multiple injuries. Understanding the strengths and limitations of these techniques is crucial for improving forensic investigations and ultimately enhancing medico-legal outcomes.</p>","PeriodicalId":35529,"journal":{"name":"Medico-Legal Journal","volume":" ","pages":"258172241245556"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141793706","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Rosario Barranco, Anna Roncallo, Sara Candosin, Rita Bianchi, Giulio F Orcioni, Francesco Ventura
{"title":"Histopathological and medico-legal aspects in a case of death related to an undiagnosed cerebral large B-cell lymphoma.","authors":"Rosario Barranco, Anna Roncallo, Sara Candosin, Rita Bianchi, Giulio F Orcioni, Francesco Ventura","doi":"10.1177/00258172241245856","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1177/00258172241245856","url":null,"abstract":"<p><p>We report an unusual and undetected case of primary central nervous system lymphoma presenting as multiple lesions in the periventricular occipital lobe in an immunocompetent host, which had manifested as a stroke. The neoplastic diagnosis was made only after death following a thorough autopsy and histopathological examinations which enabled the diagnosis of a rare cancer (primary cerebral lymphoma) which remained undetected and undiagnosed during life.</p>","PeriodicalId":35529,"journal":{"name":"Medico-Legal Journal","volume":" ","pages":"258172241245856"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2024-07-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"141793707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}