Classical Mistakes in Forensic Toxicology Made by Forensic Pathologists

Abstract

The forensic pathologist interprets the toxicology results in the setting of the entire death investigation. This review focuses on potential errors by the forensic pathologist with regard to toxicology analysis encountered with death investigation. These include mistakes of determining the cause of death based solely on the drug concentration and failure to consider the postmortem nature of the specimen when interpreting results. The forensic toxicologist does analytical toxicology; i.e., determining what drug(s) is/are present and in what concentration. The forensic pathologist does interpretive toxicology, which requires consideration of the decedent's medical history, the circumstances surrounding death, the environment of the death, the autopsy findings, and the results of the analytical toxicology. Forensic pathologists must communicate with the forensic toxicologists, understand their limitations, and collect proper specimens. Providing appropriate clinical information to the toxicologists will result in more timely and thorough toxicological analysis. Toxicologic results should be included on the death certificate only when they make a pathologic contribution to death.