Dr. Guidotti’s credentials are well recognized. Dr. Guidotti holds board certifications in occupational medicine, pulmonary (lung) medicine, and internal medicine, and professional credentials in toxicology and environmental management (specializing in air pollution). He is also well published in epidemiology. In 2013, Dr. Guidotti received the William S. Knudsen Award for Outstanding Contribution to Occupational and Environmental Medicine, which is the field’s highest award. He was President of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM) in 2006.
Dr. Guidotti has extensive experience in expert services in support of litigation. His track record is approximately 66% work for plaintiff’s counsel and 33% work for defense.
He was the co-editor of and an author of several chapters in the 2001 book Science on the Witness Stand: Evaluation of Scientific Evidence in Law, Adjudication and Policy (OEM Press; see www.oempress.com)
Science on the Witness Stand
Health and medical knowledge are essential to the resolution of disputes in law and administrative applications (such as workers’ compensation) and provide essential input into public policy decisions. There are no socially agreed-upon rules for the application of this knowledge except in the law. On a practical level, the legal system lacks the capacity to evaluate the validity of knowledge as evidence and therefore relies heavily on expert opinion. A similar problem once existed for the clinical practice of medicine. Over the last 20 years, the approach called “critical appraisal” has established norms for the acceptance of evidence in clinical practice that are now almost universally accepted. Critical appraisal is a systematic approach to evaluating the evidence based on clinical epidemiology; evidence-based medicine is the practice of medicine justified by valid studies correctly interpreted.
For seven years, a group of scientists and lawyers engaged in a project to develop a framework for applying the knowledge of health and medicine similar to the concept of critical appraisal as it might be applied to litigation and adjudication. We called this approach “evidence-based medical dispute resolution” (EBMDR). The ideal behind EBMDR would be a systematic approach to evaluating scientific evidence in a particular context, that of law, adjudication and public policy.
The essential principles of EBMDR were outlined in our 2001 book, Science on the Witness Stand. In the book, 30 + authors examine these issues from many relevant and recognized points of view: plaintiff, defendant, adjudication body, presiding authority, expert witness, and parties affected but not part of the proceedings.
Critical issues addressed in the book include how to apply scientific evidence when the standard is “more likely than not” rather than scientific certainty, how the generalizations drawn from epidemiology and population-based sciences are interpreted and individualized to the case at hand, how risk is interpreted for an individual after the fact (because conventional probability treats risk before the fact and conventional biostatistics applies primarily to a population), evaluating evidence to a legal rather than scientific standard, standards of certainty, individualization, apportionment, presumption and the limits of conventional statistical inference testing in adjudication.
Guidotti TL, Rose SG, eds. Science in the Witness Stand: Scientific Evidence in Law, Adjudication and Policy. Beverley Farms, MA, OEM Press, 2001.
Dr. Guidotti was the lead medical expert witness on causation for the recent highly-publicized case involving workers who cleaned up the damaged buildings after the 11 September 2001 tragedy.
In 2010 he was involved as an expert in the legal action between members of the Fire Department of New York who were involved as first responders and the City of New York, but case settled before testimony was required.