Brain Injury Lawyer

In prior blog entries, I have discussed various literature regarding Green’s word memory test.  I have also discussed in the past the need for journals to require its authors to report conflicts of interest.
 
I recently received a copy of the August 2009 issue of Brain Injury, the Official Research Journal of the International Brain Injury Association.  Included in that issue was an article by Paul Green entitled “Examining False Positives on the Word Memory Test in Adults with Mild Traumatic Brain Injury.”  At the end of the article, a “Declaration of Interest” was included.  There, it stated, “Dr. Paul Green is the inventor, author and copyright owner of the Word Memory Test, the medical symptom validity test and a nonverbal medical symptom validity test.  Drs. Flaro and Courtney have no financial interest in these tests.”
 
Unfortunately, Dr. Green failed to acknowledge in his Declaration of Interest, the amount of forensic work in which he is involved and the amount of income he receives as a result of that work.
 
In the body of the article, under the methodology section of the article, he writes,
 
 “Between 1996 and 2008, 1,856 consecutive cases were referred to the first author’s private practice for neuropsychological assessment in the context of workers’ compensation claims, insurance disability claims or litigation.”
 
Thus, it is clear, that an extensive portion of Dr. Green’s income is derived from forensic work.  How much of that work is on behalf of plaintiffs and how much is on behalf of the insurance industry and self-funded major corporations.Unfortunately, neither the article nor the declaration provides the reader with any details regarding a breakdown of the percentage of the 1,856 cases as to whether or not they were done on behalf of the injured plaintiff or the defendant who is responsible for the harm it caused.
 
Hopefully, in future issues of Brain Injury as well as other journals, conflicts of interests and declarations of interest will include more information regarding the amount of forensic work performed by the authors.