Pathology chief contradicts claim on cancer review documents

The chief of clinical pathology at the largest hospital in St. John's told a courtroom Thursday that he did not consider a probe into a controversial laboratory a peer review.

That is counter to the view of the Eastern Health authority, which has gone to Newfoundland Supreme Court to ask that two reviews be kept from the public eye when a commission on flawed hormone receptor tests launches next month.

Dr. Donald Cook, chief of clinical pathology at the Health Sciences Centre in St. John's, told the court that he commissioned one of the two reviews in 2005, after Eastern Health realized that its lab was returning inaccurate results of hormone receptor tests.

The tests are done to help determinethe course of treatment a breast cancer patient should receive.

Bern Coffey, a lawyer for the commission, asked Cook, "In 2005, did you consider this peer review or quality assurance?"

"No, I didn't consider [it] that. I just wanted to get to the bottom of what was going wrong," Cook told the court.

Eastern Health is arguing that the reviews should be kept secret, because as peer review documents, the confidentiality of the authors should be protected. The authority is arguing that such a breach would make it difficult for external reviewers to write candidly about their findings.

Probing further on the peer review issue, Coffey asked, "Did that notion only come up long after it was done?"

"Yes," Cook answered.

In court, Dan Simmons, a lawyer for Eastern Health, argued that the reports are nonetheless peer reviews and part of a quality assurance program, because "they were done to see if the quality of service at Eastern Health could be made better."

If Eastern Health persuades Justice Wayne Dymond that the reports, written by a B.C. pathologist and an Ontario lab technologist, are peer reviews, they can be kept from the public.

The case is expected to return to court next week.

Reports said to be 'fairly damning'

Donna Howell, a cancer patient who is part of a pending class action lawsuit on the flawed tests, is not accepting Eastern Health's argument.

"They're just trying to hide what happened, what results they got, and they're just trying to muzzle the whole situation," said Howell.

"They are trying to make sure that that information is suppressed. They do not want it released to the public because that will not be in their best interest."

The findings of the reviews are not known, but a court document prepared by Coffey and a colleague quoted a 2005 letter by a St. John's pathologist who referred to the reports as "fairly damning" in nature.

A starting date has not yet been set by the commission, which the Newfoundland and Labrador government ordered last year to examine what went wrong with hormone receptor tests.

On Wednesday, Eastern Health vice-president Oscar Howell told the court that the authority still does not have a complete, written policy on quality assurance, and that the authority is "still struggling" with managing such affairs following a merger.