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A Grievous Loss

When I first came to Boston in 1979, I stayed with my friends Gregg and Terri at the Brookhaus in Brookline Village while I looked for an apartment. Gregg was a good friend from high school (and earlier). We shared a love of music (the folk/rock variety), and were in math and other classes together throughout our school years. When I was in law school, Gregg was in graduate school at Buffalo State University, studying statistics, but he transferred to Harvard when his adviser left Buffalo to join the Harvard faculty. Gregg's adviser was Stephen Lagakos.

A few short years later, while at Hale and Dorr, I was assigned to work with Jerry Facher on the case about a leukemia cluster in Woburn, Massachusetts later made famous in the book and movie, "A Civil Action." Although initially I worked on all aspects of the case, about a year before the trial I was asked to take responsibility for preparing the defense to the medical causation claims in the case. The principal issue was whether the chlorinated hydrocarbons found in the City of Woburn water supply in concentrations of parts per billion were capable of causing leukemia. Every medical and scientific expert I interviewed as a potential expert witness, from several major universities and medical schools, told me that there was no scientific evidence to support such a causal connection.

There was, however, an epidemiological study published by the Harvard School of Public Health, that suggested a link between the exposures in Woburn and the leukemias found there. One of its principal authors was Stephen Lagakos.

It struck me as quite a coincidence that the principal support for the case against my client was a study authored by my friend's adviser. Because I was assigned to focus on the medical issues in the case, I took depositions of many of the plaintiffs' medical experts and third parties who supported the claim that the chemicals caused the leukemias. I honestly don't remember whether I deposed Dr. Lagakos, but if I didn't, I at least would have helped Facher prepare for his deposition. I do recall deposing plaintiffs' expert epidemiologists, and traveling to Atlanta to depose representatives of the CDC who had conducted a follow up study.

All of this is a long-winded way of saying how saddened I was to learn that Dr. Lagakos was tragically killed in a car accident, along with his wife and mother, the other day. By all accounts, including my friend Gregg's, Lagakos was a very good man and a very good teacher. Despite finding ourselves on opposite sides of a medical mystery more than 20 years ago, I have no doubt that Harvard and the scientific community have suffered a grievous and irreparable loss. I am equally sure that he leaves behind him thousands of friends, colleagues and students whose lives were made better by their association with him.

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