Dear Florida Medical Examiners Commission Staff and Chair,

Please consider this communiqué an amendment, as well as an independent claim, in regards to District 9 ME Shashi Gore, MD and the complaints before you in this matter, pursuant to Florida Statutes 406.075.

The 31 August 03 edition of The Orlando Sentinel (copies provided via USPS) quotes Gore as referencing a report from an organ donation service (TransLife), which he blames a secretary for mistranscribing as his own findings, to explain his inclusion of error of a microscopic description of our son's heart tissue in his official, signed, and testified-to autopsy report.

As plausible as this may sound, it is completely untrue. In good faith, we have compelled Gore and his office to produce said report mistakenly referenced. He produced a gross-physical-description report by TransLife, not a microscopic examination report. We have, in good faith, asked Gore and his office (pointing out that to substantiate his claim, a microscopic report must be produced) to produce the proper report. To date he has not complied.

In addition, we have queried TransLife directly and have received confirmation through record disclosure that not only does no such report exist, but that no tissue specimens were excised from our son's (donor) heart for histopathologic study. We urge your Commission to confirm this result as well. Our son's donor ID number is KK2729 (TransLife).

Gore has obviously prevaricated in this very serious matter, thus adding a new cause for complaint. Considering his public office, he has in effect lied to the media, public, and by proxy, your Commission. His actions on the whole are illegal, because official documents of public record, as well as evidence in a 1st Degree Murder case (inter alia), are involved. This also reflects poorly upon the good and decent ME's of the State of Florida. It is proved obvious that our son's autopsy report was cross-contaminated, and that Dr. Gore is now "reaching for straws" to cover his responsibility for the myriad mistakes.

Furthermore, in the aforementioned article, Gore is quoted as saying he corrected his error of listing our son as "black" in regard to race. This is only partly true, because the official record was not changed until many months after the murder trial. Moreover, no note was included in the record that a correction was made in ex post facto fashion as required by Florida Administrative Code.

The autopsy report is an official public record, as well as evidence in a first degree murder trial/appeal still underway. In essence, and in the eyes of the law, such a change in the report is evidence tampering. Also in the same article, Dr. Nelson is quoted as saying that the public should expect good, accurate, scientifically proven diagnosis. This is true—even more so when the diagnosis is responsible for a murder conviction which included a death-penalty investigation. Dr. Gore has not met the prongs Dr. Nelson states in our case, and in many others.

Wherefore, we move your Commission to investigate these new claims as well as others before you, suspend Dr. Gore until the investigation is complete, and enact the full penalties empowered to you by Florida Statutes 406.075.

Respectfully submitted, Alan and Francine Yurko