The 4,500 members of the College of American Pathologists, said the U.S. Department of Justice, have been performing improper surgery on patients' pocketbooks. They have been conspiring to set unduly high prices on such services as urinalyses and blood tests, and they have tried to drive nonmembers out of the lucrative lab business. With those harsh charges, Justice Department lawyers asked the U.S. District Court in Chicago to prescribe a whole new set of business ethics for the busy pathologists.
Noting that there are some 20,000 commercial medical laboratories in the U.S.,...