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39 Wake Forest L. Rev. 291 (2004)
The Need for Critical Appraisal of Expert Witnesses in Epidemiology and Statistics

handle is hein.journals/wflr39 and id is 301 raw text is: WAKE FOREST LAW REVIEW VOLUME 39 2004 NUMBER 2 ARTICLES THE NEED FOR CRITICAL APPRAISAL OF EXPERT WITNESSES IN EPIDEMIOLOGY AND STATISTICS Sander Greenland* Many environmental, occupational and pharmaceutical lawsuits pivot on determinations of causation from observational data. In these cases, expert witnesses often end up presenting misleading causation testimony because they believe, incorrectly, that causal inference is a settled topic in science. In reality, there is no universally accepted method for inferring presence or absence of causation from human observational data, nor is there any universally accepted method for inferring probabilities of causation (as courts often desire); there is not even a universally accepted definition of cause or effect. Worse, some methods promulgated before courts have well-documented logical flaws. These methods include the use of statistical significance as a causal criterion, and the equating of causation probabilities with attributable fractions. Worse still, many experts fail to scientifically hedge or qualify inferences presented to the court. I present two case studies illustrating some of these problems, and discuss some proposed ameliorations for these problems. These proposals include requesting experts to review methodologic guidelines developed for court reference; publishing expert testimony with critical * Dr. Greenland is Professor of Epidemiology, UCLA School of Public Health and Professor of Statistics, UCLA College of Letters and Science.

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