EVERAL RECENT court decisions suggest that the scientific benchmark continues to be raised with respect to admissibility of expert testimony in cases involving chemical exposure and alleged health effects. In particular, failure to provide adequate evidence of a quantitative exposure analysis has been cited in numerous recent cases in which an expert’s testimony has been dismissed.
For example, in Current v. Atochem North America, Inc., 2001 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 22522 (W.D. Tex. Dec. 17, 2001), the plaintiff’s expert witness testimony regarding arsenic exposure as a cause of plaintiff’s cancer was ruled unreliable and barred because the expert’s opinion was not based on reliable evidence of Current’s degree of exposure. In that case, Dr. Michael Gochfeld (the expert witness) did not provide a quantitative estimate of plaintiff’s exposure but instead relied on literature reports that arsenic has been reported to induce specific types of cancers under certain exposure conditions.
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