STRUGGLING WITH SCIENTIFIC EVIDENCE

Merrell Dow had been fighting personal injury lawsuits over its antinausea medicine Bendectin for years, and had won many cases. But despite scientific evidence showing the drug could not cause the effects attributed to it, the number of lawsuits snowballed. In 1993, one case eventually got to the Supreme Court, which ruled in favor of the pharmaceutical firm. The real impact of that decision, however, is that the court laid out specific guidelines for determining what scientific evidence is admissible in court. The decision in that case, Daubert v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals Inc. , made judges the "gatekeepers" for the admissibility of evidence. It made clear that, for scientific evidence at least, judges must determine at the beginning of the trial that experts should be presenting evidence that is characterized by several factors, including peer review, testing, standards, and general scientific acceptance. Just a year ago, the Supreme Court followed up on Daubert in the case ...