Areas of knowledge are expanding all the time. Martyn Day, a leading UK plaintiffs' lawyer, admits this. But he hopes to re-issue proceedings after a big study is completed later this year. There is also a problem of honesty among expert witnesses. The courts recently reproved an expert who said he saw nothing wrong in pulling the wool over the other side's eyes.
Public fears can force politicians to take public policy decisions unsupported by evidence.
Although the impact of junk science on medical negligence law has been the most significant, other areas, such as environmental law, have also been badly affected. In England, British Nuclear Fuels spent years and millions of pounds fighting allegations that the Sellafield nuclear reactor in Cumbria caused leukaemia. The electro-magnetic syndrome cases also fall into this category. John Meltzer, a product liability litigator at the UK international law firm Lovell White Durrant, says that litigation based on junk science is going to have limited success in this country, because judges are more dispassionate than juries. Nonetheless, he has been following the growth of junk science closely.