The defendants in Ambrosini sought to rely on Richardson. That court found that cell and animal studies alone, in conflict with published epidemiological studies, and supported only by unpublished, reanalyzed epidemiological data offered by the plaintiff's expert, could not form an adequate basis for an expert opinion that a drug caused the plaintiff's birth defects. The Richardson plaintiff's own expert had acknowledged that data underlying his opinion were not of a type reasonably relied on by experts in the field. A plaintiff's expert had offered epidemiological evidence that a class of drugs including the suspect drug, in general, do cause birth defects. But the lower court found this unexamined evidence to be inadmissible after reviewing an affidavit of a defendants' expert that relied on several negative epidemiological studies.
Science is a rapidly changing field.
Methodologies rejected today may be universally accepted in the future. Our decisions must leave the way open for these changes. The use of animal evidence is well established in setting public health policy and developing regulatory standards from probabilistic data on population risk, but there is presently no such acceptance in determining the scientific basis for personal risk and individual causation. This case contributes to the future possibility that health risk assessments relying partially or even heavily on animal and cell data will be found admissible in toxic injury lawsuits . Inc. Last modified July 29, 1999.