Opinion ID: 755789
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Peer Review

Text: 25 Another pertinent consideration the Daubert Court identified in evaluating scientific evidence is whether the technique has been subject to peer review and publication. In the present case, the EPA's ORD carpet study contained four evaluations analyzing both the EPA and Anderson Labs toxicological studies. (Dudek Affidavit, Exhibit 1, pp. PR-1 to 27.) All four reviewers in the ORD carpet study concluded that the EPA's methodology was scientifically valid and superior to that conducted by Anderson Labs. (See id . at pp. PR-2, 7, 12, 20.) Although all four recommended further studies (id. at pp. PR-6, 7, 14, 25) they all expressed more confidence in the EPA's methodology and results than in those of Anderson Labs. (Id. at pp. PR-2, 7, 15, 20.) The most common criticisms of Anderson Labs' methodologies and procedures related to its failure to insure a blinded study, its failure to perform necropsies or autopsies on the deceased mice in the studies and irregularities in recording indications of sensory and pulmonary irritation. (See, e.g., id. at pp. PR-3, 4, 8, 12-13, 17, 19-20.) 26 In addition to the evaluations in the ORD study, defendants submitted affidavits stating that another panel of peer reviewers assembled by the EPA were generally supportive of the scientific methods employed by the EPA and private laboratories but critical of the scientific methods employed by Anderson Labs. (Dudek Affidavit at Para. 9; Stott Affidavit at Para. 9.) Plaintiffs, on the other hand, failed to submit any evidence of peer reviews supportive of Dr. Anderson's methodology or any proof that her studies had been published. Therefore, the uncontradicted evidence before the court demonstrates that peers in the relevant scientific community have been critical of the methodology employed by Anderson Labs but generally supportive of the procedures employed by EPA and private laboratories cited by defendants, which failed to independently replicate Dr. Anderson's findings.