Epidemiology in the courtroom: mixed messages from recent British experience

Abstract

In its first foray into the labyrinth that causation in personal injury has become, the U.K. Supreme Court recently held obiter that statistical evidence alone could not establish causation. But in an earlier toxic tort case, the High Court had relied on epidemiological evidence to identify a cluster of birth defects arising in the vicinity of a contaminated land site. This recent British experience is then discussed within the wider context of the forensic role of 'naked statistics'. Language: en