The Well News: A Growing Health Threat From America’s Courtrooms

By Kasia Mulligan, Patients Come First’s National Spokesperson

Across the country, a growing battle is unfolding in America’s courtrooms, one that directly affects the health care decisions patients make every day. When unreliable expert testimony is allowed in court, it can distort how patients view the safety of everyday medications and treatments. That’s why more states must adopt strong Rule 702 standards to ensure our courts keep junk science out and protect patients from misleading claims.

For too long, agenda-driven science has seeped its way into consequential court cases, eroding our trust and the integrity of our judicial system. We see this play out when “science” is manufactured in a lab specifically for a lawsuit, rather than through the rigorous, peer-reviewed process required by the medical community.

We see it in litigation spanning shaken baby syndrome to Tylenol and Zantac, where expert testimony often becomes an undisputed courtroom fixture long after the actual science has moved on. When experts are paid to validate claims that lack a rigorous, reproducible basis in evidence, it doesn’t just skew one verdict — it cements a legacy of misinformation that haunts our health care system for decades.

Read the full op-ed in The Well News here.