Zoloft MDL Judge Rejects Testimony of Plaintiffs’ Causation Expert as ‘Scientifically Unsound’

PHILADELPHIA — The judge overseeing the Zoloft birth defect MDL has excluded the testimony of plaintiffs’ expert Dr. Anick Bérard, ruling that her methods are scientifically unsound because she drew conclusions by examining “trends” across selected studies.

On June 27, Judge Cynthia Rufe of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania noted that other researchers in Bérard’s field have concluded that the epidemiological research on which she relied provides no conclusive evidence of an association between Zoloft and birth defects.

Plaintiffs with claims pending in the MDL accuse Pfizer Inc. of failing to inform the Food and …