Zostavax MDL Judge Excludes Testimony of Plaintiffs’ Causation Expert Poznansky

PHILADELPHIA — The judge overseeing the federal docket for Zostavax vaccine injury cases has excluded the testimony of plaintiff’s specific causation expert Dr. Mark Poznansky, ruling he did not make the required differential diagnosis in arriving at his opinions.

In a Dec. 1 order, Judge Harvey Bartle of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania found the expert provided no basis for his conclusion that Merck’s vaccine caused shingles in the five bellwether plaintiffs.

Zostavax, approved by the FDA in 2006, was developed to prevent shingles in adults 50 years or older. It includes the Oka strain …