Environmental: February 2009 Archives

Arkansas poultry companies want a judge to bar the use of a scientific article by an environmental health and safety expert in a lawsuit claiming chicken litter caused cancer in Prairie Grove.  Dr. Rod O'Connor used a formula designed for determining the amount of lead exposure in air from dust samples and applied it to arsenic. Washington County Circuit Judge Kim Smith rejected the formula, saying it should not have been used to determine arsenic levels because other scientists had never used the formula. It had not been tested or peer-reviewed, was not generally accepted by the scientific community, and there was no supporting literature. Judge Smith also said the expert simply threw out some variables that didn't support his conclusions rather than using them to reach an average.