Austin partner Mike Klatt, as an invited author, has contributed the chapter on “Epidemiology” to the latest edition of "Science Basics for the Drug and Medical Device Lawyer.”
Recently published by DRI as part of its Defense Library Series, the book is intended to provide background knowledge on a variety of medical and scientific topics that defense practitioners commonly encounter.
Klatt’s “Epidemiology” chapter focuses on what epidemiology is; common statistical measures; relative risk, hazard ratios, and odds ratios; types of epidemiologic studies including randomized controlled trials, observational studies, cohort studies, retrospective case-control studies, and others; how reliable epidemiologic evidence is; differences between “risk factors” and “casual factors”; standards for assessing related evidence including the “Bradford Hill” criteria; and the “hierarchy” of epidemiologic evidence.
Other chapters in the book cover reliability challenges to differential etiology, avoiding the "causation conflation" trap in a pharmaceutical case, application of the Bradford Hill criteria, immunology, genetics and molecular/cell biology, urogynecology, and bleeding and clotting.
Klatt is a partner whose practice focuses on product liability and commercial litigation involving individual claims, mass tort/mass claim litigation, and class actions in the fields of drugs and medical devices, products liability, and environmental/chemical exposures. He has decades of experience and specific expertise in the development of medical and scientific defenses to claims involving prescription and non-prescription pharmaceuticals, medical devices, cosmetic products, household products, and alleged chemical or environmental exposures. For over 30 years, he has developed and led defense strategies based on sound principles of medicine and science on behalf of national manufacturers of these products in significant state and nationwide litigations. He has recently served as national science counsel and co-first chair in several trials resulting in defense verdicts and in Daubert-type hearings obtaining favorable rulings for the firm’s client in talc ovarian cancer litigation.
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If you would like to speak with Mr. Klatt about the book or have questions about information contained in his chapter, please email him at mklatt@grsm.com.