The court emphasized that other Courts of Appeals considering the
risks of Bendectin had refused to admit reanalyses of epidemiological
studies that had been neither published nor subjected to peer review.
951 F. 2d, at 1130-1131.  Those courts had found unpublished
reanalyses -particularly problematic in light of the massive weight of
the original published studies supporting [respondent's] position, all
of which had undergone full scrutiny from the scientific community.-
Id., at 1130.  Contending that reanalysis is generally accepted by the
scientific community only when it is subjected to verification and
scrutiny by others in the field, the Court of Appeals rejected
petitioners' reanalyses as -unpublished, not subjected to the normal
peer review process and generated solely for use in litigation.-  Id.,
at 1131.  The court concluded that petitioners' evidence provided an
insufficient foundation to allow admission of expert testimony that
Bendectin caused their injuries and, accordingly, that petitioners
could not satisfy their burden of proving causation at trial.
  We granted certiorari, ___ U. S. ___ (1992), in light of sharp
divisions among the courts regarding the proper standard for the
admission of expert testimony.  Compare, e.g., United States v.
Shorter, 257 U. S. App. D.C. 358, 363-364, 809 F. 2d 54, 59-60
(applying the -general acceptance- standard), cert. denied, 484 U. S.
817 (1987), with DeLuca v. Merrell Dow Pharmaceuticals, Inc., 911 F.
2d 941, 955 (CA3 1990) (rejecting the -general acceptance-standard).
                           II
                            A
  In the 70 years since its formulation in the Frye case, the -general
acceptance- test has been the dominant standard for determining the
admissibility of novel scientific evidence at trial.  See E. Green &
C. Nesson, Problems, Cases, and Materials on Evidence 649 (1983).
Although under increasing attack of late, the rule continues to be
followed by a majority of courts, including the Ninth Circuit.
  The Frye test has its origin in a short and citation-free 1923
decision concerning the admissibility of evidence derived from a
systolic blood pressure deception test, a crude precursor to the
polygraph machine.  In what has become a famous (perhaps infamous)
passage, the then Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia
described the device and its operation and declared:
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