Extract: We thank Dr. Teschke for her letter (Teschke, 2016) regarding our recent meta-analysis of mesothelioma among motor vehicle mechanics (Garabrant et al., 2016) and her thoughtful remarks on the interpretation of epidemiologic studies. We note that she has no criticisms of our paper, but focuses on how epidemiological evidence should be interpreted in legal cases, a topic beyond the scope of our published paper. We also wish to restate that we viewed her case–control study (Teschke et al., 1997) as one of the methodologically strong studies of mesothelioma risks among motor vehicle mechanics. Dr. Teschke first asks whether studies of motor vehicle mechanics are the appropriate setting to examine the risks of mesothelioma from chrysotile exposure. This is not the question that our meta-analysis set out to answer. Rather, we sought to answer the question of whether motor vehicle mechanics and brake repair workers were at increased risk of mesothelioma. The frequent claim in the scientific literature that motor vehicle mechanics are at increased risk of mesothelioma merits a rigorous analysis of the scientific literature using systematic methodology, which we provided.