A California jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $40 million to two women who claimed its talc-based baby powder caused their ovarian cancer. The women testified that decades of use led to major surgeries and chemotherapy. Johnson & Johnson plans to appeal, stating the verdict is aberrant and lacks evidence. A California jury on Friday ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $40 million to two women who said decades of using the company’s talc-based baby powder led to their ovarian cancer.Kent was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2014, and Schultz was diagnosed in 2018. Both California residents said they used J&J’s baby powder after bathing for 40 years. Their treatments involved major surgeries and dozens of rounds of chemotherapy, they testified at the trial, Reuters reported.In closing arguments viewed on Courtroom View Network, Andy Birchfield, an attorney for the women, told the jury, “Absolutely they knew, they knew and they were doing everything they could to hide it, to bury the truth about the dangers.”Allison Brown, an attorney for Johnson & Johnson, said, “They don’t have the evidence in this case, and they hope you don’t mind.” She argued that no major US health authority backs the alleged connection and no study shows talc can migrate from the outside of the body to the reproductive organs.Erik Haas, Johnson & Johnson’s worldwide vice president of litigation, said in a statement the company plans to “immediately appeal this verdict and expect to prevail as we typically do with aberrant adverse verdicts.”Johnson & Johnson is facing lawsuits from more than 67,000 plaintiffs who say they were diagnosed with cancer after using its baby powder and other talc products, according to court filings. The company says its products are safe, do not contain asbestos and do not cause cancer. J&J stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the US in 2020, switching to a cornstarch product.J&J has sought to resolve the litigation through bankruptcy, a proposal rejected three times by federal courts, most recently in April. The bankruptcies had put most cases on hold. Brown and Kent’s cases are the first to go to trial since the latest Chapter 11 attempt was dismissed.Before the bankruptcy attempts, J&J had a mixed record in talc trials, with verdicts as high as $4.69 billion awarded to women who said baby powder caused their ovarian cancer. The company has won some trials outright and had other verdicts reduced on appeal.The majority of lawsuits involve ovarian cancer claims. Cases alleging talc caused a rare and deadly cancer called mesothelioma make up a smaller portion of the claims J&J is facing. The company previously settled some of those claims but has not struck a nationwide settlement, so many lawsuits over mesothelioma have proceeded to trial in state courts in recent months. In the past year, J&J has been hit with several substantial verdicts in mesothelioma cases, including one for more than $900 million in Los Angeles in October.
J&J’s talc trouble continues: Johnson & Johnson ordered to pay $40 million in baby powder cancer case
