Johnson & Johnson is to appeal a Los Angeles jury’s order to pay $40m to two women who claimed its talcum powder caused their ovarian cancer, reports AP.
The guilty verdict is the latest development in a longstanding legal battle over claims that talc in J&J’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower body powder was connected to ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer affecting the lungs and other organs.
In October, another California jury ordered the company to pay a whopping $966m to the family of a woman who died of mesothelioma, claiming she developed the cancer because the baby powder she used was contaminated with the carcinogen asbestos.
In the latest case, the jury awarded $18m to one claimant and $22m to the other.
Erik Haas, J&J’s worldwide vice-president of litigation, said the company had won “16 of the 17 ovarian cancer cases it previously tried” and expected to do so again upon appealing this latest verdict.
He called the jury’s findings “irreconcilable with the decades of independent scientific evaluations confirming that talc is safe, does not contain asbestos, and does not cause cancer”.
Johnson & Johnson replaced the talc in its baby powder sold in most of North America with cornstarch in 2020 after sales declined.
In April, a US bankruptcy court judge denied J&J’s plan to pay $9bn to settle ovarian cancer and other gynaecological cancer litigation claims based on talc-related products.
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