A St. Louis, Missouri jury has awarded $72 million to the family of a woman who died of ovarian cancer. Big pharma company Johnson & Johnson, headquartered in St. Louis, lost the civil lawsuit which was centered around whether or not the company knew ingredients in its Baby Powder product might be linked with cancer. The award consists of $10 million in actual damages and $62 million in punitive damages.
Decades of Talcum Powder Use
Jackie Fox, a resident Birmingham, Alabama, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2013 and succumbed to the disease in late 2015 at the age of 61, before the trial portion of her lawsuit began.
For decades, Fox had used two of Johnson & Johnson’s products, Baby Powder and Shower to Shower, which is designed for feminine hygiene. Both products contain talcum powder. Fox’s lawsuit cited studies indicating that talcum powder causes cancer and alleged that her long-term talcum powder use was responsible for her ovarian cancer.
Fox’s son, Marvin Salter, continued to pursue the case after his mother’s death. The Missouri jury found sufficient evidence of negligence, fraud, and conspiracy to award the multimillion dollar judgment to Fox’s family.
Lawsuit Alleges Johnson & Johnson Knew the Risk
The plaintiff’s lawyers accused Johnson & Johnson of “lying to the public, lying to the regulatory agencies.” In particular, they produced an internal memo from 1997 where a medical consultant for Johnson & Johnson wrote: “anybody who denies” the link between “hygienic” baby powder use and ovarian cancer would be “denying the obvious in the face of all evidence to the contrary.”
In other words, the memo suggests that Johnson & Johnson knew that talcum powder causes cancer and promoted talcum-based products anyway.
Johnson & Johnson Claims No Link to Ovarian Cancer
Johnson & Johnson will no doubt appeal the verdict. In response to the jury’s award, the company said:
“We have no higher responsibility than the health and safety of consumers, and we are disappointed with the outcome of the trial. We sympathise with the plaintiff’s family but firmly believe the safety of cosmetic talc is supported by decades of scientific evidence.”
Johnson & Johnson Faces 1,200 More Talcum Powder Lawsuits
The millions awarded to Fox’s estate over ovarian cancer may be the first, but they won’t likely be the last. Johnson & Johnson faces 1,200 more lawsuits related to talcum powder and cancer.
In 2013, although a South Dakota jury didn’t award financial damages to another cancer patient, Deane Berg, they found Johnson & Johnson to be negligent. Berg’s trial was the first to suggest that talcum powder causes cancer.
Thousands More Pending Lawsuits Over Other Products
Johnson & Johnson’s troubles don’t stop at baby powder. For example:
- Over 44,000 lawsuits are pending over Gynemesh, a pelvic mesh device for women manufactured by Ethicon, a J&J subsidiary. Millions of dollars in damages across separate lawsuits have already been awarded due to this device.
- Another J&J subsidiary, DePuy, faces over 8,200 lawsuits related to Pinnacle, a hip implant system. DePuy had already agreed to pay $2.5 billion in 2013 to settle over 8,000 lawsuits related to a different device.
Lawsuits Don’t Deter Investors
Since 2013, the year Fox was diagnosed with cancer, Johnson & Johnson stock has gone from $71.55 to $113.34 (April 22, 2016), increasing in price by 58.4%.
In just the short time since the Missouri verdict was announced in late February 2016, the stock has risen approximately 6.5%.
Recent Comments