Stories
Slash Boxes
Comments

SoylentNews is people

posted by martyb on Sunday October 22 2017, @02:21PM   Printer-friendly
from the totally-unexpected dept.

A California judge has thrown out a $417 million verdict against Johnson & Johnson. The plaintiff claimed that she developed ovarian cancer after using J&J's talc-based products:

The ruling by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Maren Nelson marked the latest setback facing women and family members who accuse J&J of not adequately warning consumers about the cancer risks of its talc-based products. The decision followed a jury's decision in August to hit J&J with the largest verdict to date in the litigation, awarding California resident Eva Echeverria $70 million in compensatory damages and $347 million in punitive damages.

Nelson on Friday reversed the jury verdict and granted J&J's request for a new trial. Nelson said the August trial was underpinned by errors and insufficient evidence on both sides, culminating in excessive damages.

Mark Robinson, who represented the woman in her lawsuit, in a statement said he would file an appeal immediately. "We will continue to fight on behalf of all women who have been impacted by this dangerous product," he said.

Previously: The Baby Powder Trials: How Courts Deal with Inconclusive Science
Johnson & Johnson Ordered to Pay $417m in Latest Talc Cancer Case


Original Submission

 
This discussion has been archived. No new comments can be posted.
Display Options Threshold/Breakthrough Mark All as Read Mark All as Unread
The Fine Print: The following comments are owned by whoever posted them. We are not responsible for them in any way.
  • (Score: 2) by BK on Sunday October 22 2017, @03:40PM (6 children)

    by BK (4868) on Sunday October 22 2017, @03:40PM (#585970)

    Yep, parent already had that link. Who knew?!

    --
    ...but you HAVE heard of me.
    Starting Score:    1  point
    Karma-Bonus Modifier   +1  

    Total Score:   2  
  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by requerdanos on Sunday October 22 2017, @04:39PM (5 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 22 2017, @04:39PM (#585981) Journal

    The IARC monograph, very dense and detailed reading, gives a pretty good hearing to the studies that indicate increased cancer risk associated with the use of baby powder as a feminine hygiene product. Their results are at times very strongly in favor of such a correlation, but the IARC wasn't impressed by the methodology and neither am I. (Basically "Say, you have ovarian cancer, did you ever use a lotta baby powder?" "Ohhh, yeah, I sure did.") The American Cancer Society link covers essentially the same concepts, but in a much easier-to-digest format, rather than a rigorous academic approach. Neither contends that there's any evidence that baby powder causes cancer.

    I contend that a correlation strength of "Maybe, But Who Knows?" is approximately the lowest level possible, and certainly not enough to merit the transfer of millions of dollars from a baby powder manufacturer to one of its customers.

    I understand that people exist whose standards cause "Maybe, But Who Knows?" to be equivalent in their minds to "For Totally Sure!" These are the people who forward the nonsense nutty chain letter hoaxes "just in case" they are true. I am not impressed by their so-called standard of truth. I am willing to bet that at least some of the people on that jury also forward nutty hoaxes "just in case they are true".

    I understand that their motives may be pure and well-meaning: "Well, if this [millionth nutty hoax] might be true [even though the last 999,999 were flat-out false], it would be unethical of me to simply do nothing..."

    My view is, rather, "if the last 999,999 nutty hoaxes were flat-out false, and they were, I should not act on this one unless I have really strong and specific evidence that it's not also nonsense."

    This trial, to me, seems to have been an example of the chain-letter-forwarding phenomenon on a grand, actual-courtroom scale. Make sense?

    • (Score: 5, Funny) by BK on Sunday October 22 2017, @05:15PM (4 children)

      by BK (4868) on Sunday October 22 2017, @05:15PM (#585989)

      My view is, rather, "if the last 999,999 nutty hoaxes were flat-out false, and they were, I should not act on this one unless I have really strong and specific evidence that it's not also nonsense."

      But from a juror's perspective, the last 999,999 nutty theories haven't been false.

      Smoking stuff causing cancer? I mean, it seams obvious now that inhaling whatever unknown junk was probably a bad idea, but there was (manufactured by vested interests in many cases) doubt and contrary evidence for a log time.

      Football causes debilitating brain injuries? The sport is boring as all fuck and the only exciting bit is when everyone uses their heads to whack a ball around. Who could have known that the head had impact sensitive bits?

      Football causes debilitating brain injuries? It turns out that staring mindlessly watching people run around with no purpose can produce cumulative damage. At the least, it causes alcoholism and we all know what that causes... goooooooooooooooaoaoaoaaaaaaaaaaaaaallllllllllllllllllllll....

      Football causes debilitating brain injuries? You'd think that with all of those pads and helmets big enough to fit in on the Spaceball set that all would be well. But surprise! It turns out that full speed collisions and being smashed to the ground a hundred times a week can have a cumulative effect. Who'da thunk?

      Fat bad; Carbohydrate good? You are what you eat from your head to your feet. Except not really it turns out... at least not the way you think.

      The fact is that too many of these whacky theories wind up being true. Certainly we remember the ones that are. What they all have in common is that they are denied emphatically and debunked and whatnot... until suddenly they are true. And not just true, but 'how could you have ever thought otherwise'? true.

      Take football: I have two foreign colleagues at work, a Mexican and a Brit, who spend endless hours watching football. They insist that there's no harm in it. Certainly doesn't cause brain damage. Evidence is all weak they say. Except they talk funny. The brain damage is obvious...

      YMMV.

      --
      ...but you HAVE heard of me.
      • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Sunday October 22 2017, @05:45PM (3 children)

        by Whoever (4524) on Sunday October 22 2017, @05:45PM (#585994) Journal

        The fact is that too many of these whacky theories wind up being true.

        More likely survivor bias. We forget about the wacky theories that wind up proven false. Well, most of them, some persist as wacky theories like homeopathy and chiropractic.

        • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @09:36PM (1 child)

          by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 22 2017, @09:36PM (#586063)

          Sigh, not this again. Some of the claims about chiropractic medicine are overblown or outright wrong, but claiming that the specialty is on the same level as homeopathy is why nobody takes skeptics seriously.

          Or are you seriously saying that having an incorrectly aligned spinal column has no possible health impacts?

          • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @12:22AM

            by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @12:22AM (#586099)

            is why nobody takes skeptics seriously.

            What? This seems like a hasty generalization of a loosely-connected group of people who are joined only by the label of "skeptic".

            Or are you seriously saying that having an incorrectly aligned spinal column has no possible health impacts?

            I'm sure it does, but what does that have to do with chiropractic 'medicine'?

        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @12:42AM

          by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday October 24 2017, @12:42AM (#586668)

          Both work as well as placebos while some prescriptions you get are actually worse than placebos. Think about that for a moment, their results are worse than placebos. You get desperate people taking these horrible meds making them sick and they decide to switch to homeopathy and they soon start feeling much better. Now these people go on to religiously believe that things like homeopathy are the be-all-end-all of medicine and the corrupt medical industry (did you see the story about how half a bottle of eye drops is wasted because they want more profit and it's been going on since 1999?) only helps to reinforce that belief. However to be fair, for them it actually ended up being true. The problem is they apply that belief to all medicine and then prevent their kids from getting proper medical care when needed.