Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $70 million in compensatory damages and $347 million in punitive damages to a woman who claimed to have developed ovarian cancer as a result of using J&J powder products. Baby/talcum powder contains talc, a clay mineral:
Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay $417m (£323.4m) to a woman who says she developed ovarian cancer after using products such as baby powder. The California jury's decision marks the largest award yet in a string of lawsuits that claim the firm did not adequately warn about cancer risks from talc-based products.
A spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson defended the products' safety. The firm plans to appeal, as it has in previous cases. "We will appeal today's verdict because we are guided by the science," Carol Goodrich, spokesperson for Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc, said in a statement.
The evidence around any link between talc use and cancer is inconclusive. Johnson & Johnson, headquartered in New Jersey, faces thousands of claims from women who say they developed cancer due to using the firm's products to address concerns about vaginal odour and moisture. Johnson & Johnson has lost four of five previous cases tried before juries in Missouri, which have led to more than $300m in penalties.
Previously: The Baby Powder Trials: How Courts Deal with Inconclusive Science
Related Stories
A jury recently awarded $70 million to a California woman who used Johnson & Johnson's talc-based baby powder and claimed that it caused her ovarian cancer. Two lawsuits from earlier this year awarded a combined $127 million, and thousands of other women have filed suits against Johnson & Johnson. Meanwhile, two other lawsuits in New Jersey were thrown out by a judge who said the scientific evidence wasn't reliable enough to establish a clear cancer link. All these cases follow on an original 2013 jury finding for physician's assistant Deane Berg, which paradoxically found that baby powder could have been a factor in her cancer yet awarded her zero damages.
While these real-world juries have been forced to make decisions on whether a substance causes cancer, the metaphorical scientific "jury is still out." The American Cancer Society's review of the evidence notes:
Findings have been mixed, with some studies reporting a slightly increased risk and some reporting no increase. Many case-control studies have found a small increase in risk. But these types of studies can be biased because they often rely on a person's memory of talc use many years earlier. Two prospective cohort studies, which would not have the same type of potential bias, have not found an increased risk.
The ACS concludes that "if there is an increased risk, the overall increase is likely to be very small." Most other cancer researchers seem to take a similarly measured approach in characterizing the current state of the evidence, such as these guidelines from the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute:
"All of these studies suffer from incomplete data on patients' family history of ovarian or breast cancer, as well as the duration and frequency of powder use, says Panos Konstantinopoulos, MD, PhD, of the Gynecologic Oncology Program in the Susan F. Smith Center for Women's Cancers at Dana-Farber. "In general, population-based studies have shown a statistically significant association with ovarian cancer risk, while hospital-based studies showed that this association is not statistically significant," he says. In addition, none of the studies found that risk rose with increased exposure to the powder, and there is no evidence that talcum powder use on other parts of the body affects ovarian cancer risk.
[Continues...]
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
Johnson & Johnson's baby powder has been linked to mesothelioma for the first time in court, with the plaintiffs being awarded at least $37 million (70% to be paid by J&J, and 30% by Imerys SA):
A New Jersey man who sued Johnson & Johnson and other companies after getting cancer he says was caused by asbestos in baby powder has been awarded $30 million by a jury.
A jury of seven women sitting in New Brunswick also decided Thursday that Kendra Lanzo, the wife of Stephen Lanzo III, must be paid an additional $7 million as a result of the mesothelioma contracted by her husband. The jury will decide next week whether to also award punitive damages to the Lanzos.
[...] Johnson & Johnson is responsible for 70 percent of the damages, while France-based Imerys SA must pick up the rest of the tab. Imerys supplied the talc used to manufacture the baby powder.
Previously: The Baby Powder Trials: How Courts Deal with Inconclusive Science
Johnson & Johnson Ordered to Pay $417m in Latest Talc Cancer Case
$417 Million Talc Cancer Verdict Against Johnson & Johnson Tossed Out
Johnson & Johnson's stock slammed after report it knew of asbestos in baby powder
Shares of Johnson & Johnson tumbled Friday, after a Reuters report that the drug and consumer-products company knew for decades that its baby talcum powder was contaminated with asbestos, a known carcinogen, that is alleged to have caused cancer in thousands of its customers.
The stock ended 10% lower on Friday, marking its largest one-day percentage decline in 16 years and lowest close in nearly four months, according to FactSet data. It led decliners on the Dow Jones Industrial Average and the S&P 500 on the day, and accounted for about 101 points of the Dow's 497-point loss.
[...] Reuters said an examination of internal company memos and other documents found the New Jersey–based company was aware of the presence of small amounts of asbestos in its products from as early as 1971 but failed to disclose that fact to regulators or to the general public.
Reuters stands by J&J report, says it was based 'entirely' on Johnson & Johnson documents
Reuters reporter Lisa Girion stands by her report that Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that asbestos was in its baby powder. "Our report on the fact that J&J was aware of small amounts of asbestos in its talc, in its baby power, in the ore that it mined in Vermont to make baby power, is based entirely on their documents," Girion told CNBC's "Power Lunch" on Friday.
The Reuters story sent J&J shares down 9 percent on Friday and prompted a response from the health-care company that called the article "one-sided, false and inflammatory." "Simply put, the Reuters story is an absurd conspiracy theory, in that it apparently has spanned over 40 years, orchestrated among generations of global regulators, the world's foremost scientists and universities, leading independent labs, and J&J employees themselves," the company said in a statement.
See also: Asbestos Opens New Legal Front in Battle Over Johnson's Baby Powder
Those J&J Baby-Powder Lawsuits Aren't Going Away
Johnson & Johnson loses $39.8 billion in market value in one day after report claims it knew about asbestos in its baby powder
Previously: The Baby Powder Trials: How Courts Deal with Inconclusive Science
Johnson & Johnson Ordered to Pay $417m in Latest Talc Cancer Case
$417 Million Talc Cancer Verdict Against Johnson & Johnson Tossed Out
Johnson & Johnson Loses New Jersey Talc Cancer Case
(Score: 2) by shortscreen on Wednesday August 23 2017, @04:14AM (7 children)
Is there a proposed mechanism by which the powder is thought to cause cancer elsewhere in the body, or is the legal argument based on post hoc ergo propter hoc?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @05:20AM (1 child)
This sounds like an article for our resident expert, Ethanol_fueled.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @08:31AM
No, he isn't that stupid
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @06:23AM (2 children)
From the NYT article:
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @11:14AM (1 child)
And you can quote the NYT with a straight face? Remarkable self-control. May as well corroborate it with the Daily mail.
(Score: 3, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Wednesday August 23 2017, @09:04PM
Son, I love your spirit. I love that you're calling out the #FAKENEWS .@NYT. But we used to have an expression, which you may be too young to understand. We used to say, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. Back in the day before clocks became cyber. Before the digital clocks. What it means is, the NYT doesn't go 100% fake. Doesn't go full retard. When they write about me, they do. But when they write about things that doesn't matter? When they write about lady parts? A lot of what they say is true. So when people see that, then they read the fake news about me, they get fooled. A lot, a lot get fooled. That's why it's so INSIDIOUS. I'll tell you, I'll corroborate this much. You take a lady to the beach, be very very careful about the sand. If sand gets up her cooch and it's your fault? A lot of ladies will not meet again after that. Or negotiating becomes extra difficult. Believe me. But I know you're going to do it. Do it on a beach towel if you can. Doggy is a good position. It keeps her our of the sand. And you can backdoor her very easily. And if you have to, say it was a mistake. For which she'll forgive you. Standing up is good too. Never missionary, if you want to see her again. And if she's really special? Go for a handjob. You ask her for the handjob, she knows you respect her. My motto is never settle. It's not settling. It's waiting for the right occasion. Trust me, sand can go deep in a lady. And when it does, her hate will go deep. 🇺🇸
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @10:44AM
I'd bet the particles get phagocytosed by immune cells and distributed around the body. Talc/clay is probably not easily catabolized. Also, anything, and I do mean anything that leads to a need for additional cell division will lead to increased cancer risk.[1] This is at the level of common sense (every time a cell divides there is some risk of error, so more divisions -> more overall risk), but for some reason this still isn't readily acknowledged.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC54830/ [nih.gov]
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Non Sequor on Wednesday August 23 2017, @04:49PM
The key evidence is cancerous ovarian tissue samples with talc particles embedded in them. The mechanism that's posited is thought to be similar to asbestos fibers and mesothelioma.
However, unlike asbestos/mesothelioma, the link in correlation studies is weak. Regular use of talc doesn't seem to produce that much more risk of cancer making it difficult to get a statistically significant result in that kind of study. It seems that you need a large sample to statistically distinguish talc users from non-users based on their cancer rates. However, that doesn't mean that the posited mechanism is weak, just that it seems to be weak on average for the general population. Heavy talc users, users who apply it in a certain manner, or some population with anatomical differences might still be predisposed to cancer and without isolating those factors, you can't tell what's going on.
This is vaguely analogous to an issue with ignition switches in one company's cars that caused them to cut off randomly, particularly when there is a heavy keychain. The company's internal emails showed that issues with the parts at fault were identified but there was no smoking gun that it would result in an observable defect. The question of how fault should be assigned depends on your perception of what the standards for following up on potential issues in products should be.
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 4, Disagree) by bradley13 on Wednesday August 23 2017, @06:12AM (17 children)
American Cancer Society: Details about talc and cancer [cancer.org]. "It has been suggested that talcum powder might cause cancer in the ovaries if the powder particles (applied to the genital area or on sanitary napkins, diaphragms, or condoms) were to travel through the vagina, uterus, and fallopian tubes to the ovary." Which is impossible on the face of it, because the mucous flows in the opposite direction. Sperm have little motors for a reason. tl;dr: "For any individual woman, if there is an increased risk, the overall increase is likely to very be small."
But the jury awards the win anyway, because the American tort system is so broken.
Then we see the amount of the award: $400 million to a single person. There ought to be some objective basis for an award. Feeling sorry for a charismatic defendant is not justice. This is where a legal system must be cold-blooded: what is a human life worth? Then the court pro-rates: If you lost an arm, that's x%, if you die Y years early, that's Z%. In this case, if we take a life as worth (say) $5,000,000, and this woman will die roughly 20 years earlier than actuarial tables predict, then her maximum award should be a bit over $1 million.
In the US, people apparently sue any time "shit happens", in hopes of winning the great American lottery.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 5, Informative) by tonyPick on Wednesday August 23 2017, @07:39AM (8 children)
Disagree: From reading coverage elsewhere ISTM the Jury decided to Award because J&J knew about the risks, and its response was to try to cover them up. Hence the punitive damage, which is large, because J&J are large and it needs to be a big number to act as a deterrent.
As far as the damages here goes, the significant factor appears to not be the actual risk (which is disputable, but certainly not settled), but the allegation that the company involved had known about it since the 70's and not only chose not to do anything, but attempted to downplay the risks, even when they had grounds to think the risk was real. That they may turn out to have been lucky at the end of the day doesn't change the case that they were taking a gamble with other peoples lives to protect profits.
http://fortworth.legalexaminer.com/medical-devices-implants/california-talc-lawsuit-417m-verdict/ [legalexaminer.com]
and rolling back to May 2015...
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-bodine/behind-the-55-million-ver_b_9833366.html, [huffingtonpost.com]
And even if you think HuffPo is a hive of scum & villany it has the following quote from a juror:
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @09:09AM (4 children)
Seems another case where the attempt to cover up the issue, rather than the issue itself, brought about the verdict.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @02:30PM (3 children)
Good. I want to live in a country where it's cheaper to be honest and open than to hid information. All our resident free marketeers should agree since a key component of a functioning free market is that consumers are enabled to make informed purchasing decisions.
(Score: 2) by Azuma Hazuki on Wednesday August 23 2017, @04:50PM (1 child)
"[O]ur resident free marketers," and those everywhere else, are no such thing. They're sociopaths who want to be above consequences. 10 seconds of logical thought would show what's unworkable about their "free market" paradise, but that's apparently 10 seconds too much.
I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Thursday August 24 2017, @06:41AM
They aren't even "free marketers". Those who want to selectively hide and bury information while spreading disinformation deserve a worse label. As in, propagandists and liars.
Lying is not honest marketing. It's sad that these days, marketing is very nearly synonymous with smoke and mirrors deception. It's the proverbial used car salesperson approach to selling. The fact that marketing can be honest is near forgotten. Caveat emptor.
(Score: 2) by DeathMonkey on Wednesday August 23 2017, @06:38PM
Good. I want to live in a country where it's cheaper to be honest and open than to hid information.
In this case the system got it right, then. It would have been way cheaper to just add a warning.
(Score: 1) by koick on Wednesday August 23 2017, @02:32PM (1 child)
I have nothing wrong with large sums of punitive damage being issued to grossly negligent companies (as both punishment to the culprit and compensation to the victims). Where the system is broken is awarding this huge sum (it's truly mind boggling - we're talking about a number which approaches half a billion dollars) to a single individual rather than the company being forced to spread that amount out to compensate others who can prove the same ill health affects from using their product.
(Score: 3, Informative) by tonyPick on Wednesday August 23 2017, @03:31PM
It's a ridiculous amount of money for an individual, but for a company with a yearly revenue of (Google tells me) around 72 billion dollars then a half billion spread around the victims is actually not a significant enough sum to be a deterrent, and I'd rather see ridiculously high payouts to each victim than the company just writing this off as a cost of doing business, given it got a run of thirty years of revenue out of the decision at least.
(Score: 1) by ben_white on Wednesday August 23 2017, @03:59PM
Don't try to blunt our outrage at the legal system with your long and boring screed on reason and facts. It's far to much trouble to read the links, and much more fun just to be angry! /s
--
cheers, ben
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @12:51PM (2 children)
Nothing.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:06PM (1 child)
>> This is where a legal system must be cold-blooded: what is a human life worth?
> Nothing.
Pray tell, what country (or region) do you live in where life is worthless? Somewhere in darkest Africa, or perhaps Mom's basement?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by bradley13 on Wednesday August 23 2017, @02:42PM
You mean, you find a $400 million award somehow reasonable? If so, we live on different planets and speak impossibly different languages.
There is just no way that amount makes sense. Even the $70 million before punitive damages makes no sense. Awards like that are more like lottery winnings than any sort of sensible compensation.
Government (here, the justice system) is responsible for an entire population. However much a single individual may be valued by their friends and family, the government must consider the big picture. As an example, consider single-payer health care systems like the UK: There are speculative treatments that can cost $millions. Those treatments are generally not on offer. If you want such a treatment, you have to come up with the money privately. What is it worth to extend an average person's life by X years? What does the treatment cost? That's a necessary calculation, because money doesn't grow on trees.
It's no different in a case like this. If the verdict is correct, the court has awarded too much money to a single victim, when there are tens of thousands of other women in precisely the same situation (ovarian cancer is quite common, and so is talc use). If the verdict is wrong, then the court has awarded a windfall, effectively stealing the money from the shareholders. In either case, the award is disproportionate and unjust.
Everyone is somebody else's weirdo.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:09PM
And yes, that's not how bayes' theorem works, but you get my drift - if the chances are low that the cancer was caused by the talc, then the responibility of the talc manufacturer should be appropriately lowered. What they are saying by putting all the blame on J&J is that there is no possible way that any of the blame can be put on any other factor, including pure chance, or equivalently that if the talc hadn't been used, there would be absolutely no possible way that this woman would have got cancer.
Which is utter bollock cancer.
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @02:14PM (1 child)
(Score: 2) by Reziac on Thursday August 24 2017, @03:10AM
Since almost every female baby for at least the last four generations has been regularly exposed to talcum powder, and since talc is evidently present in all their ovaries -- if talc causes ovarian cancer, shouldn't such a cancer also be ubiquitous?
Since it's not, how can the occasional incidence be anything more than coincidence? or at worst, a low-level trigger when one is already genetically predisposed to ovarian cancer.
And there is no Alkibiades to come back and save us from ourselves.
(Score: 2) by Non Sequor on Wednesday August 23 2017, @05:22PM
The $70 million is for loss of income and costs of treatment and things like that. The fact that an insurer paid the cost of treatment typically doesn't reduce the award. I'm not sure but a health insurer may have subrogation rights to claim that portion of the award.
All told the compensatory part of the award is intended to relate to objective measures.
The punitive damages portion is based on more subjective measures. It's supposed to be based on a degree of reprehensibility of the defendant's conduct, the level of harm expected to result from that conduct, and the level of civil fines for similar types of conduct.
The Supreme Court "sort of" limited punitive damages to a single digit multiplier of compensatory damages. I say "sort of" because they laid out a rationale for that limit and some lower court systems attempt to prevent multiple individuals from collecting punitive damages for the same actions which was a key rationale on the multiplier limit and these mechanisms for exceeding the multiplier haven't been challenged. This award is within the single digit multiplier guidance
Write your congressman. Tell him he sucks.
(Score: 2) by Nobuddy on Wednesday August 23 2017, @09:39PM
When I see things like this:
"Then we see the amount of the award: $400 million to a single person. There ought to be some objective basis for an award. Feeling sorry for a charismatic defendant is not justice."
I instantly know the speaker knows nothing of the court system, and only wants tort reform because their masters tell them to want it.
"Punitive Damages". This is the part that tort reform parrots do not grasp. The money was not awarded to the woman because the jury felt sorry for her, it was TAKEN FROM the defendant because they did evil shit to protect their profits. It is punishment, not reward. They give it to the plaintiff because the money needs to go somewhere, and as we have seen with property seizure if it is awarded to the State, then that promotes MORE punitive damages to get more money for the State with nothing to check the process.
Yes, everyone wants a big win like this one, but the state is there to check each one and ensure the frivolous shit does not propagate. And it does a damn good job of that. Every "frivolous" award you think was ridiculous will show it was very appropriate when you read the case info and findings.
The ones who want tort reform are the companies tired of being fined out the wazoo for doing evil shit. rather than stop being evil, they want to reduce or eliminate the fines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @07:19AM (2 children)
If they already had vaginal odour and moisture issues then perhaps something else was already wrong with them which could have contributed to the cancer.
(Score: 4, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @07:43AM (1 child)
Yes, she was a woman.
(Score: 4, Funny) by FatPhil on Wednesday August 23 2017, @01:11PM
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @06:03PM (1 child)
this is like saying that the industrial waste in toothpaste causes brain damage and suing for that. oh wait, that's different.
This is like saying that gargling with hydrogen peroxide causes mouth cancer and then suing the manufacturer of hydrogen peroxide because they mentioned that you could use it for gargling. it's too much responsibility. the user should be the one to decide whether they use it "on label" or "off label", when it's OTC. we are not talking about prescription drugs here. people have been using talcum powder for hygene for a long time. now it's johnson & johnson's fault you've been cramming it up your beaver?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @08:40PM
As quoted above
So no, it's not J&J's fault you've been cramming up your beaver, but it is their fault they tried to prevent knowledge of the risk from being disseminated and acted upon so that you continued cramming it longer than you would have.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday August 23 2017, @08:54PM
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 24 2017, @12:31AM
They're saying it's because J&J failed to inform them it does. J&J maintains use of talc as directed on the label doesn't cause cancer, but she apparently fucks herself with the container to queef puffs of talc at bachelor parties.