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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


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  • (Score: 5, Insightful) by requerdanos on Sunday October 22 2017, @03:03PM (28 children)

    by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 22 2017, @03:03PM (#585962) Journal

    At first glance, this obscene verdict may seem to resemble ones like a certain Ms Bullock being awarded $28,000,000,000 (later reduced to merely $28,000,000) because she innocently smoked like a chimney for five decades and somehow unexpectedly contracted cancer. [legalzoom [legalzoom.com]]

    But once you delve into the details, it's even worse, because smoking actually is known to increase risk of cancer, whereas talcum powder is known to do things like absorb moisture and make your skin silky smooth.

    The American Cancer Society [cancer.org], a research and advocacy organization, reports that only talc "that contains asbestos" increases cancer risk. In other words, as opposed to baby powder, which doesn't, and isn't carcinogenic.

    The International Agency for Research on Cancer [www.iarc.fr], the specialized cancer agency of the World Health Organization whose objective is to promote international collaboration in cancer research, in their monograph [monographs.iarc.fr] [PDF] on the subject, admit that "Perineal use of talc-based body powder is possibly carcinogenic to humans (Group 2B)" but they note that "Case–control studies were susceptible to recall bias which could tend to inflate risk estimates but to an unknown degree. All of the studies were susceptible to other potential biases which could either increase or decrease the association." = No conclusions reached.

    Roughly, The Defendant Is Innocent But Let's Victimize Them And Give This Poor Person Some $$Money$$. They Are An Evil Corporation* And We Are Robin Hood**.

    ----------
    *Not proven
    **Outright false

    • (Score: 0, Redundant) by BK on Sunday October 22 2017, @03:38PM (7 children)

      by BK (4868) on Sunday October 22 2017, @03:38PM (#585968)

      Some informed discussion about talc and Cancer [cancer.org].

      At least we're not talking about Capricorn.

      --
      ...but you HAVE heard of me.
      • (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.
        • (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.

    • (Score: 4, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 22 2017, @03:45PM (11 children)

      by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 22 2017, @03:45PM (#585972) Journal

      "as a way to stay fresh and prevent vaginal odors, a practice that has since been linked to an increased risk of ovarian cancer."

      It may not be so very clear cut, after all. I was thinking that it was a frivolous lawsuit, actually. But, I didn't know that J&J actually recommended the stuff for internal use. So, some people are going to ask "How does the talc get to the ovaries?" Well, those little sperms don't exactly swim all the way to the ovaries. There's some sucking or vacuuming action at the cervix, which pulls all those little foreign bodies toward the ovaries. So, yeah, the powder is going to be vacuumed through the cervic, then normal muscle contractions will push it further along.

      I can't speak for anyone but myself, but I can't imagine willingly inserting the stuff into my body. Talc is for EXTERNAL USE ONLY!!

      • (Score: 3, Touché) by requerdanos on Sunday October 22 2017, @04:43PM (8 children)

        by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 22 2017, @04:43PM (#585982) Journal

        It may not be so very clear cut, after all.

        There is certainly plenty of muddy water and obfuscation. But a hundred loops of { "Yeah, but what about so and so?"; "It's interesting, but does not demonstrate any cancer risk from baby powder"; } leaves you back where you started.

        What there isn't is any evidence-based scientific conclusion that baby powder so used is a cause of increased cancer risk.

        If there is such an increased risk, I would hope that the evidence would overwhelmingly demonstrate it. It doesn't.

        • (Score: 4, Insightful) by Runaway1956 on Sunday October 22 2017, @04:58PM (7 children)

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 22 2017, @04:58PM (#585984) Journal

          That sounds reasonable enough. Except, a few short decades ago, there was no evidence that smoking caused cancer. Over the course of a couple decades, the tobacco companies were finding that evidence, and suppressing it. Are you old enough to remember the commercials touting tobacco's health BENEFITS? They suppressed all anti-tobacco evidence, and lied to the public about it's fake benefits.

          So - what do we have today? I'm not sure, but just maybe, we have a corporation with very deep pockets working hard to suppress evidence that their product causes cancer.

          I'll keep an open mind here. I'm not siding with the women yet, but I'm certainly not going to consigne the women to the looney bin.

          • (Score: 2) by requerdanos on Sunday October 22 2017, @05:42PM

            by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 22 2017, @05:42PM (#585993) Journal

            I'll keep an open mind here. I'm not siding with the women yet, but I'm certainly not going to consigne the women to the looney bin.

            Well stated. That's my position as well.

          • (Score: 4, Informative) by Whoever on Sunday October 22 2017, @05:53PM (3 children)

            by Whoever (4524) on Sunday October 22 2017, @05:53PM (#585995) Journal

            Except, a few short decades ago, there was no evidence that smoking caused cancer.

            Oh, there was evidence all right. The tobacco companies were suppressing it, as you note, but for longer than you suggest.

            According to my math, 1954 is over 6 decades ago, which clearly counts as "a few short decades".

            This article [bmj.com]lists suspicions of the link and actual research in the 1930 and 1940, with links shown in a study in 1943. Finally, an unequivocal conclusion from a study in 1954 that smoking leads to increased risk of lung cancer.

            • (Score: 4, Informative) by requerdanos on Sunday October 22 2017, @10:33PM

              by requerdanos (5997) Subscriber Badge on Sunday October 22 2017, @10:33PM (#586079) Journal

              Finally, an unequivocal conclusion from a study in 1954 that smoking leads to increased risk of lung cancer.

              May I point out that Johnson's brand baby powder was brought to market in the 1890's[1], and the use of talcum as a powder dates further back[2], into pre-history.

              All the lawsuits around talcum powder--filed not against prehistoric mother nature, but against a particularly large supplier--seem to come after the year two thousand and something[3].

              Setting tobacco on fire and sucking on it turned out to cause cancer, which heavily suppressed science nonetheless discovered, and demonstrated conclusively, six decades ago.

              Talcum powder, arguably in use for at least as long or longer, has no such history; not a peep about it until 20 years ago, and then, only as a plot device to sue someone...

              [1][2][3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talc [wikipedia.org]

            • (Score: 2, Informative) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 23 2017, @06:08AM (1 child)

              by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 23 2017, @06:08AM (#586198) Journal

              "According to my math, 1954 is over 6 decades ago, which clearly counts as "a few short decades"."

              You'll want to be careful with that statement, in case my wife is listening. The tone of voice is important, and how you might emphasize the individual words. Her birthdate is 1/11/55, so be very, very careful about those "few short decades". You really don't want her to reach through the interwebs to pull your beating heart out of your chest. ;^)

              • (Score: 2) by Whoever on Monday October 23 2017, @03:49PM

                by Whoever (4524) on Monday October 23 2017, @03:49PM (#586374) Journal

                Since I am very nearly as old as your wife, I feel that I am entitled to make that statement.

          • (Score: 3, Interesting) by sjames on Sunday October 22 2017, @06:04PM

            by sjames (2882) on Sunday October 22 2017, @06:04PM (#585999) Journal

            To further muddy the water, the theory was that asbestos fibers contaminating the talc were responsible for the cancer risk. But cosmetic talc hasn't had any asbestos fiber in it since the '70s.

            As far as I know, nobody has yet claimed that the industry knew of a danger and suppressed the evidence, much less presented evidence of that.

          • (Score: 5, Insightful) by theluggage on Sunday October 22 2017, @06:25PM

            by theluggage (1797) on Sunday October 22 2017, @06:25PM (#586003)

            I'm not siding with the women yet, but I'm certainly not going to consigne the women to the looney bin.

            However, the idea of paying a single victim enough money to build an entire hospital or two*, based on such weak evidence, suggests that someone involved needs to have their head examined and that any semblance of justice has long since left the building.

            Its one thing compensating victims for their realistic losses, but handing out hundreds of millions just creates an incentive for (a) industry cover-ups (b) opportunistic lawsuits and (c) appeals that drag on until both victim and hypothetical villains are long gone.

            (* OK, dramatic license - cost of hospitals may vary and I'm sure that figure will look a lot smaller once the lawyers have been paid for 10 years of appeals)

      • (Score: 2) by captain normal on Monday October 23 2017, @05:31AM (1 child)

        by captain normal (2205) on Monday October 23 2017, @05:31AM (#586182)

        Plus it's got to taste terrible. :-)

        --
        When life isn't going right, go left.
        • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 23 2017, @06:00AM

          by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 23 2017, @06:00AM (#586195) Journal

          Well, if we're going to go in that direction - it may well cause chafing, too.

    • (Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Sunday October 22 2017, @09:44PM (7 children)

      by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Sunday October 22 2017, @09:44PM (#586066) Journal

      It's interesting to see how people form alternative facts. J&J may win in court (hopefully), but they cannot win the PR here. It's now been established that J&J is the Bad Guy™, and while we should ever remain sceptical, especially given how easily corporations can create alternative facts such as smoking being healthy and cannabis flower being deleterious, it seems pretty clear that this is a case where we have an extraordinary claim and therefore require extraordinary evidence.

      Now to circle around to a point. I remember reading an article [mtu.edu] a couple years ago about the Paulding Light. Unlike most folklore/urban legend/creepypasta, this one is easy to observe by anyone. I saw it again because MLive has a Michigan folklore article [mlive.com] in time for this Halloween. There are some interesting explanations:

      Way up there in the U.P., by the Wisconsin border, is the teensy town of Paulding. And off a less-beaten path off an even more less-beaten path is a valley, and if you look down a line of power poles at night, you’ll see a white light off in the distance, floating right toward you. Legend says it’s a will-o’-the-wisp – an “atmospheric ghost light” that resembles a lantern. It could be the ghost of a railroad brakeman killed on the tracks, if you believe local folklore. It could be the ghost of a Native American dancing on the power lines. (MLive.com)

      However, it turns out that it's just headlights from a highway about four and a half miles away from the viewing location. That's a very mundane, straight-forward explanation, akin to five decades of exposing one's body to a known carcinogen and then developing cancer.

      Yet for some people, that's not good enough, despite how thorough the Michigan Tech team was.

      “We’ve been told we haven’t seen the real Paulding Light. I’ve been out there 15 times, hours at a time, in the heat, the cold, and the rain. It’s always the same,” said [Jeremy Bos, a PhD candidate student in electrical engineering at Michigan Technological University]. “We were there Monday with a man who saw the headlights on our computer, and he refused to believe it.”

      Bos gets a little irritated with people who should know better who repeat the Paulding Light is “unexplained.” “We’re not the first people who have come to this conclusion,” he notes. “A paranormal investigation team came here in the 1980s and showed it was headlights.” (MTU.edu)

      So there you have it. Two (presumably independent) investigations reveal a mundane explanation. Yet some folks won't be convinced.

      Same thing with all other kinds of alternative facts. I'm personally looking forward to the complete unsurprise I'll experience if feminist leaders decide to go on a crusade against J&J or talcum powder in general. Expect the white knights to be rallied. I'm certain that along with other truthy theories like the misogynerd narrative or estrogen dominance [wikipedia.org], I'll certainly overhear some women warning each other away from J&J or talc.

      It's What Doctors Won't Tell You™!

      • (Score: 3, Informative) by Azuma Hazuki on Sunday October 22 2017, @11:08PM (3 children)

        by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Sunday October 22 2017, @11:08PM (#586089) Journal

        Personally I keep my ladybits fresh with a combination of daily showers, careful diet, proper washing (around, NOT inside--soap is alkaline!), and cotton undergarments. There's not enough evidence one way or another about talc, and as some have said it may be asbestos fibers rather than talc itself that are the problem, but I don't like the idea of using more substances than necessary.

        --
        I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
        • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @06:18AM (2 children)

          by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @06:18AM (#586203)

          OMG - to much information!!

          • (Score: 3, Funny) by Azuma Hazuki on Monday October 23 2017, @06:31AM

            by Azuma Hazuki (5086) on Monday October 23 2017, @06:31AM (#586207) Journal

            Don't worry, sweetie, your mother's was the first and last vagina you will ever be close enough to that this is an issue :)

            --
            I am "that girl" your mother warned you about...
          • (Score: 1) by kurenai.tsubasa on Monday October 23 2017, @12:58PM

            by kurenai.tsubasa (5227) on Monday October 23 2017, @12:58PM (#586306) Journal

            It's basic hygiene information. Would you prefer we were discussing penises instead?

      • (Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Monday October 23 2017, @06:16AM (1 child)

        by Runaway1956 (2926) Subscriber Badge on Monday October 23 2017, @06:16AM (#586201) Journal

        Lights. As stated previously, I drove truck for several years. I've seen some strange things, which gullible people would readily attribute to UFO's or supernatural events. Many of those strange things, I have no explanation for, and I'm not even going to try to explain them away. I did get explanations for a few though. Apparently unexplainable lights in the Nevada nights are easily attributed to the stealth fighters under development at the time. Some of those strange lights were easily explained when a map was examined closely. Like the Paulding lights, some other road completely out of sight might have a lone vehicle traveling along, and creating a cool illusion. Bottom line - just because I, personally, couldn't explain some weird effect at the time, didn't mean that demons or aliens were flying through the air to terrorize me.

        I'll admit, a few times, the hair on my neck stood up, 'cause I was spooked. But, I wasn't willing to look like a fool, by making wild claims about what I saw.

        Gullible people are stranger than the strangest of lights.

        • (Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday October 23 2017, @03:29PM

          by Grishnakh (2831) on Monday October 23 2017, @03:29PM (#586368)

          Gullible people are stranger than the strangest of lights.

          Maybe, but those gullible people make up the majority of American voters.

      • (Score: 2) by takyon on Monday October 23 2017, @10:54AM

        by takyon (881) <reversethis-{gro ... s} {ta} {noykat}> on Monday October 23 2017, @10:54AM (#586264) Journal

        cannabis flower being deleterious

        https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/10/171020105346.htm [sciencedaily.com]

        --
        [SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
  • (Score: 2) by Hartree on Sunday October 22 2017, @08:53PM (1 child)

    by Hartree (195) on Sunday October 22 2017, @08:53PM (#586050)

    We have excellent evidence that oxygen causes death from cancer. How so? Anyone deprived of oxygen does not die of cancer. They may well have cancer but vanishingly few of those deprived of oxygen die of the cancer.

    I demand that those companies that supply oxygen, Airgas, Linde, Praxair and all the hospitals pay me half a billion dollars to punish them for endangering my life and causing any cancer I have to become fatal.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @06:44AM

      by Anonymous Coward on Monday October 23 2017, @06:44AM (#586211)
      There's plenty of scientific evidence that consuming large amounts of trans-fats reduces your chances of dying from cancer.

      Unfortunately a common side effect is a reduced life expectancy ;).
  • (Score: 2) by AssCork on Monday October 23 2017, @06:00PM

    by AssCork (6255) on Monday October 23 2017, @06:00PM (#586458) Journal

    Those people putting ". . .contains chemicals known to the state of California to cause cancer and birth defects" warning labels everywhere just need to give up.

    Just hang a sign in the delivery room of every hospital that says "WARNING: Life is the leading cause of Death".
    Seriously, Talcum powder causes cancer? No kidding. How about the light emitted from an LED monitor? That too?

    --
    Just popped-out of a tight spot. Came out mostly clean, too.
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