Johnson & Johnson insists its talc products don’t cause cancer
Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue were ordered to pay $45 million to the family of an Illinois woman who accused the companies’ baby powder of causing her fatal cancer, part of a 10-year lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson First judgment on spin-off companies. product.
Jurors hearing the case in Chicago late Friday concluded Kenvue was 70 percent responsible for Theresa Garcia’s death. Theresa Garcia, a mother of six and grandmother, died in 2020 from mesothelioma, a cancer linked to asbestos exposure. Her family claims J&J and Kenvue’s predecessor company knowingly sold its talc baby powder knowing it contained asbestos, according to court documents.
The panel found that Johnson & Johnson and one of its subsidiaries were responsible for the remaining 30% of the verdict, the first win for talc plaintiffs since a judge last year rejected a bankruptcy petition by a Johnson & Johnson company seeking to force a resolution of the case. Talcum powder case. On Thursday, a Florida jury dismissed similar charges against the company.
Johnson & Johnson maintains that its talc products do not cause cancer and has been marketing its baby powder appropriately for more than a century.
Officials at Kenvue, which now sells baby powder, confirmed earlier this month that the company no longer makes or sells a talc version of the product. Before the spinoff, Johnson & Johnson said it would remove talc from the North American market by 2020 and global markets by December 2023 and switch to a cornstarch alternative. The company said the move led to a decline in sales.
Kenvue spokesperson Melissa Witt did not immediately respond to an email Saturday seeking comment on the verdict. Eric Haas, head of Johnson & Johnson’s internal litigation department, said the company will appeal the jury’s decision. “We expect to prevail, as we typically do with unusually adverse rulings that have no legal or scientific basis and are based on a clear erroneous ruling by the trial court,” Haas said in an emailed statement.
Johnson & Johnson is one of a number of major drugmakers that are spinning off or planning to spin off lower-margin but reliably profitable consumer units to focus on the riskier business of making new drugs. J&J generated $13.2 billion in cash by issuing Kenvue debt and selling its stock. Kenvue is now home to popular Johnson & Johnson products such as Tylenol pain reliever, Listerine mouthwash and new cornstarch baby powder.
As part of the spinoff, Kenvue obtained an indemnification agreement from Johnson & Johnson to cover any talc liabilities arising in North America, according to securities filings. Documents show Kenvue must deal with talcum powder rulings from courts outside the region.
The family’s attorney, Jessica Dean, said the family is ready to go to trial in 2021, when J&J’s LTL management filed its first Chapter 11 case, Seeks to facilitate settlement of all current and future talc cases. It wasn’t until that case and a second attempt to use bankruptcy court to wall off the talcum powder lawsuit were dismissed that the family was able to have its case heard by a jury, Dean said.
Dean said in a press release that the family thanked the jury for seeing through Johnson & Johnson and Kenvue’s “deception” about whether talc caused cancer “as a result of years of delays caused by Johnson & Johnson’s malicious abuse of the bankruptcy system.” She added: “The defendants knew that talc contained asbestos impurities that were mined and put into bottles of baby powder sold by Johnson & Johnson.”
In the Florida case, a state court jury rejected claims by Patricia Matthey’s family that her ovarian cancer in 2016 was caused by the use of asbestos-contaminated baby powder. After the verdict, Haas said the panel’s ruling vindicated the company. “The jury correctly determined that talc is safe, does not contain asbestos, and does not cause cancer, consistent with 16 of the 17 ovarian cases the company has tried to date,” Haas said in an emailed statement. The results are the same.”
In Garcia’s Chicago case, her family claims the plaintiff was a long-time user of Johnson & Johnson’s talc baby powder and used the product on her children and grandchildren. The family alleges that Johnson & Johnson was aware that its talc contained asbestos but failed to warn consumers. Garcia’s daughter, Stephanie Salcedo, filed the lawsuit on behalf of the family.
“Johnson & Johnson knew that exposure to asbestos, including from inhalation of asbestos-containing talc, could and did cause fatal diseases such as mesothelioma,” the family said in its lawsuit against the company.
Johnson & Johnson reported earnings this week that beat expectations and is a step toward improving profitability following the spinoff of Kenvue.
The Chicago case is Salcedo v. Cyprus Amax Minerals, No. 020L004505, Calendar, J1 24067608, Cook County Circuit Court (Chicago).
