Johnson & Johnson (IW 1000/51) must pay $72 million to the family of a woman who blamed her fatal ovarian cancer on the company’s talcum powder in the first state-court case over the claims to go to trial. She used the company’s talc-based Baby Powder and Shower to Shower products for more than 35 years. Asbestos have since been removed form the product.
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Their lawyer is Jere Beasley.
At trial, Fox’s attorneys introduced into evidence a September 1997 internal memo from a Johnson & Johnson medical consultant suggesting that “anybody who denies (the) risks” between “hygenic” talc use and ovarian cancer will be publicly perceived in the same light as those who denied a link between smoking cigarettes and cancer: “denying the obvious in the face of all evidence to the contrary”. Families died, families had loved ones die, buried them, had no idea why they got ovarian cancer.
But the evidence is so tenuous that it hasn’t justified any health authority in the world to my knowledge coming out with broad advice to women as a whole, or placing a warning label on talcum powder products or anything like that, because, as I’ve said, the evidence is so tenuous. It makes a distinction: “Based on the lack of data from human studies and on limited data in lab animal studies, IARC classifies inhaled talc not containing asbestos as “not classifiable as to carcinogenicity in humans.” It has also ruled that perineal (genital) use of talc-based body powder as “possibly carcinogenic to humans”.
“Some studies show an increased risk, while others do not”, the society says on its website. “We know cohort studies provide much more definitive answers”, Toriola said. On Thursday, a Cambridge oncology professor added to the professional voice who gave credence to the court ruling for Johnson & Johnson to pay damages to the family of Jacqueline Fox of Alabama.
Despite the jury’s outcome, there is still some debate over whether or not talc powder is a direct cause of ovarian cancer.
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BERNARD STEWART: It comes from studies that address that matter specifically. There are some studies that are simply negative. Some showed an association between talc and ovarian cancers, and some did not. That is, the highest risk is associated with the least usage of the powder, which is the reverse of what you’d expect.
