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New Delhi: A Los Angeles jury has ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $40 million in damages to two California women who said long-term use of the company’s talc-based baby powder caused them to develop ovarian cancer, marking one of the first talc-related trials to proceed since the collapse of the company’s latest bankruptcy strategy.
The verdict, delivered Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, awarded $18 million to Monica Kent and $22 million to Deborah Schultz and her husband. Jurors concluded that Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that its talc products posed potential health risks but failed to adequately warn consumers.
Kent was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2014, while Schultz received her diagnosis four years later, according to court records. Both women testified that they used Johnson & Johnson baby powder regularly for about 40 years as part of their daily hygiene routines. Their treatments, they told the court, involved extensive surgeries and repeated rounds of chemotherapy.
During closing arguments, plaintiffs’ attorney Andy Birchfield argued that internal company knowledge about the risks associated with talc dated back to at least the 1960s. He told jurors the company actively sought to downplay or conceal those dangers rather than alert the public. “They knew,” Birchfield said, asserting that Johnson & Johnson worked to suppress evidence about potential links to cancer.
Johnson & Johnson has rejected those claims and said it will appeal the verdict. In a statement, Erik Haas, the company’s worldwide vice president of litigation, described the outcome as an outlier and said the company expects it to be overturned. Defense attorney Allison Brown told jurors there is no scientific consensus supporting a link between talc and ovarian cancer, noting that no major U.S. health authority has endorsed such a connection. She also argued there is no credible evidence showing talc can migrate from external use to the reproductive system.
The case is part of a much broader legal battle for Johnson & Johnson. More than 67,000 lawsuits have been filed alleging that the company’s talc products caused cancer, most involving ovarian cancer claims. In comparatively fewer cases, mesothelioma is involved - it is a rare and aggressive form of cancer triggered by asbestos exposure. J&J continued to maintain that its products are free of asbestos and non-carcinogenic. The company also discontinued its talc-based baby powder in the US in 2020.
In recent years, the company has repeatedly attempted to channel the litigation into bankruptcy proceedings, efforts that have been rejected by federal courts, most recently in April. With those attempts dismissed, cases like Kent’s and Schultz’s are once again moving forward, reopening a legal fight that has already produced multibillion-dollar verdicts and settlements in courts across the country.
