Jury says Johnson & Johnson owes $40 million to 2 cancer patients who used talcum powders

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A Los Angeles jury awarded $40 million on Friday to two women who claimed that talcum powder made by Johnson & Johnson caused their ovarian cancer.

The giant health care company said it would appeal the jury's liability verdict and compensatory damages.

The verdict is the latest development in a longstanding legal battle over claims that talc in Johnson's Baby Powder and Shower to Shower body power was connected to ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer that strikes the lungs and other organs. Johnson & Johnson stopped selling powder made with talc worldwide in 2023.

In October, another California jury ordered J&J to pay $966 million to the family of a woman who died of mesothelioma, claiming she developed the cancer because the baby powder she used was contaminated with the carcinogen asbestos.

In the latest case, the jury awarded $18 million to Monica Kent and $22 million to Deborah Schultz and her husband. “The only thing they did was be loyal to Johnson & Johnson as a customer for only 50 years,’’ said their attorney, Daniel Robinson of the Robinson Calcagnie law firm in Newport Beach, California. “That loyalty was a one-way street.’’

Erik Haas, J&J's worldwide vice president of litigation, said in a statement that the company had won “16 of the 17 ovarian cancer cases it previously tried” and expected to do so again upon appealing Friday's verdict.

Haas called the jury's findings "irreconcilable with the decades of independent scientific evaluations confirming that talc is safe, does not contain asbestos, and does not cause cancer.''

Johnson & Johnson replaced the talc in its baby powder sold in most of North America with cornstarch in 2020 after sales declined.

In April, a U.S. bankruptcy court judge denied J&J's plan to pay $9 billion to settle ovarian cancer and other gynecological cancer litiation claims based on talc-related products.