Another Johnson's Baby Powder Case Goes To The Jury

Previous cases against Johnson & Johnson have yielded multi-million dollar jury awards

Tuesday, October 8, 2019 - Lawyers for Johnson & Johnson defending their iconic brand of Baby Powder feel that the trials have come down to which side's expert witnesses are more believable. There are those on the side of the plaintiff that testify that the talc that they tested contains asbestos a notorious cancer-causing substance and that is the cause of their client's mesothelioma. Also, the plaintiff's witnesses have testified that talc in and of itself can migrate into the ovaries and cause sufficient irritation leading to ovarian cancer. On the defense side, company experts argue that the bottles of talc being tested could have been tampered with and that there is no way to know if a bottle of talcum powder manufactured in the 1970s is still hermetically sealed. Also, company witnesses testify on behalf of studies that have failed to find asbestos in talc that they tested. The bad news for Johnson & Johnson is the jury's decision is not that simple or cut and dry. Juries are taking Johnson & Johnson's misdeeds into account and awarding plaintiffs multi-million dollar verdicts. Talcum powder lawsuit attorneys provide free case reviews and have vast experience handling medical litigations against big pharmaceutical companies and believe pharmaceutical companies must be held accountable for their action.

Defense attorneys question the credibility of the plaintiff's talc testing witnesses because one had never found asbestos in talc tests before being hired by the plaintiff to do just that. The defense questions the witness's credibility since he (Dr. William Longo) is being paid millions of dollars to give their testimony. The plaintiff's attorneys are introducing Johnson & Johnson's internal company memos which can be construed to say that the company has known for over 50 years that their talc supply was contaminated with asbestos and deliberately kept this information from the public protecting their brand and company profits. Juries are presented with other memos that show that Johnson & Johnson manipulated and coerced officials at the FDA to postpone having to comply with the agency's recommendation that the company tighten up its asbestos testing standards and use a more sensitive method. Juries are flabbergasted to hear that the cosmetics industry is "self-policing" and not subject to mandatory recall or testing by the FDA. When the FDA did test talc-based cosmetics recently the agency found several were contaminated with asbestos and the companies in question immediately pulled the said cosmetics from the market.

Jurors have also heard that Johnson & Johnson is under criminal investigation by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Department of Justice for potentially lying about the safety of talc. Johnson & Johnson is also being held accountable for lying to doctors about the safety of their opioid medication and has recently paid a $1 billion fine. At the time of this writing, a jury is deliberating what they were presented in the first Johnson & Johnson ovarian cancer trial in the state of Georgia. Dian Brower died in 2016 after battling ovarian cancer her loved one's claim was caused by a lifetime of dusting themselves with Johnson's Baby Powder on her female parts after a shower for feminine hygiene. Johnson & Johnson faces close to 12,000 more claims that baby powder caused a plaintiff's mesothelioma or ovarian cancer.