Private Meeting Held Among Talcum Attorneys
A number of attorney groups held a private meeting to coordinate efforts in the talcum powder proceedings taking place in St. Louis.
Monday, September 14, 2015 - A number of attorneys working on the talcum powder lawsuits filed in St. Louis met privately recently to discuss the upcoming litigation connected to allegations that Johnson & Johnson failed to warn consumers of the link between their talcum products and an increased risk in ovarian cancer. The meeting, which took place in August, comes as the lawsuits filed against Johnson & Johnson move closer to a trial following a July status conference hearing that decided which cases were fit to be heard in court.
The private meeting among a number of attorney groups involved in the St. Louis talcum lawsuits was held to help lawyers coordinate and strategize before heading into the trial phase of the litigation. The specifics of the meeting were kept private, but the aims of the gathering were to help attorneys representing plaintiffs in the talcum powder lawsuits get on the same page and maximize their efforts to earn their clients victories over Johnson & Johnson over the talcum powder allegations.
Plaintiffs in the talcum powder lawsuits allege that Johnson & Johnson offered talcum powder products, specifically their Baby Powder and Shower to Shower items, to female consumers without warning them of a potential link to an increased risk of contracting ovarian cancer as a result of using these products genitally. Attorneys for the plaintiffs have produced decades of research backing up their claims that a prolonged, regular use of Johnson & Johnson talcum powder products can increase the risk of developing ovarian cancer up to 30 percent for women.
The talcum powder research has demonstrated that talc particles over a period of time can travel up a woman's vaginal tract and become embedded in the ovaries. This process leads to an increase in the chances for the affected ovaries to contract cancer, a risk the plaintiffs claim they were never warned of. Many women who are filing lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson claim they have been using the talcum powder products vaginally for decades completely unaware of a possible connection with an increased risk in ovarian cancer and feel Johnson & Johnson bares responsibility for not alerting them to the relevant facts.
Claims against Johnson & Johnson not only allege that the company did not attach the warning labels to the product, but claim that this was done intentionally by the company after they had knowledge of the possible connection. Plaintiffs claim that in the interest of keeping their talcum products profitable, Johnson & Johnson decided not to warn customers of the increased risk of ovarian cancer that had been uncovered in talc research. The company has even commissioned research studies of its own intent on finding that no such link exists.
The talcum powder lawsuits are not based solely in St. Louis, as more than 700 cases have been filed nationwide. Over 100 of those are filed in New Jersey, where they have recently been moving toward multicounty litigation in the home state of the Johnson & Johnson corporation. The first talcum powder cse in the Missouri state litigation was also recently selected to begin the proceedings' first trial in February of 2016. Talcum lawsuits continue to grow as word of the research and lawsuits related to the products' connection to ovarian cancer spreads.
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