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 J&J has been battling some 6,000 cases claiming its baby powder and
Shower to Shower products cause ovarian cancer. The $117 million
verdict by a New Jersey jury last week, however, involved a
different form of cancer that is clearly linked to asbestos.
Plaintiffs lawyers claim that internal J&J documents seen in that
trial show that baby powder had been contaminated with asbestos.
They now plan to use the documents in upcoming ovarian cancer trials
to allege that the asbestos contamination also caused that form of
cancer.
J&J and Imerys Talc America, a unit of Imerys SA <IMTP.PA>, have
vowed to appeal the New Jersey verdict and deny asbestos has ever
been present in their products or that their talc can cause any form
of cancer.
The case of Stephen Lanzo, a New Jersey resident who claimed he
developed mesothelioma after using baby powder since his birth in
1972, was the first time a jury saw the internal J&J documents which
plaintiffs claim show that J&J knew since the 1970s that the talc in
its baby powder was contaminated by asbestos during the mining
process.
J&J says the documents present no such evidence, but merely show the
company's caution.
Peter Bicks, a lawyer leading J&J's talc asbestos defense, said that
in the early 1970s, the company was looking at how it could
potentially remove asbestos from talc if the two became intermingled
in the mining process. He says no contamination was ever found,
citing decades of testing by independent laboratories and
scientists.
Bicks called the claims of a link between talc and asbestos "junk
science."
Mesothelioma, a rare and deadly form of cancer closely associated
with exposure to asbestos, affects the delicate tissue that lines
body cavities.
While the link between asbestos and mesothelioma is sufficiently
established, scientists are divided on whether asbestos exposure can
cause ovarian cancer. Some studies have shown an association between
the two, while other studies have found no such link.
Elizabeth Burch, holder of the Charles H. Kirbo Chair of Law at the
University of Georgia, said it remained an open question whether
talc contained asbestos and that each case would turn on the facts.
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But J&J, which had $76.5 billion in sales in 2017, gives the
plaintiffs' bar an enticing new target, said Nathan Schachtman, a
lecturer at Columbia University who used to defend asbestos cases.
Some 3,000 people are diagnosed with mesothelioma each year,
according to the American Cancer Society, a number that Howard
Erichson, a law professor at Fordham University who specializes in
mass tort litigation, called significant from a legal standpoint.
But the roughly 22,000 women who were diagnosed with ovarian cancer
last year, according to the National Cancer Institute, provide
lawyers with a potentially much larger pool of plaintiffs to tap.
"This is just the tip of the iceberg," said Mark Lanier, one of the
lawyers representing consumers, who said plaintiffs would file
thousands of additional mesothelioma and ovarian cancer cases.
New Jersey-based J&J in a statement after the Lanzo verdict said
plaintiffs' attorneys had shifted their strategy to focus on
asbestos after a series of losses at trial and in court rulings over
previous allegations that the talc itself causes cancer.
Of the six ovarian cancer trials to date, juries found J&J liable
five times, but a Missouri appellate court threw out the first
verdict and a California judge tossed another. Appeals of the other
cases are pending.
J&J in November also won the first trial over allegations that its
talc contained asbestos and caused a woman's mesothelioma.
Plaintiffs lawyers say the jury in that case did not see the
documents presented during the Lanzo trial.
But Erichson said the widespread use of J&J's consumer products
generally make the company an attractive litigation target.
"Baby powder is as ubiquitous a product you can think of and there
are lots of people who can testify they've been exposed to it," he
said.
(Reporting by Tina Bellon; editing by Noeleen Walder and Leslie
Adler)
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