J&J Sues Researchers Who Linked Talc To Cancer

Introduction

The business Johnson & Johnson has increased its criticism of scientific findings by suing four doctors who published papers indicating ties between talc-based personal care products and cancer.

LTL Management, a J&J subsidiary that took on the company's talc liability in a contentious 2021 spinoff, last week filed a lawsuit in New Jersey federal court, asking the court to order three researchers to "retract and/or issue a correction" of a study that claimed patients occasionally developed mesothelioma after using consumer talc products containing asbestos.

One of the scientists refrained from commenting. Inquiries about the other two did not receive a response. Lawyers who previously defended the three researchers in a related lawsuit declined to comment.

More than 38,000 lawsuits have been filed against J&J on the grounds that the company's talc products, particularly its Baby Powder, contained asbestos and contributed to the development of malignancies, including ovarian and mesothelioma. J&J is making a $8.9 billion settlement offer in bankruptcy court to settle those cases, as well as any further talc litigation. According to J&J, its talc products are risk free and asbestos-free.

Due to an increase in litigation and "misinformation" regarding the safety of the talc product, J&J has discontinued distributing talc-based Baby Powder in favor of cornstarch-based goods.

The claims had a mixed record at trial, including some defense wins, but also a $2.1 billion decision handed to 22 women who claimed that the asbestos in the business's talc products caused their ovarian cancer. The corporation started looking for bankruptcy as a potential resolution to the litigation in 2021. The expenses of J&J's talc-related judgments, settlements, and legal fees have reportedly totaled roughly $4.5 billion, according to bankruptcy court files made in April.

The lawsuit filed last week by LTL against two pathologists associated with Peninsula Pathology Associates in Newport News, Virginia, and a pulmonologist who practiced at the Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center before his retirement follows a similar complaint that LTL filed against a different physician in Great Neck, New York's Northwell Health, in late May.

The doctor studied 33 individuals whose only exposure to asbestos, according to them, came from talc goods in a 2019 report, and pathologists followed up with a 2020 analysis of 75 comparable patients.

According to the allegations, all four physicians have testified as experts in litigation brought against J&J and their work has been used where they have not. LTL claimed that the researchers hid the information that some or all of the study participants had already been exposed to asbestos from unrelated sources.

Additionally, the corporation is requesting that the researchers be ordered by the court to provide the names of the patients. Fraud and other offenses are among the accusations made in the cases.

According to a lecturer at the University of Southern California Gould School of Law, businesses hardly ever bring legal action because of opposing studies. For product disparagement claims in New Jersey, LTL will find it very challenging to demonstrate that the researchers intended to hurt J&J's brand; nonetheless, the business may use the lawsuits as an opportunity to deter future researchers or recover the narrative around talc safety.

A statement from the researchers was not immediately available. Similar lawsuits were brought by LTL against the researchers in December 2022, but these were dropped in April along with the remainder of the bankruptcy since they were connected to LTL's initial bankruptcy filing.

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