California Jury Awards $29 Million to Woman Who Says She Got Cancer from Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder

A woman who claims asbestos in Johnson & Johnson products caused her deadly cancer was awarded $29.4 million by a California jury on Wednesday, Reuters reports. A jury in a California Superior Court in Oakland determined that defective Baby Powder was a “substantial contributing factor” to Terry Leavitt’s mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer that affects the tissue that coats internal organs, the Associated Press reports. Leavitt said she often used two talcum-powder-based Johnson & Johnson products — Baby Powder and Shower to Shower powder — in the 1960s and 1970s, and claims they contributed to her 2017 cancer diagnosis, according to Reuters. Johnson & Johnson said in a statement provided to TIME that it plans to appeal the decision, citing “serious procedural and evidentiary errors.” “We are disappointed with today’s verdict and will pursue an appeal because Johnson’s Baby Powder does not contain asbestos or cause cancer,” the statement says. “Plaintiffs’ attorneys have fundamentally failed to show that Johnson’s Baby Powder contains asbestos, and their own experts concede that they are not recognizing the accepted definition of asbestos and are ignoring crucial distinctions between minerals that are asbestos and minerals that are not. We respect the legal process and reiterate that jury verdicts are not medical, scientific or regulatory conclusions about a product.” Noneth...
Source: TIME: Health - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Uncategorized Cancer onetime Source Type: news