1 yr. ago • 99%

Johnson & Johnson must pay $18.8m to cancer patient in baby powder lawsuit

www.theguardian.com Johnson & Johnson must pay $18.8m to cancer patient in baby powder lawsuit

Jury rules in favor of California man who says he developed a deadly cancer from heavy exposure to talc powder since childhood

21 comments

This isn't even punitive, but just the cost of doing business. Protip, if the fine wouldn't stop you from making the same business decision again, it's not really a fine.

71
- Let's hope that all of these:
  
  a setback for the company as it seeks to settle thousands of similar cases
  
  come to similar results then.
  
  25
  
  If they have 10,000 lawsuits that result in the same fine, it might actually have an impact on their bottom line.
  
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- Permanently Deleted
  
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Permanently Deleted

24
- Couple of things. This is only one victim. The other lawsuits are still pending, and they could allget this much or more.
  
  J&J already declared bankruptcy as a result of these lawsuits. That sucks for this guy because he's not going to get his money any time soon.
  
  20
  
  A subsidiary declared bankruptcy
  
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“Hernandez testified in June, telling jurors that he would have avoided J&J’s talc if he had been warned that it contained asbestos, as his lawsuit alleges.”

Got news for you — if there’s any asbestos in the talc, it likely wasn’t added by J&J. Asbestos occurs frequently where talc is mined. If J&J talcum powder has asbestos, chances are other brands of talc do too.

The only way to avoid it is to switch from talc to corn starch based products.

https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetic-ingredients/talc

https://www.asbestos.com/news/2022/01/18/fda-testing-asbestos-talc/

17
- I feel this gets overlooked too easily. Also, there was a recent article reporting that the study that proofed talc was responsible for the asbestos exposure, was fundamentally flawed and ignored major historic exposure to asbestos in its participants.
  
  Shit on J&J all you want, they deserve a fair bit of criticism, but the talc ruling is just plain ignorance by the jury.
  
  14
The jury found that Hernandez was entitled to damages to compensate him for his medical bills and pain and suffering, but declined to award punitive damages against the company. Hernandez will not be able to collect the judgment in the foreseeable future, thanks to a bankruptcy court order freezing most litigation over J&J’s talc.

How the hell is J&J unsolvable?

8
So uh, should I throw this away...

8
- Or just don’t maybe submerse your kid in it every hour of every day
  
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Wasn't there a huge civil suit against J&J that they avoided paying?

Just another big pharma company that is getting charged fines, but that's just their cost of doing business. These suits against J&J, Pfizer & more should put the company permanently out of business.

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Everyone complaining about that little cancer problem but no one is thanking J&J for making them fire resistant.

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QA on powders is a legit hard thing to do. I remember when this story first broke thinking that it probably was just a real sad accident. Of course time showed differently.

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What percentage of that is actually going to the patient after all the costs of the case are subtracted?

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Will it cover the cancer treatment?

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that's spare change... that's not a fine, that's just a small price to pay.

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Hilariously, this fine is probably not even large enough for them to spin off a shell company and declare bankruptcy on the debts. They'll just shrug and move on. Toothless.

0
mRNA is in the post, I bet in 10-15 years

Big pharma is no one to trust.

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- wat?
  
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