Coverage: Johnson & Johnson ordered to pay $417 million

A jury awarded a California woman $417 million on Monday because she developed ovarian cancer and had used Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder for decades.

Jen Christensen of CNNMoney.com had the news:

The award includes $70 million in compensatory damages and $347 million in punitive damages.

Eva Echeverria, a 63-year-old from Los Angeles, said she had been using the powder as a regular part of her feminine hygiene routine since she was 11 years old. She stopped using it in 2016, after she read a news story about another woman who used it and had ovarian cancer.

Echeverria’s is the first of hundreds of similar cases in California to be decided. Juries elsewhere have returned four other verdicts against Johnson & Johnson, and another case in New Jersey was dismissed. There are thousands of similar cases going through state and federal courts right now.

Echeverria testified that had there been a warning label on the product, she would have stopped using it.

Paul Milo of The (Newark) Star-Ledger reported that the company will appeal the verdict:

The company faces hundreds of similar lawsuits in state and federal courts. Eccheveria’s was the first of hundreds of cases in California to be decided.

Johnson & Johnson said in a statement that it will begin the appeals process in the California case.

“Ovarian cancer is a devastating diagnosis and we deeply sympathize with the women and families impacted by this disease,” Carol Goodrich, a representative for Johnson & Johnson Consumer Inc., said in a statement. “We will appeal today’s verdict because we are guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson’s Baby Powder. In April, the National Cancer Institute’s Physician Data Query Editorial Board wrote, ‘The weight of evidence does not support an association between perineal talc exposure and an increased risk of ovarian cancer.’ We are preparing for additional trials in the US and we will continue to defend the safety of Johnson’s Baby Powder.”

Richard Winton of the Los Angeles Times reported that the award is the largest against J&J in the baby powder cases:

The verdict marks the largest award yet in a number of suits claiming that the company’s talc powder causes ovarian cancer. More than 300 lawsuits are pending in California and more than 4,500 claims in the rest of the country, alleging that the healthcare giant ignored studies linking its Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower products to cancer.

The plaintiff, Eva Echeverria, was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007. A surgeon removed a softball-sized tumor, but Echeverria is now near death and was unable to attend the trial, one of her attorneys said.

In a video-recorded deposition played for the jury, she testified she used the Johnson’s Baby Powder from age 11 until 2016, when she saw a news story about a woman with ovarian cancer who had also used the product. The talc is one of the company’s best-known products, marketed at one point with the jingle, “A sprinkle a day helps keep the odor away.”