Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that asbestos lurked in its Baby Powder
Source: Reuters
Johnson & Johnson knew for decades that asbestos lurked in its Baby Powder
A REUTERS INVESTIGATION
Facing thousands of lawsuits alleging that its talc caused cancer, J&J insists on the safety and purity of its iconic product. But internal documents examined by Reuters show that the company's powder was sometimes tainted with carcinogenic asbestos and that J&J kept that information from regulators and the public.
By LISA GIRION in Los Angeles Filed Dec. 14, 2018, 2 p.m. GMT
Darlene Coker knew she was dying. She just wanted to know why.
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Fighting for every breath and in crippling pain, Coker hired Herschel Hobson, a personal-injury lawyer. He homed in on a suspect: the Johnsons Baby Powder that Coker had used on her infant children and sprinkled on herself all her life. Hobson knew that talc and asbestos often occurred together in the earth, and that mined talc could be contaminated with the carcinogen. Coker sued Johnson & Johnson, alleging that poisonous talc in the companys beloved product was her killer.
J&J denied the claim. Baby Powder was asbestos-free, it said. As the case proceeded, J&J was able to avoid handing over talc test results and other internal company records Hobson had requested to make the case against Baby Powder.
Coker had no choice but to drop her lawsuit, Hobson said. When you are the plaintiff, you have the burden of proof, he said. We didnt have it.
That was in 1999. Two decades later, the material Coker and her lawyer sought is emerging as J&J has been compelled to share thousands of pages of company memos, internal reports and other confidential documents with lawyers for some of the 11,700 plaintiffs now claiming that the companys talc caused their cancers including thousands of women with ovarian cancer.
A Reuters examination of many of those documents, as well as deposition and trial testimony, shows that from at least 1971 to the early 2000s, the companys raw talc and finished powders sometimes tested positive for small amounts of asbestos, and that company executives, mine managers, scientists, doctors and lawyers fretted over the problem and how to address it while failing to disclose it to regulators or the public.
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Read more: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsonandjohnson-cancer/
UpInArms
(51,284 posts)Hateful greedy murderers ... selling death
in2herbs
(2,947 posts)on male infants to prostate cancer?
Dustlawyer
(10,497 posts)cases the plaintiff's Bar has ever seen. I have worked with him and he would not put his time and money into a case that he did not believe had merit.
The fact that J&J was able to hide incriminating test results and other documents is nothing new in the asbestos industries. These companies knew in the early 1930's and covered it up, killing generations (tens of millions) of American workers to protect their profits.
Republicans and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have been very successful of late in demonizing the asbestos plaintiff's Bar who are bankrupting these poor asbestos companies (Johns Manville and the industry successfully lobbied to enact a "special" bankruptcy just for asbestos companies (524 G) so they could wash their asbestos liability and emerge from bankruptcy with a clean slate. For some reason (Dick Cheney cover up?), it was never reported that when Halliburton was getting all of the money on their no-bid Iraq war contracts they went through the asbestos bankruptcy.
My screen name "Dustlawyer" comes from my work on the "Dust Docket." While I no longer work on these cases, I have meet with hundreds of people dying from mesothelioma over the years from all over the country. It is one of the most horrible deaths imaginable. Most of these individuals were tradesmen and their wives who breathed the killer dust washing their husband's work clothes.
These CEO's and corporate lackeys should have all gone to jail!
pressbox69
(2,252 posts)Needs a new logo. Perhaps white hands with blood on them.