Jacqueline Fox died last fall, but her voice recently came alive in a St. Louis courtroom.
In an audio deposition, the Birmingham, Ala., native who died at 62 recounted 35 years of using Johnson & Johnson products containing talcum powder, in the pharmaceutical giant’s trademark baby powder to its shower-to-shower body powder. Fox had applied them toward feminine hygiene, but she believed these were what ultimately killed her.
More than 3 years ago, she was diagnosed with an ovarian cancer that proved fatal. Fox then joined a lot more than 1,200 women from across the country suing Johnson & Johnson for neglecting to warn consumers from the dangers associated with talc, the mineral utilized in baby powder.
Monday, her case became the first in which monetary compensation was awarded.
A Missouri jury has ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay for Fox’s family US$72 million in actual and punitive damages. One of Fox’s lead attorneys, Jim Onder, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that US$31 million goes to the Missouri Crime Victim Compensation Fund.
The suit’s other defendant, talc producer Imerys Talc America, is not faulted.
“We have no higher responsibility compared to health and safety of shoppers and we’re disappointed with the results of the trial,” Johnson & Johnson said inside a statement Tuesday. “We sympathize with the plaintiff’s family but firmly believe the safety of cosmetic talc is supported by decades of scientific evidence.”
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Johnson & Johnson is expected to appeal the verdict. The award – that is made up of US$10 million in compensatory damages and US$62 million in punitive damages – will likely be lessened in appellate courts, Stanford law professor Nora Freeman Engstrom told the Associated Press.
According to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, one male juror and nine female jurors voted in Fox’s favour; two men voted against her.
One juror, 50-year-old Jerome Kendrick, told the Post-Dispatch that he was swayed by internal company memos presented at trial.
“They tried to cover up and influence the boards that regulate cosmetics,” he said, adding “They might have a minimum of place a warning label around the box but they didn’t. They did nothing.”
One memo from a company medical consultant likened ignoring the risks related to “hygenic” talc use and ovarian cancer to denying the link between smoking cigarettes and cancer – quite simply, “denying the most obvious when confronted with all evidence on the contrary,” the Associated Press reported.
They could have at least place a warning label on the box but they didn’t. They did nothing
Another document noted that sales were declining as more people became aware of the risks, and included techniques for making blacks and Hispanics the greatest users of talcum powder, Onder said, because the Post-Dispatch reported.
Fox was Black.
The New Jersey-based company faces a lot more lawsuits associated with talcum products it’s made household names.
Marvin Salter, Fox’s son, told the AP that using Johnson & Johnson “became routine, like brushing your teeth.”
But a routine act eventually became insidious, Fox’s lawyers argued.
A pathologist discovered that Fox’s ovaries were inflamed from talc, which then converted into cancer.
While studies have associated regular talc use with ovarian cancer for decades, the American Cancer Society notes that there is no definitive research on whether asbestos-free talc – the kind widely used in consumer products – causes ovarian cancer:
“Findings have been mixed, with a few studies reporting a rather increased risk and some reporting no increase. Many case-control studies have found a small rise in risk. However these types of studies could be biased because they often depend on a person’s memory of talc use a long time earlier.”
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