International Hot

Source: CRI

Date: 25/02/19

A picture shows "Baby Powder," a product from the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson. [Photo: stock.hexun.com]

The pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson has been ordered to pay 72 million US dollars to the family of a woman from Missouri whose death from ovarian cancer was linked to her longstanding use of the company's talcum powder based products.

Jere Beasley, the attorney representing Jacqueline Fox, said the company had been hiding the truth from its consumers from the 1980's, that talcum powder could lead to cancer.

"They knew as far back as 1979 the association between talc and ovarian cancer. They knew that 1,500 women were dying each year from ovarian cancer caused or indirectly contributed to by talc and continued to sell, made a conscious decision not to warn."

But the company said they firmly believed the safety of cosmetic talc was supported by decades of scientific evidence.

The circuit court of St. Louis awarded the family of the victim 10 million dollars in actual damages and 62 million dollars in punitive damages. The verdict is the first by a US jury to award damages over claims that talcum powder is linked to ovarian cancer.

The company is likely to face hundreds of lawsuits alleging that it has failed to warn its customers of the risk of using the talc-based powder.

Earlier in 2013, there was a similar case in South Dakota, but Johnson & Johnson was not ordered to pay any damages.