Johnson & Johnson Ordered to Pay $40M in Talcum Powder Verdict

[BumRushDaShow]

Source: Newsweek

Dec 13, 2025 at 04:27 PM EST


A Los Angeles jury awarded $40 million on Friday to two women who claimed that talcum powder made by Johnson & Johnson caused their ovarian cancer.

The jury awarded $18 million to Monica Kent and $22 million to Deborah Schultz and her husband. This verdict marks the latest development in ongoing litigation over claims that talc in Johnson's Baby Powder and Shower to Shower body powder was connected to ovarian cancer and mesothelioma, a cancer that strikes the lungs and other organs.

Erik Haas, Johnson & Johnson's worldwide vice president of litigation, said in a statement that the company had won “16 of the 17 ovarian cancer cases it previously tried” and expected to do so again upon appealing Friday's verdict.

He also called the jury's findings "irreconcilable with the decades of independent scientific evaluations confirming that talc is safe, does not contain asbestos, and does not cause cancer.'' Newsweek has reached out to Johnson & Johnson via email on Saturday for comment.

Read more: https://www.newsweek.com/johnson-johnson-ordered-to-pay-40m-in-talcum-powder-verdict-11207960

[Farmer-Rick]

1. Good

When it was clear there was asbestos in their talc powder, they kept on selling it. It's curious that when it came out about their tainted talc, 4 years later the death by breast cancer dropped 44%.

Yeah, yeah everyone tells me there is no evidence the talc caused the breast cancer but has it really been thoroughly studied? It's about women's lives and we know the medical community is not all that concerned about old ladies dying. But my Mom had breast cancer 3 times. And not until she stopped using J&J powder did the cancer stop reapearing. Coincidence.....I don't know. What did cause breast cancers to decline?

[Martin68]

2. I've used J&J Baby Powder on sensitive areas for 60 years, as have tens of millions of Americans. I believe the suit is

a hoax. They've been using corn powder for decades.

[BumRushDaShow]

3. I don't think it's a hoax

because the product was not manufactured at a single plant (it was made at plants around the world including the U.S.) and the raw ingredients were not from a single source but from a number of non-U.S countries.

Also J&J had been using talc until 2020 when they "officially" switched to cornstarch in the U.S./Canada, and globally in 2022 - Johnson & Johnson Consumer Health to Transition Global Baby Powder Portfolio to Cornstarch

The problem was most likely certain batches that were sold with contaminated ingredients and with such a large market, and without proper and/or sensitive enough testing of the raw ingredients, something like this could have happened.

An example of a different set of faulty testing standards came about during the Chinese milk powder/infant formula scandal almost 20 years ago, when you had shady dealers "cutting" the actual dairy product powder, which is more expensive, with cheap ground melamine (the latter a heat-resistent plastic product often used for dinnerware, etc). The melamine was able to mimic milk powder protein content when using the standard testing at the time. Half a dozen infants died and tens of thousands had renal damage in that incident. IIRC, several of the fraudsters who pawned off the mix, were identified and executed by China.

[obamanut2012]

4. Lots of folks smoke cigarettes and never get lung cancer

[Martin68]

5. But a far more significant number of smokers develop lung cancer than people who claim baby powder gave them cancer.