A total of 1,900 potential claimants, including cancer patients, survivors and their families, are planning legal action against Johnson & Johnson, the world’s leading seller of talcum powder.
If it goes ahead, the case will make the largest pharmaceutical product group action in English and Welsh legal history.
The women believe their cancer originated in contaminated talcum powder, also known as baby powder, which was introduced to them as infants and they used for most of their adult lives.
KP Law, which is representing the women, has alleged that for decades J&J’s talcum powder was contaminated with cancer-causing asbestos which resulted in the health challenges many of the claimants are facing.
However, according to BBC they also claim J&J was aware of the contamination but sought to suppress this news.
Erik Haas, Worldwide Vice President of Litigation, Johnson & Johnson, said: “We have relied upon the most state-of-the-art testing protocols for decades and have been entirely transparent with government institutions and academic researchers regarding our findings. Those findings uniformly show the absence of asbestos contamination in Johnson’s Baby Powder and the talc sourced for Johnson’s Baby Powder.”
Mr Haas claimed the lawyers pushing the thousands of cases in the US are lobbying a “false narrative”, pointing out that many cases there have resulted in defence verdicts and/or appellate outcomes.
He said: “According to those lawyers’ theory, J&J and other companies that sell or sold talc-based consumer products somehow managed to not only hide the contaminated contents of their products from the general public but pressured virtually every US government agency, scientific testing lab and major academic institution into covering up their behaviour for at least 6 decades. That is simply inconceivable and false.”
The litigation process is expected to start next year. The claims are nothing new as the US-based firm has faced over 62,000 cases in their native country and reportedly set aside $6.5billion in May for settlement payouts, according to The Guardian.
Some of the claimants fear they won’t see the end of the litigation process, which is known to be time-consuming and can take a number of years to conclude.
Speaking to BBC, one of the claimants, Linda Jones, shared her fears as she continues to live with stage four cancer: “I don’t have that long left. I might be dead by the time it’s sorted out.”
While she’s unsure if she’ll see the result of the case, if it is successful, the Devon resident hopes to set up a holiday retreat for women diagnosed with gynaecological cancers.
Another claimant, who didn’t want to be identified by her real name, revealed she had been diagnosed with ovarian cancer just two weeks after she and her husband started trying for a baby.
Her journey picked up with devastating speed as two weeks after feeling the first symptoms she was undergoing a full hysterectomy.
The woman recalled how at the age of 29 she “went from excitedly planning for a baby to having all of my parts removed”. She and her husband went on to adopt in the three decades since her diagnosis.
