Johnson & Johnson ordered to pay $417 million to terminal cancer patient

Popular baby and self-care products company Johnson & Johnson has been issued an order to pay a sum of $417 million (approx. 2.7k crore INR) to a woman who is suffering from ovarian cancer caused by the usage of Johnson & Johnson's talc powder for feminine hygiene.

The plaintiff, Eva  Echeverria, 63, claimed in her lawsuit that she had been using the talc powder of the company since she was 11 years old. After reading a story of a woman who got ovarian cancer from using talc in 2016, she stopped availing herself of it but had already been diagnosed well before that, and the diagnosis is terminal.

This is not the first time Johnson & Johnson has lost a lawsuit for this particular reason, but the amount they have been ordered to pay is certainly the highest. The company has declared its intention to appeal the decision, saying that they have decades of proven science to support their stand that talc is safe for human use.

However, research on talc powder has had mixed results over the years as to its safety (https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/talcum-powder-and-cancer.html) and a body under the WHO classifies talc as potentially carcinogenic to humans (http://monographs.iarc.fr/ENG/Monographs/vol93/mono93.pdf).

At present, the company is facing hundreds of claims of similar nature throughout the United States and has already lost four such cases, leading them to over $300 million (approximately 1,900 crores) in cumulative fines.