Johnson & Johnson and other manufacturers of baby powder produces are facing thousands of lawsuits over the fact that their product may have led to its users developing cancer. Numerous women and a few men have filed lawsuits alleging that lifetime use of the baby powder product for hygiene purposes led them to develop reproductive organ cancer as well as a rare and deadly cancer called mesothelioma. At least some of the lawsuits have been successful, and it’s affecting the talc supplier, Imersys, which has filed bankruptcy over the lawsuits, as Reuters reports.
Imersys Talc America, the U.S. unit of French parent group Imersys SA, said that the bankruptcy filing comes in the wake of thousands of lawsuits filed totaling billions of dollars.
While the company specified that it still believes that the lawsuits are without merit, the rising settlement and costs of defending the allegations are what led to the decision to declare bankruptcy.
Last July, a jury in Missouri ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay a record $4.9 billion to 22 women who said the use of the talc led to the development of ovarian cancer. Johnson & Johnson has said that it plans to appeal the verdict.
Prior to the trial in that lawsuit, Imersys settled for an undisclosed amount.
On December 14th, Reuters published a report detailing that between the 1970s and the early 2000s, Johnson & Johnson was aware that the talc product in its raw and finished form contained trace amounts of asbestos, a known carcinogen.
Both companies continue to deny that their products contain any asbestos.
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