Johnson & Johnson Offers $8.9B To Settle Baby Talc Cancer Claims — Retail Bum

American pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson has proposed an $8.9 billion payment to settle a years-long lawsuit that claims the company’s talc powder caused ovarian cancer.

If approved by the court, the payout would be one of the largest product liability settlements to have ever been paid in the country’s history.

Johnson & Johnson has been dealing with thousands of lawsuits that blame trace amounts of asbestos in its baby powder formula for causing ovarian cancer. However, the company denies any wrongdoings and has stopped selling talc-based baby powders in North America since May 2020.

“The company continues to believe that these claims are specious and lack scientific merit,” Erik Haas, Johnson & Johnson’s vice president of litigation, said.

The company’s subsidiary, LTL Management LLC, is supposed to handle payouts to settle tens of thousands of claims over the course of 25 years.

LTL has “secured commitments from over 60,000 current claimants to support a global resolution on these terms,” Johnson & Johnson said.

The New Brunswick, NJ-based company added that its newly proposed settlement, which is more than four folds higher than its previous proposal, is not “an admission of wrongdoing, nor an indication that the company has changed its longstanding position that its talcum powder products are safe.”

“Nonetheless, resolving this matter as quickly and efficiently as possible is in the best interests of the company and all stakeholders,” it said.

Originally published at https://retailbum.com on April 11, 2023.