British claimants announced legal action on Wednesday against US pharmaceutical and cosmetics giant Johnson & Johnson over allegations that women suffering from cancer were exposed to asbestos in the company’s talcum powder.
It is the first time J&J has risked UK court action over the allegations, after facing a series of similar lawsuits in North America.
KP Law, the company representing nearly 2,000 claimants, said “the women who were diagnosed with life-changing and life-limiting cancer were exposed to asbestos contained in the company’s talcum powder”.
“Johnson & Johnson takes the issue of talc safety incredibly seriously, and always has,” said Eric Haas, J&J’s worldwide litigation vice president, in response.
Haas said that J&J’s own analysis found the absence of asbestos contamination in its products and that “independent science makes clear that talc is not associated with an increased risk of ovarian cancer nor mesothelioma”.
J&J has until the end of the year to respond to the letter sent by KP Law clients, after which the documents will be filed in the UK High Court.
The law firm is representing primarily women in connection with the case, and says thousands of people have contacted it, adding that some of them have died from cancer.
The lawyers claim that the US-based corporation “knew as early as the 1970s that asbestos in its talc products was dangerous, but failed to warn consumers and continued to produce and sell the products in the UK as recently as 2022”. .
J&J said Kenvue, its former consumer-health division, which it spun off in 2023, is responsible for “any alleged talc liability arising outside the U.S. or Canada.”
Kenview did not immediately respond to AFP’s request for comment.
claims settled
However, in September, J&J increased its offer to settle ovarian cancer-related talc claims in the US to about $8 billion, to be paid over 25 years.
Earlier this year, the company agreed to pay $700 million to settle allegations that it misled customers about the safety of its talcum-based power products in North America.
The company did not admit wrongdoing in its settlement but withdrew the product from the North American market in 2020.
The World Health Organization’s cancer agency classified talc as “probably carcinogenic” to humans in July.
A summary of studies published in 2020 involving 250,000 women in the United States found no statistical link between talcum powder use on genitals and risk of ovarian cancer.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
