NEW YORK – The well-known American pharmaceutical and cosmetics company Johnson & Johnson has consented to pay $700 million to resolve claims that it deceived customers about the safety of its powdered talc merchandise. On Tuesday, the Attorney General of New York announced this settlement.
Despite Johnson & Johnson’s denial of any wrongdoing, an agreement involving 42 states and the District of Columbia was reached. In 2020, the corporation had already pulled its talc-based goods off the North American market.
After Johnson & Johnson was hit with thousands of cases, a deal in principle was announced in January, and this settlement comes after that. According to these cases, there were asbestos residues in the talcum powder, and the asbestos was linked to ovarian cancer.
Attorney General Letitia James of New York said in a statement, “While money cannot bring back the suffering caused by Johnson & Johnson’s talc-laced products, families can feel secure in the knowledge that the company is being held responsible for the damage it caused.”
New York State will get $44 million, distributed over three years in four installments, out of the settlement’s total sum.
The company “continues to pursue several paths to achieve a comprehensive and final resolution of the talc litigation,” according to Erik Haas, Vice President of Litigation at Johnson & Johnson Worldwide, in an interview with AFP. This includes concluding the previously announced agreement with a consortium of 43 state attorneys general to resolve their talc claims.
To “equitably and efficiently resolve all claims arising from cosmetic talc litigation,” Johnson & Johnson proposed a $8.9 billion agreement in April 2023. The money would be distributed over 25 years to tens of thousands of claimants through a subsidiary, LTL Management LLC, which had filed for bankruptcy protection. The plan was rejected by a bankruptcy judge, though.
“We will continue to address the claims of those who do not want to participate in our contemplated consensual bankruptcy resolution through litigation or settlement,” Haas said in a statement issued on Tuesday.
Notwithstanding these advancements, a review of research encompassing 250,000 American women that was released in January 2020 failed to discover a statistical connection between talc use on the genitalia and the danger of ovarian cancer.
