Escalating an attack on scientific studies, Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has sued four doctors who published studies citing links between talc-based personal care products and cancer, news agency Reuters has said. According to the Reuter’s report, J&J's subsidiary LTL Management, which absorbed the firm's talc liability in a controversial 2021 spinoff, last week filed a lawsuit in New Jersey federal court asking it to force three researchers to "retract and/or issue a correction" of a study that said asbestos-contaminated consumer talc products sometimes caused patients to develop mesothelioma.
J&J is facing more than 38,000 lawsuits alleging that the company's talc products, including its Baby Powder, were contaminated by asbestos and caused cancers including ovarian cancer and mesothelioma. J&J is attempting to resolve those lawsuits, as well as any future talc lawsuits, through an $8.9 billion settlement in bankruptcy court.
All four doctors have provided expert testimony in lawsuits against J&J, and their research has been cited in lawsuits where they have not testified, according to the complaints.
According to J&J, its talc products are safe and do not contain asbestos. The has stopped selling talc-based Baby Powder in favour of cornstarch-based products, citing an increase in lawsuits and "misinformation" about the talc product's safety.
The company in 2021 began exploring bankruptcy as a potential solution to the lawsuits, which saw a mixed record at trial, including several defence wins but also a $2.1 billion verdict awarded to 22 women who blamed their ovarian cancer on asbestos in the company's talc products. J&J said in bankruptcy court filings in April that the costs of its talc-related verdicts, settlements and legal fees have reached about $4.5 billion.
Last week's lawsuit against Emory and Maddox, pathologists affiliated with Peninsula Pathology Associates in Newport News, Virginia, and Kradin, a pulmonologist who worked at Massachusetts General Hospital Cancer Center before his retirement, comes on the heels of another complaint LTL filed in late May against another doctor, Jacqueline Moline, who works at Northwell Health in Great Neck, New York, on similar grounds.
Moline published an article in 2019 studying 33 patients who said their only exposure to asbestos came from talc products, and Emory, Kradin and Maddox followed up with a 2020 study of 75 similar patients.
LTL said the researchers concealed the fact that some or all of the patients involved in their studies had been exposed to asbestos from other sources. The company is also asking the court to force the researchers to disclose the patients' identities. The lawsuits allege product disparagement and fraud, among other claims.