Johnson & Johnson has filed suit against several doctors who have claimed that the company’s talc-based baby powder causes cancer.
The company’s talc subsidiary LTL Management is suing four doctors who have authored or been involved in studies to support their claims that J&J’s talc-based products are linked to hundreds of cases of mesothelioma. Since May, J&J has targeted New Hampshire physician Richard Lawrence Kradin, Virginia doctors Theresa Swain Emory and John Coulter Maddox, and New York physician Jacqueline Miriam Moline.
The most recent case involves Kradin, Emory and Maddox. Those doctors have cited 75 individuals as having malignant mesothelioma tied directly to exposure to asbestos from the company’s talc-based Baby Powder and Shower to Shower products. However, J&J claims that some of those who were referenced had been exposed to asbestos in other ways—similar to the company’s claims against Moline that were filed in May.
J&J filed its lawsuit in New Jersey federal court asking that it require Kradin, Emory and Maddox to "retract and/or issue a correction" of their related studies.
J&J alleges that the doctors, each of whom have been called upon to testify in some of the talc cases, are using each other’s work to bolster their own claims pertaining to talc-based products cited in their own studies. The company has said that the doctors “were paid millions by the plaintiffs’ bar to deliberately defame our products” and that they have made “careers and small fortunes” in doing so.
“The Emory article demonstrates plaintiffs’ experts’ tactics to pollute the scientific literature,” J&J wrote in its complaint. “They publish their junk litigation opinions in scientific journals. They use their credentials to instill their publications with false credibility. They then build from that fraudulent foundation by citing to each other’s work.”
There have been a total of 41 talc trials against J&J, nine of which the company has lost. The company already has pulled its talc products from shelves in the U.S. and is in the process of doing so globally. Their baby powder products are now available in a version that uses cornstarch in lieu of talc.
Learn more about J&J’s claims here.
In addition to her background in journalism, Hannah also has patient-facing experience in clinical settings, having spent more than 12 years working as a registered rad tech. She joined Innovate Healthcare in 2021 and has since put her unique expertise to use in her editorial role with Health Imaging.