Johnson & Johnson proposes $8.9 bn settlement of talc cancer claims

US pharmaceutical big Johnson & Johnson on Tuesday proposed an $8.9 billion settlement to resolve years-extinct lawsuits claiming that its talcum powder products prompted cancer.

The Fresh Jersey-primarily based mostly company said the proposed settlement, which peaceable wants the approval of a monetary spoil court docket, “will equitably and efficiently resolve all claims coming up from beauty talc litigation.”

If accepted by the court docket and a majority of the plaintiffs, the $8.9 billion payout would be one in all the ideal product approved responsibility settlements ever in the US, score alongside these entered into by tobacco corporations and, extra no longer too lengthy ago, opioid manufacturers.

J&J has been going by thousands of lawsuits over talcum powder containing traces of asbestos blamed for causing ovarian cancer.

The company has never admitted wrongdoing but stopped selling its talc-primarily based mostly child powder in the US and Canada in Could perhaps perhaps also 2020.

“The company continues to factor in that these claims are specious and absence scientific merit,” Erik Haas, J&J’s vice president of litigation, said in an announcement.

J&J said the $8.9 billion would be paid to the tens of thousands of claimants over 25 years by a J&J subsidiary, LTL Management LLC, which used to be space as a lot as cope with the claims and has filed for monetary spoil safety.

It said that LTL has “secured commitments from over 60,000 present claimants to toughen a world resolution on these phrases.”

A outdated settlement appealing LTL used to be rejected by an appellate court docket and a monetary spoil court docket will now wish to approve the brand new LTL monetary spoil filing and settlement.

J&J had previously proposed a settlement of $2 billion in response to the allegations that its beauty talc prompted gynecological cancers.

The company said the newly proposed settlement is no longer “an admission of wrongdoing, nor a demonstration that the company has changed its longstanding space that its talcum powder products are right.”

“On the other hand, resolving this topic as mercurial and efficiently as conceivable is in the right pursuits of the company and all stakeholders,” J&J said.

In maintaining with Haas, the settlement “enables claimants to be compensated in a neatly timed manner, and enables the company to remain all in favour of our dedication to profoundly and absolutely affect neatly being for humanity.”

© 2023 AFP