Johnson & Johnson ordered to pay $417 million to woman in talcum lawsuit

Johnson's baby products.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

A 63-year-old woman with terminal ovarian cancer was awarded $417 million on Monday after a jury in Los Angeles found Johnson & Johnson liable for not warning her about the risks of using the company's talcum products.

Eva Echeverria's lawsuit is one of 4,500 in the United States that allege Johnson & Johnson disregarded studies that link its baby powder and Shower to Shower products with ovarian cancer. The jury awarded her $347 million in punitive damages and $70 million in compensatory damages, and found there was a connection between her cancer and the powder. Echeverria, who was diagnosed with cancer in 2007, said she started using Johnson & Johnson's baby powder at age 11 and didn't stop until 2016; Echeverria testified she would have quit much sooner had she known about the link.

Her lawsuit cited a 1982 study that showed women who put talc on their genitals had a 92 percent increased risk for ovarian cancer, with the head researcher telling Johnson & Johnson it should put warning labels on its products, the Los Angeles Times reports. Johnson & Johnson, which said it plans on appealing the verdict, cited a different study from 2000, where researchers stated there was "no overall association" between talc use and epithelial ovarian cancer, but there was a "modest elevation in risk" for the type of cancer Echeverria has — serious ovarian cancer. She was not in the courthouse when the jury made its ruling, her attorney said, because she was too ill to attend.

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Catherine Garcia, The Week US

Catherine Garcia is night editor for TheWeek.com. Her writing and reporting has appeared in Entertainment Weekly and EW.com, The New York Times, The Book of Jezebel, and other publications. A Southern California native, Catherine is a graduate of the University of Redlands and the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.