Shares of Johnson & Johnson (NYSE:JNJ) fell on Thursday after the health care giant and its talc suppliers were hit with a $21.7mln jury verdict in a lawsuit by a woman who said she developed cancer after being exposed to asbestos in the company's iconic baby powder.
The New Jersey-based health care and baby products company lost a second trial linking baby powder use to deadly asbestos cancer after jurors in California concluded Wednesday J&J was liable for 68-year-old Joanne Anderson’s mesothelioma, a form of cancer closely linked to asbestos exposure.
Of the US$21.7mln the jury awarded in compensatory damages, J&J was assigned 67%, with the rest distributed among other defendants.
In 2017, Anderson and her husband sued J&J, a unit of Imerys, Cyprus Amax Minerals, a unit of Brenntag, Honeywell (NYSE:HON), and other local talc suppliers, but it was not immediately clear which of those companies were subject to the remaining damages award.
J&J has strongly denied that its talcum powder products contain asbestos or cause cancer, citing decades of testing by independent labs.
But plaintiffs claim that asbestos and talc, which are closely linked minerals, are intermingled in the mining process, making it impossible to remove the carcinogenic substance.
In a growing nightmare for the company, this is the second jury in less than two months to conclude J&J sold its baby powder knowing it contained at least trace amounts of asbestos and posed a cancer risk to users.
In April, jurors in J&J’s hometown of New Brunswick, ordered the company and talc miner Imerys SA to pay US$117mln to a banker who claimed his cancer was tied to baby powder use, reported Bloomberg.
Shares of J&J were down 1.3% to US$121.83.