[P]harmaceuticals giant Johnson & Johnson and a company that supplied it with talc from mines in Vermont have been ordered to pay a combined $117 million in damages after a jury found their popular baby powder product contained asbestos that caused cancer.
Last week, a jury in New Brunswick, N.J., ordered Johnson & Johnson and Imerys Talc America to pay Stephen Lanzo, who says he developed mesothelioma after years of using their product, $55 million and $25 million dollars in punitive damages, respectively.
The jury had already ordered the companies to pay Lanzo and his wife Kendra a total of $37 million in compensatory damages.
Imerys Talc America is a San Jose-based company with a location in Ludlow and calls itself the “world’s leading talc producer.”
After a three month trial, the jury found that for decades, officials at the companies knew that the talc used in Johnson and Johnson’s baby powder contained asbestos, according to attorneys representing the Lanzo family.
The attorneys said in an interview Monday that the companies failed to warn consumers about the powder’s health hazards.
“They knew and they didn’t tell anybody,” Moshe Maimon, one of Lanzo’s attorneys said.
In a statement to VTDigger, Gwen Myers, a spokesperson for Imerys Talc America, said the company is confident that its talc didn’t cause Lanzo’s cancer and intends to appeal the decision.
“The evidence was clear that his asbestos exposure came from a different source such as the asbestos found in his childhood home or schools, and the jury’s decision is inconsistent with a recently published study of workers who mined and milled talc all day over the course of more than 50 years that did not find a single case of mesothelioma,” Myers said.
Myers added that the San Jose-based company follows FDA and other regulatory guidelines and “utilizes rigorous testing to ensure that our talc meets the highest quality standards.”
Johnson & Johnson did not respond to requests for comment.
Lanzo, who lives in New Jersey, was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a type of cancer caused by asbestos exposure, in March of 2016. He filed suit against the companies later that year.
Maimon said suggestions Lanzo was exposed to asbestos through means other than baby powder are “baseless.” Lanzo used Johnson & Johnson baby powder between 1972 and 2003.
“The speculation that the defense attorneys came up with about some other possible exposure that Steve Lanzo had was so without evidence and without merit that they could not find a single expert witness to testify for them about this,” he said.
Maimon and Lanzo’s other attorney, Joseph Satterley, said that during the trial they were able to unearth internal company documents showing that Johnson & Johnson, which used to own the Vermont talc mines, was aware since the 1960s that the mineral contained asbestos.
Cyprus Minerals, which through a series of mergers and name changes eventually become Imerys Talc America, also tested the mines and found asbestos in 1975, according Maimon. In 1989, Cyprus bought mines Johnson & Johnson operated in Windsor County, Maimon said.
Up until 2003, the majority of the talc Imerys provided Johnson & Johnson for its baby powder came from the Vermont mines, according to Maimon. While the company still provides Johnson & Johnson talc for its product, he said it no longer comes from Vermont.
“It’s my understanding that the mine there in Vermont is still in operation…they just don’t sell that talc to Johnson & Johnson any longer,” Satterley said.
Imerys did not respond to a question about whether it still sells talc from what the attorneys have called its “Windsor mines.”
Maimon said he and Satterley are also representing other clients who believe their mesothelioma is linked to Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder.
The company is also facing around 6,600 lawsuits from women who say the powder caused their ovarian cancer, according to Bloomberg.
