Another big verdict in talc case against Johnson & Johnson

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Twice in the past three months, juries have awarded tens millions of dollars to ovarian cancer victims who blamed Johnson & Johnson talcum powder for their illness — among the first verdicts in a gathering courtroom assault by law firms that are aggressively recruiting clients through TV ads and the Internet.

While the link between ovarian cancer and talc is a matter of scientific dispute, a St. Louis jury Monday ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $55 million to a South Dakota survivor of the disease.

Attorney Jim Onder said Johnson & Johnson's marketing targeted overweight women, blacks and Hispanics, "knowing that those groups were most at-risk for talc-related ovarian cancer," he said.

Some case studies have indicated that women who regularly use talc on their genital area face up to a 40 percent higher risk of developing ovarian cancer.

The National Toxicology Program, made up of parts of several different government agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration, has not fully reviewed talc.

Dr. Joshua Muscat, a Penn State public health professor and paid Johnson & Johnson consultant who testified for Johnson & Johnson in the earlier trial, said Tuesday that scientific agencies including the National Cancer Institute, the FDA and the American Cancer Society have never found a link between talc and ovarian cancer.