Johnson and Johnson hit with $55M damages in talc cancer case

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-36191495

by powera • 10 years ago

77 41 10 years ago

powera• 10 years ago

My personal take: a demonstration that the burden of proof in a scientific (or technological) sense is very different from the burden of proof in a legal sense.

klodolph• 10 years ago

This has always been the case. The standard for scientific proof in the natural sciences is often quite high, and the legal standard for tort claims is usually "preponderance of evidence", which you could think of as a P-value of 0.50. The lowest P-value acceptable in most scientific fields is 0.10, more common you would use 0.05, and particle physicists would use 0.0000003 (for announcing the discovery of a new particle).

throwaway_xx9• 10 years ago

p-values are B.S. unless used by a statistician.

plainOldText• 10 years ago

"Scientific conclusions and business or policy decisions should not be based only on whether a p-value passes a specific threshold.

P-values can indicate how incompatible the data are with a specified statistical model.

P-values do not measure the prob. that the studied hypothesis is true, or the prob. that the data were produced by random chance alone."

Source: http://amstat.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00031305.2016....

mtgx• 10 years ago

Maybe the US should do what the EU does and ban such substances the moment there is some proof that they may do harm, and the burden should be on the industry to prove without a doubt that they don't cause harm.

Instead, the US government is trying to do the opposite by repealing such policies in the EU and making them more like in the US where anything is accepted until millions get cancer from it.

sokoloff2• 10 years ago

Water may do harm (it causes drowning). Oxygen may do harm (it increases the intensity of fire).

"May do harm" cannot possibly be the standard.

thaumasiotes• 10 years ago

the burden should be on the industry to prove without a doubt that they don't cause harm

This is incoherent. There are no substances like this.

DanBC3• 10 years ago

Maybe the US should do what the EU does and ban such substances the moment there is some proof that they may do harm,

We know that processed red meat causes cancer. Processed red meat has not been banned by the EU. There are countless other examples.

trhway• 10 years ago

i wonder what such high punitive damages (10x actual assigned) are for. It implies that J&J knowingly did something wrong like a tobacco company.

fallenshell• 10 years ago

It's not like 55 million dollars is much for a company this size.

GordonS• 10 years ago

The article says there are around 1,200 such cases pending... that's a lot of money for any company

pessimizer• 10 years ago

They knew talc caused cancer and not only covered it up, but turned their marketing to groups less likely to know about it. It's worse than the tobacco coverup, because everybody knew cigarettes were bad for you, just not how bad they actually were.

kazinator• 10 years ago

How can J&J cover that up? Do they control that research? Were they interfering somehow (hush money, that sort of thing)?

Talc is an ancient, traditional material. They never hid the fact that their powder is made of talc. (And that is the selling point. I wouldn't buy some starch-based substitute myself.)

Alcohol turns to acetaldehyde, which is carcinogenic. Thus, sue the fuck everyone who produces wine, whisky, beer, sauerkraut or fermented anything. They are all covering it up by not mentioning cancer on their label!

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talc#Food_grade : The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers talc (magnesium silicate) to be generally recognized as safe (GRAS) for use as an anti-caking agent in table salt in concentrations smaller than 2%.

ars• 10 years ago

but turned their marketing to groups less likely to know about it

It does appear that way, but it's not true. The marketing was simply toward those who buy it more often that's all.

Knowingly selling a dangerous product is bad enough (it says not to inhale the dust - how exactly are you supposed to use it without making dust?), but let's not criticize them for things that are not real.

rdtsc2• 10 years ago

such high punitive damages

J&J's annual revenue is $70B so $55M is what, 0.07% or something like that? They probably spend more on refilling their vending machines.

Or let's put it another way. Say you are making $100K, it would be like paying one $70 fine for giving someone cancer. A speeding violation will be more than that in most states.

refurb• 10 years ago

Revenue is not profit.

saiya-jin• 10 years ago

compared to what financial institutions are fined, sans killing anybody, this is nothing.

adventurer• 10 years ago

I believe that is exactly what punitive damages are. J&J caused harm. Since it's not a criminal case, the punitive damages are punishment and a deterrent for them and others not to harm consumers.

joering2• 10 years ago

Why can't it be a criminal case when people got really hurt?

Compare it with someone who forged a $100 bill a few times and went to jail for 20+ years.

rayiner• 10 years ago

Bloomberg has a long article with details: http://www.bloomberg.com/features/2016-baby-powder-cancer-la....

Relevant quote:

In the 1990s a toxicologist named Alfred Wehner worked as an outside consultant for J&J. His official role was to help evaluate the research on ovarian cancer and talc and advise the company on its response. Unofficially, he was its scold. Wehner was on J&J’s side, but he was concerned that a cosmetics trade group (partly funded by the company) was mischaracterizing the scientific case for talc. “A true friend is not he who beguiles you with flattery but he who discloses to you your mistakes before your enemies discover them,” Wehner began a 1997 letter to Michael Chudkowski, J&J’s manager of preclinical toxicology. Wehner described statements on talc research from the group as inept, misleading, and outright false. Referring to a statement a few years earlier, he wrote: “At that time there had been about 9 studies (more by now) published in the open literature that did show a statistically significant association between hygienic talc use and ovarian cancer. Anybody who denies this risks that the talc industry will be perceived by the public like it perceives the cigarette industry: denying the obvious in the face of all evidence to the contrary.” He wanted the trade group to argue that the studies’ biological significance was questionable.

nkurz• 10 years ago

The UK National Health Service has a recent overview of the study that was used as evidence associating talc with ovarian cancer. They come to the conclusion that while there is some evidence of an association, there is as yet no firm evidence proving causation: http://www.nhs.uk/news/2016/03March/Pages/Talc-and-ovarian-c...

That article helpfully links the paper itself, which is happily is available to read in full: http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Citation/2016/05000/The_Assoc...

Glancing at it, it seems like a very professional writeup, with many appropriate disclaimers about possible confounders. The key statistic that I have not been able to find in the paper (although I presume it's in there somewhere) is the incidence rate of ovarian cancer among the 1000 control subjects. SEER says (http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/ovary.html) that 1.3% of women will be diagnosed with ovary cancer during their lives.

Since the control subjects haven't lived their entire lives, and since diagnosis is mostly in older women (age 63), I'd guess that they'd have only something like fewer than 10 subjects on the control side with ovarian cancer. I think this means that if by chance there happened to 2 or 3 more subjects with cancer on the control side, the 1.3 increase in risk would be reversed, and thus the evidence is extremely weak! Or am I wrong, and there is some way of determining the odds ratio without knowing the true incidence rate among the controls?

sabujp• 10 years ago

umm use the one made from cornstarch not talc.

gcb02• 10 years ago

and ask how much antibacterial and antifungal it requires to have a energy rich food in the warm and moisty ambient of your foot.

kelvintran• 10 years ago

Why are there so many separate actions? Seems somewhat inefficient and the exact scenario for which the class action was designed

homero• 10 years ago

Other countries don't have class actions like America. That amount is also very low. America's class action will be in the billions

Johnson and Johnson hit with $55M damages in talc cancer case

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