NEW BRUNSWICK, NJ—More than 40 Attorneys General, including New Jersey’s Matthew Platkin, announced a $700 million nationwide settlement agreement with Johnson & Johnson (J&J), the global pharmaceutical corporation based in the Hub City.
The June 11 deal resolves allegations related to the marketing of the pharma giant’s talc-based baby powder and body powder products, which J&J pulled from shelves in 2020 and has now agreed not to sell ever again in the United States.
As part of the settlement, the state that J&J calls home will receive just over $30.2 million in four annual installments of approximately $7.53 million each, beginning this July.
Officials from the 43 states involved had alleged the company deceptively marketed the products to women and teenage girls, even though the corporation had knowledge of an increased risk of ovarian cancer for women who used the products on their genitals.
“The company blatantly promoted the products as safe and pure while possessing internal information about a carcinogen and while ignoring mounting external evidence about possible health effects,” said Attorney General Platkin. “This is an egregious betrayal of consumer trust that never should have happened.”
According to Platkin’s announcement, J&J did not stop U.S. sales of “Johnson’s Baby Powder” until May 2020, months after the Food and Drug Administration discovered asbestos in a bottle of the powder. But the company knew of the risk much earlier.
“The lawsuit details how as far back as the 1950s, Johnson & Johnson was aware of the potential for asbestos in its products,” reads the statement from Platkin’s office.
“Over the ensuing decades, other manufacturers began to place warning labels on their talc-based products and eventually switched to cornstarch, but Johnson & Johnson refused to make any changes to its marketing and advertising, and even went so far as to make a concerted effort to target African American and Latina women in its campaigns in order to reverse declining sales.”
Lawsuits by the states were settled with simultaneous consent judgements the same day.
If the agreement is approved by a Judge, J&J must pay $175 million towards settling the multistate case by July 30 of each year, beginning this year and ending in 2027.
It’s far from the first costly settlement the company has been forced to pay out. The June 11 talc settlement is not connected to the thousands of other talc-related lawsuits against J&J.
Earlier this year, the company announced a reorganization plan meant to put to bed more than 99% of active talc-related cases against the corporation. The price tag for the plan? $6.475 billion to be paid over 25 years.
In 2021 and 2022, J&J agreed to pay up to $5 billion as part of the national opioid settlement, and agreed to stop marketing and selling any opioid products for the next ten years, as well as stop lobbying efforts related to opioid products for those ten years.
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Charlie is the founder and editor of New Brunswick Today, and the winner of the Awbrey Award for Community-Oriented Local Journalism. He is a proud Rutgers University journalism graduate, a community organizer, and a former independent candidate for mayor of New Brunswick.
