{"id":714710,"date":"2026-07-28T04:03:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-28T04:03:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/714710\/"},"modified":"2026-07-28T04:03:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-28T04:03:09","slug":"johnson-johnson-offers-to-pay-5-5bn-to-settle-baby-powder-lawsuits","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/714710\/","title":{"rendered":"Johnson & Johnson offers to pay $5.5bn to settle baby powder lawsuits"},"content":{"rendered":"

Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has offered to pay as much as $5.5bn (\u00a34.14bn) to resolve tens of thousands of lawsuits in the US alleging that its baby powder and other products containing talcum cause ovarian cancer.<\/p>\n

The proposed landmark settlement aims to close a long-running legal battle<\/a> that has weighed on the New Jersey-based healthcare giant for years.<\/p>\n

J&J has denied that its talc-based products caused cancer and has changed the formula of its widely used baby powder.<\/p>\n

Erik Haas, the firm’s vice president of litigation said on Monday, external<\/a> that the allegations are “meritless” and that J&J was willing to settle in order to finally resolve the matter.<\/p>\n

J&J said the settlement would cover about 69,000 cases, totalling most of the remaining talc-related claims. The firm will offer up to $3bn next year, with no additional payments due before 2028, it said.<\/p>\n

The proposal must be accepted by legal firms representing 95% of the ovarian cancer claims in state and federal courts before it can be finalised, the J&J said.<\/p>\n

Haas said in a statement that the company is confident that it would have “ultimately prevailed with further litigation” just as it has in the majority of cases heard in court to date.<\/p>\n

He added that the proposed resolution “allows the company to put this matter behind it” and enable J&J to “remain focused on its mission to develop medicines and devices that save lives”.<\/p>\n

J&J’s former consumer health business, Kenvue, holds liability for Johnson’s baby powder outside North America.<\/p>\n

Kenvue – which owns well-known brands including Band-Aid, Listerine, and Calpol – was spun off from J&J in 2022.<\/p>\n

Lawsuits against J&J over its talc-based baby powder started as early as 2009.<\/p>\n

Earlier in July, a federal court handed the firm a victory by questioning individual plaintiffs’ ability to show that talc was the direct cause of their ovarian cancer.<\/p>\n

Talc is a natural mineral made of magnesium, silicon, oxygen and hydrogen, known for its soapy feel and is often used in baby powder.<\/p>\n

The company has faced lawsuits from consumers and their survivors who claim J&J’s talc products caused cancer due to contamination with asbestos.<\/p>\n

Talc is mined from the earth and is found in seams close to that of asbestos, which is a material known to cause cancer.<\/p>\n

J&J has repeatedly denied the allegations and in its latest announcement said: “Studies show talc is safe, does not contain asbestos and does not cause cancer.”<\/p>\n

In 2022, J&J said it would stop making and selling its talc-based baby powder<\/a> around the world.<\/p>\n

The announcement came more than two years after it had ended sales of the product in the US.<\/p>\n

“As part of a worldwide portfolio assessment, we have made the commercial decision to transition to an all cornstarch-based baby powder portfolio,” J&J said at the time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has offered to pay as much as $5.5bn (\u00a34.14bn) to resolve tens of thousands…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":714711,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[84,59,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-714710","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-gb","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714710","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=714710"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/714710\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/714711"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=714710"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=714710"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=714710"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}