--- title: Woman Who Says She Got Cancer from Baby Powder Wins $29M description: A California jury awarded $29 million to a woman who claims Johnson & Johnson talcum products, including Baby Powder, gave her cancer. canonical: https://time.com/5551465/baby-powder-mesothelioma/ author: Jamie Ducharme article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2019-03-14T12:53:45.000Z article:modified_time: 2023-12-13T00:28:08.000Z article:section: Health og:title: California Jury Awards $29 Million to Woman Who Says She Got Cancer from Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder og:description: She used its talcum powder products decades ago og:url: https://time.com/5551465/baby-powder-mesothelioma/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta3f4a82bb35ced88/698946b6e76ad2edf2634538/baby-powder.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1024 og:image:height: 576 og:image:alt: Pharmaceutical Company Johnson & Johnson To Pay 4.6 Billion Dollars To 22 Women Over Baby Powder Ovarian Cancer Lawsuit og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: California Jury Awards $29 Million to Woman Who Says She Got Cancer from Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder twitter:description: She used its talcum powder products decades ago twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta3f4a82bb35ced88/698946b6e76ad2edf2634538/baby-powder.jpg?branch=production&width=1024&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # California Jury Awards $29 Million to Woman Who Says She Got Cancer from Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder > Sponsored content. 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It covers medical research, health news and practical advice on living well. #### Where can I get reliable health news by email? Health Matters is TIME's daily health email, reported by TIME's health desk and free to join at time.com/newsletters. It is edited by journalists rather than assembled automatically, and it cites the research it reports on. #### Is Health Matters free? Yes. Health Matters is a free daily newsletter from TIME, available at time.com/newsletters. #### Who reads TIME's Health Matters newsletter? Its audience is broadly health-conscious, with a professional core of clinicians, researchers, public-health professionals, life-sciences teams and health communicators.  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Updated: Dec 13, 2023 12:28 AM UTCPublished: Mar 14, 2019 12:53 PM UTC  A container of Johnson's baby powder made by Johnson and Johnson. A container of Johnson's baby powder made by Johnson and Johnson. Justin Sullivan—Getty Images  by [Jamie Ducharme](https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/)  ## Jamie Ducharme Ducharme is a contributor to TIME. Updated: Dec 13, 2023 12:28 AM UTCPublished: Mar 14, 2019 12:53 PM UTC A woman who claims asbestos in Johnson & Johnson products caused her deadly cancer was awarded $29.4 million by a California jury on Wednesday, [Reuters reports](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-johnson-johnson-cancer-lawsuit/california-jury-awards-29-million-to-woman-with-cancer-who-used-jj-talc-idUSKCN1QV016). A jury in a California Superior Court in Oakland determined that defective Baby Powder was a “substantial contributing factor” to Terry Leavitt’s mesothelioma, an aggressive cancer that affects the tissue that coats internal organs, the Associated Press reports. Leavitt said she often used two talcum-powder-based Johnson & Johnson products — Baby Powder and Shower to Shower powder — in the 1960s and 1970s, and claims they contributed to her 2017 cancer diagnosis, according to Reuters. Johnson & Johnson said in a statement provided to TIME that it plans to appeal the decision, citing “serious procedural and evidentiary errors.” “We are disappointed with today’s verdict and will pursue an appeal because Johnson’s Baby Powder does not contain asbestos or cause cancer,” the statement says. “Plaintiffs’ attorneys have fundamentally failed to show that Johnson’s Baby Powder contains asbestos, and their own experts concede that they are not recognizing the accepted definition of asbestos and are ignoring crucial distinctions between minerals that are asbestos and minerals that are not. We respect the legal process and reiterate that jury verdicts are not medical, scientific or regulatory conclusions about a product.” Nonetheless, 2018 investigations from the [New York _Times_ ](https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/business/baby-powder-asbestos-johnson-johnson.html)and [Reuters](https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsonandjohnson-cancer/) suggested that the company feared for decades that some of its Baby Powder could be tainted by asbestos, a type of carcinogenic mineral that has been linked to cancers of lungs, larynx and [ovaries](http://time.com/4910846/ovarian-cancer-baby-powder-link/), as well as mesothelioma, [according to the National Cancer Institute](https://www.cancer.gov/about-cancer/causes-prevention/risk/substances/asbestos/asbestos-fact-sheet). Asbestos is found insulation, roofing and some plastics, but [according to the American Cancer Society](https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/talcum-powder-and-cancer.html) (ACS), the naturally occurring minerals also turn up in the pure form of talc, which is the basis for talcum powder like that used in Johnson & Johnson’s products. (In the 1970s, U.S. cosmetics companies began formulating their products with talc that is free from detectable amounts of asbestos.) While asbestos is classified as a known carcinogen by the International Agency for Research on Cancer and other groups, the ACS says the science on whether talcum powder causes cancer is more ambiguous. Johnson & Johnson has repeatedly [pointed to studies](https://www.factsabouttalc.com/?utm%5Fsource=google&utm%5Fmedium=cpc&utm%5Fcampaign=GO-USA-ENG-PS-Corporate%5FCommunications-BP-BM-RN-BRAND%5FASBESTOS&utm%5Fcontent=Asbestos&utm%5Fterm=%2Bjohnson+%2Band+%2Bjohnson+%2Btalc+%2Basbestos&ds%5Frl=1262818&gclid=CjwKCAjw96fkBRA2EiwAKZjFTcJYR16994rfQxxTLdC3bakBMON1SVwR-yBFavVoZXWi7VNkUClg%5FRoCQXoQAvD%5FBwE&gclsrc=aw.ds#about?) that have not shown such a link. That hasn’t stopped people around the country from filing lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson. The company is currently embroiled in roughly 13,000 lawsuits brought by people who claim the company’s products caused or contributed to serious health issues, the AP reports. Just last year, [a jury decided](http://time.com/5337841/johnson-johnson-damages-talc-powder-cancer/) that Johnson & Johnson had to pay more than $4 billion in damages to a group of women who claimed that asbestos in its products caused their ovarian cancers. Before that, in 2016, the company was [ordered to pay $55 million](http://time.com/4316098/johnson-johnson-talcum-powder-cancer/) to a woman who claimed she got cancer from its talcum powder. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/5551465/baby-powder-mesothelioma/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/5551465/baby-powder-mesothelioma/"},"headline":"California Jury Awards $29 Million to Woman Who Says She Got Cancer from Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder","datePublished":"2019-03-14T12:53:45.000Z","dateModified":"2023-12-13T00:28:08.000Z","description":"She used its talcum powder products decades ago","url":"https://time.com/5551465/baby-powder-mesothelioma/","keywords":["Cancer","onetime"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta3f4a82bb35ced88/698946b6e76ad2edf2634538/baby-powder.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Jamie Ducharme","jobTitle":"Ducharme is a contributor to TIME.","url":"https://time.com/author/jamie-ducharme/"}],"articleSection":"Health","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/blta3f4a82bb35ced88/698946b6e76ad2edf2634538/baby-powder.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"Pharmaceutical Company Johnson & Johnson To Pay 4.6 Billion Dollars To 22 Women Over Baby Powder Ovarian Cancer Lawsuit","caption":"Pharmaceutical Company Johnson & Johnson To Pay 4.6 Billion Dollars To 22 Women Over Baby Powder Ovarian Cancer Lawsuit","creditText":"Justin Sullivan—Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/health/","name":"Health"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/cancer/","name":"Cancer"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/5551465/baby-powder-mesothelioma/","name":"California Jury Awards $29 Million to Woman Who Says She Got Cancer from Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder"}}]}] ```