TRENTON, N.J. (Legal Newsline) - The bankrupt unit Johnson & Johnson set up to handle litigation over cosmetic talcum powder has sued three more plaintiff experts it says published an influential 2020 article linking talc to mesothelioma without disclosing other sources of asbestos exposure among the study’s subjects.
Last month, J&J’s LTL Management sued Dr. Jacqueline Moline, claiming her “widespread deception” about talc and mesothelioma had fueled thousands of lawsuits over Johnson’s Baby Powder. The lawsuit claims Dr. Moline falsely reported 33 mesothelioma patients had no other exposure to asbestos when some had filed claims against manufacturers of other products, including at least one who hired Dr. Moline as an expert witness to bolster her case.
In an amended filing, the company added claims against Drs. Theresa Swain Emory, Richard Kradin, and John Maddox, who published a 2020 article in the American Journal of Industrial Medicine that described “75 additional subjects” who contracted the fatal cancer of the chest lining with no exposures other than cosmetic talc.
The article didn’t disclose that all 75 were plaintiffs in talc lawsuits and that at least eight appeared to be identical to subjects in Dr. Moline’s paper, J&J said, including one who Dr. Kradin previously had concluded became sick from smoking asbestos-laced Kent cigarettes in the 1950s.
The article was later cited on lawyer-sponsored websites like Asbestos.com and Mesothelioma.com. Lawyers used it, with one lawyer telling the jury in opening arguments that “huge case studies” had shown “these people were only exposed to asbestos talc.” And other plaintiff experts, including Drs. Allan Smith and David Egilman, added it to their opinions in talc lawsuits.
The article gave consumers unwarranted fears about the safety of Johnson’s Baby Power, which J&J ultimately withdrew from the North American market, and has cost it millions of dollars in legal defense fees, the company claimed.
“They publish their junk litigation opinions in scientific journals. They use their credentials to instill their publications with false credibility. They then build from that fraudulent foundation by citing to each other’s work, which manufactures a `body of literature’ to present to judges and juries with the veneer of scientific legitimacy,” J&J said in the complaint.
Drs. Emory and Maddox are pathologists with Peninsula Pathology Assoc. in Newport News, Va. and have served as plaintiff experts in more than 200 talc cases. Dr. Kradin is a pulmonologist and pathologist who has testified in 18 talc cases. All three earn hundreds of dollars an hour and J&J said Dr. Kradin earns as much as $400,000 a year as an asbestos expert. None were immediately available for comment. Asked for comment earlier, Dr. Moline referred questions to her lawyer, who declined to comment on pending litigation.
None of the experts cited talcum powder as a cause of cancer in previous asbestos lawsuits, J&J said. They only traced their clients’ cancer to talc after they were hired in talc cases, the company said.
Johnson & Johnson has been engaged in a fight to obtain the identities of the study subjects, in order to match them up against litigation and bankruptcy claims by known asbestos plaintiffs. Last week, it asked the judge overseeing the LTL bankruptcy to disclose their names.
Dr. Maddox allegedly contacted plaintiff lawyers before submitting the article. “The one item he heard from the plaintiffs’ law firms was the insistence the data be kept anonymous,” J&J said. He and his coauthors have repeatedly refused to discuss the identity of paper subjects, citing health privacy laws even though the subjects may have revealed their information already in public lawsuits.
“This house of cards is collapsing as the truth comes to light,” J&J said in its complaint.