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Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

reuters.com

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Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#31

Post by nl »

akira2501 wrote: post #21
akgoel wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Matt Levine had a more charitable reading of the Texas Two-Step for J&J: https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-01-31/matt-l... The idea here was that a bankruptcy judge could more fairly distribute $61.5 billion dollars among claimants than having them sue J&J one at a time and getting uneven awards and costing everyone more lawyer hours.

Is a class action somehow impossible if they don't declare bankruptcy? Or they can't distribute money as easily as in a class action? The mechanics of this don't sound so absolutely necessary. Further, if your company produces products that kill or injure people, then why should we show any interest in maintaining that companies existence with odd legal hacks like this? Shouldn't they be disbanded, their assets sold,…

> Is a class action somehow impossible if they don't declare bankruptcy? Or they can't distribute money as easily as in a class action?

The issue is that there might be multiple actions, and compensation might be used up byt the first one (eg, if the company was sent into bankruptcy by the first class action, then subsequent cases would be useless). This is a pretty reasonable argument IMHO.

> Further, if your company produces products that kill or injure people, then why should we show any interest in maintaining that companies existence with odd legal hacks like this?

This seems fairly debatable.

J&J produces a lot of things that aren't talc, and it isn't like they are a cigarette company that knew the health risks. The risks from talc weren't known are are still debated, and it is a thing that has been used for thousands of years without known issues.

Separately there's a good argument that keeping the company alive is better for those affected because it can fun ongoing liabilities.

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#32

Post by nl »

flagrant_taco wrote: post #27
medler wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He doesn’t say it’s good. He says that’s not what’s happening. If you think he’s wrong, please explain why. I genuinely would love to hear a well-reasoned critique of his analysis.

For one thing, this approach allows J&J to determine their maximum liability by only spinning off a certain amount to the subsidiary. It seems more fair to allow any and all claimants to sue J&J, or join together for a class action lawsuit. If the liabilities outstrip the company's total worth they can then go for bankruptcy of the entire J&J business and split assets proportionately across all liabilities.

> this approach allows J&J to determine their maximum liability by only spinning off a certain amount to the subsidiary.

This is not what they did.

To quote Levine's piece:

> the box where J&J put its talc claims — could draw at least $61.5 billion from J&J to pay off those claims. The point here, the bankruptcy court concluded, was not to keep J&J from having to pay talc claims; the entire value of J&J’s consumer business was still on the line for those claims.

For emphasis: the entire value of J&J’s consumer business was still on the line for those claims

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#33

Post by jprete »

malfist wrote: post #23
paul7986 wrote: post #11

Hard one to decide though the researchers did profit nicely and they are not naming their patients name. Are they real patients and if so J&J does should have the right to research their health records. Overall Where there's money to be made there usually is shenanigans. That's goes for both sides.

Exactly what profit did the scientists make?

According to J&J, literally millions of dollars:

> LTL's lawsuits allege that the doctors' research allowed them to collect millions of dollars from plaintiffs' lawyers to push a "false narrative" about J&J. The complaint against Moline, for example, said she had made a "small fortune" testifying as a paid expert in lawsuits, receiving over $3 million from her work on asbestos lawsuits. LTL alleged that Kradin also made more than $3 million testifying as a plaintiffs' expert.

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#34

Post by bredren »

irjustin wrote: post #14

Scratching the surface on talc, it's difficult to determine what should/should-not be done. Cancer.org has a page on talc[0] and from it: > Studies of personal use of talcum powder have had mixed results, although there is some suggestion of a possible increase in ovarian cancer risk. There is very little evidence at this time that any other forms of cancer are linked with consumer use of talcum powder. > Until more…

This reminds me of how the potential danger of living next to electrical substations is described.

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#35

Post by ma2t »

malfist wrote: post #23
paul7986 wrote: post #11

Hard one to decide though the researchers did profit nicely and they are not naming their patients name. Are they real patients and if so J&J does should have the right to research their health records. Overall Where there's money to be made there usually is shenanigans. That's goes for both sides.

Exactly what profit did the scientists make?

The complaints outline substantial profits that the scientists are alleged to have made as expert witnesses. All four are alleged to have made hundreds of dollars and hour, hundreds of thousands of dollars a year, or more than $3 million over multi-decade careers. According to the linked complaint, at least two have profit sharing in Peninsula Pathology Associates through which some of this litigation work flows. On quick read, it's not clear how much of this is directly talc related or even what fraction is related to more general asbestos litigation though.

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#37

Post by photochemsyn »

FireBeyond wrote: post #5

Apropos of anything else, J&J's handling of this has been despicable. Creating an entity specifically to pick up all of the related liabilities, picking up those liabilities and then (exact count may be wrong, but it's very close) literally filing for bankruptcy within the space of three days. The Texas two-step, as it's called. > In 2021, the company spun off its liabilities into a new entity called LTL Management u…

Sounds like a good way for students facing huge student loan debt to discharge it in bankruptcy (just kidding, I know that's not something the US government would allow for anyone except well-connected corporate lobbyists etc.).

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#38

Post by NoZebra120vClip »

External-use-only products based on talc have been yanked from all shelves in every pharmacy and grocery store nationwide, while ironically, talc still remains on the shelves in pill form: alli® is an OTC weight-loss medication. https://www.myalli.com/content/dam/cf-consumer-healthcare/my...

I don't really want to think about the mechanism by which talc induces weight loss along with the active ingredient.

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#39

Post by throwawaymaths »

photochemsyn wrote: post #37
FireBeyond wrote: post #5

Apropos of anything else, J&J's handling of this has been despicable. Creating an entity specifically to pick up all of the related liabilities, picking up those liabilities and then (exact count may be wrong, but it's very close) literally filing for bankruptcy within the space of three days. The Texas two-step, as it's called. > In 2021, the company spun off its liabilities into a new entity called LTL Management u…

Sounds like a good way for students facing huge student loan debt to discharge it in bankruptcy (just kidding, I know that's not something the US government would allow for anyone except well-connected corporate lobbyists etc.).

In a classic "what could possibly go wrong" move, long ago the federal government decided that you can't discharge student debt in bankruptcy, because if you could, then no one would lend education money (which is not collateralizable) and fewer people would go to college.

Re: Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

#40

Post by carbocation »

NoZebra120vClip wrote: post #38

External-use-only products based on talc have been yanked from all shelves in every pharmacy and grocery store nationwide, while ironically, talc still remains on the shelves in pill form: alli® is an OTC weight-loss medication. https://www.myalli.com/content/dam/cf-consumer-healthcare/my... I don't really want to think about the mechanism by which talc induces weight loss along with the active ingredient.

> ironically, talc still remains on the shelves in pill form: alli® is an OTC weight-loss medication.

Orlistat (tetrahydrolipstatin) is not talc.

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