Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has made a new settlement offer to resolve thousands of lawsuits filed in the United States alleging that ovarian cancer was caused by using talc powder the company produced. The company has agreed to settle the cases by paying 5.5 billion dollars.
The pharmaceutical giant made the formal announcement on Monday.
The company said that if the agreement is implemented it will resolve about 69,000 cases pending in federal and state courts in the United States — about 99.75 percent of the outstanding talc-related cases in the country.
For the agreement to be finalised, however, the consent of at least 95 percent of the plaintiffs who brought cases in state or federal courts will be required.
Talc is essentially a soft mineral. It was once widely popular in cosmetics and in products for children. Its use has fallen considerably since the question of a cancer risk came to prominence.
In 2024 the World Health Organization added talc to its list of substances that “may cause cancer in humans.”
Johnson & Johnson has maintained from the outset that there is no scientific evidence that talc causes cancer. Even so, to avoid controversy, the company stopped selling talc-based baby powder entirely in the United States in 2020 and worldwide in 2023.
In 2016 a US jury ordered J&J to pay 7 crore 20 lakh dollars in compensation to the family of a woman who died of ovarian cancer. It was the first major verdict in a US court on allegations of cancer from talc use.
A higher court overturned that verdict the following year. Even so, the number of cases against the company multiplied. Juries in several US states subsequently upheld large compensation awards in favour of plaintiffs.
On the new settlement, the head of J&J’s litigation division, Erik Haas, said: “Through this settlement the company will be able to put long-running legal trouble behind it and move forward.”
Lawyers representing the plaintiffs have also welcomed the proposed agreement after a decade-long legal battle.
Although the US cases come under this settlement, it does not apply to the United Kingdom. More than 7,000 potential claimants are waiting for justice there in what is the largest product liability case in British history.
The UK case, filed in October 2025, alleges that Johnson & Johnson continued marketing talc despite knowing that its use could cause ovarian cancer and mesothelioma. The company has denied the allegation, which is before the High Court in the United Kingdom, as it consistently has.
বাংলায় মূল প্রতিবেদন পড়ুন · Read the original Bengali report