A North Yarmouth widower has filed a $25 million lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson and Pecos River Talc after his wife contracted mesothelioma and died.
The lawsuit, filed in September in Cumberland County Superior Court in Portland, alleges that Andrew Curtin's wife, Cynthia Cartwright, was diagnosed with mesothelioma on April 10, 2017. She died four days later.
"As a direct and proximate result of Ms. Cartwright's purchase, use and application of Defendant's unreasonably dangerous and defective talcum powder and joint compound J&J Products" she ingested asbestos, which caused mesothelioma, according to the lawsuit. Pecos River Talc is a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson.
A Connecticut man won a $15 million judgment against Johnson & Johnson in October after he said the products -- used over the course of decades -- caused his mesothelioma, according to a Reuters news report. After several lawsuits and news reports about talcum powder, Johnson & Johnson stopped putting talcum powder in its products in the U.S. and Canada in 2020, and removed the substance from all products sold worldwide by 2023, according to the Mesothelioma Center.
Attorneys for Johnson & Johnson have filed a motion requesting the Maine man's lawsuit be moved from state court to federal court, at U.S. District Court in Portland, and has denied the allegations in the lawsuit.
Mesothelioma is "an aggressive and rare form of cancer that usually occurs in the thin layer of tissue that lines the lungs (pleura) or the abdomen (peritoneum)" according to the American Lung Association.
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The International Agency for Research on Cancer says that talcum powder that contains asbestos is "carcinogenic to humans" but if the talcum powder does not contain asbestos the evidence is "less clear" according to the Lung Association.
Talcum powder is commonly used in baby powder, cosmetics and some personal hygiene products. Cartwright "used the J&J Products to powder her feet and other bodily parts," the lawsuit said.
The company "should have known that the J&J Products contained harmful, deleterious, carcinogenic and inherently dangerous asbestos dust and fibers" and the products did not contain any warning labels.
But Johnson & Johnson, in a response filed in federal court on Dec. 19, argued that the U.S. Food and Drug Administration "has primary and exclusive jurisdiction over the safety of cosmetic talc-containing products and primary and exclusive jurisdiction to determine whether any warning must accompany cosmetic talc-containing products. The FDA has ruled, on multiple occasions, that cosmetic grade talc is a safe substance when used as intended and further ruled that manufacturers need not provide any warnings on, or in connection with the sale of, cosmetic grade talc-containing products."
More than 60,000 patients who claimed they contracted ovarian cancer from Johnson & Johnson talcum powder products filed a class action lawsuit, and an $8.2 billion settlement offer is expected to be considered during court proceedings in Texas in January.
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