Speaker 1: Now we're returning to Johnson and Johnson, which is defending
Speaker 1: itself in more than five thousand suits across the US,
Speaker 1: which blame its iconic baby powder products for causing women
Speaker 1: to develop or varian cancer. And Bloomberg News has exclusively
Speaker 1: learned about some unsealed memos and other documents in the
Speaker 1: case joining US as Bloomberg News legal reporter Jeff Feely, Jeff,
Speaker 1: tell us what you have discovered? Uh, in connection with
Speaker 1: some of the existing cases in state court in St. Louis,
Speaker 1: there were documents on sealed earlier this month that showed
Speaker 1: that Johnson and Johnson News, stretching back to the nineteen seventies,
Speaker 1: that there were trace amounts of asbestos in the talc
Speaker 1: used and it's baby powder and other talcoum powder products.
Speaker 1: The company has consistently maintained and maintained this day that
Speaker 1: there's no asbestos in its baby powder or talk products
Speaker 1: and never has been and never will be. Um this
Speaker 1: could be a problem for j and Jay going forward.
Speaker 1: This opens up a whole new avenue of cases tied
Speaker 1: to the to the tow claims. Well, so, Jeff, what
Speaker 1: what exactly is it? We're going to see happen in court.
Speaker 1: Now with these documents coming out, Well, the Piloffs lawyers
Speaker 1: are going to take these documents and they're gonna have
Speaker 1: to get the judge to sign off on using them
Speaker 1: as evidence, but they're gonna show they're going to use
Speaker 1: them as evidence to basically impeach Johnson and Johnson. When
Speaker 1: they come up and say our baby powder is safe
Speaker 1: and asbestos free, they're gonna pull out these documents. They're
Speaker 1: gonna say, you know, well, didn't you guys know back
Speaker 1: in the nineties seventies that they were your people, internal documents,
Speaker 1: Your own people were talking about trace amounts of asbestos
Speaker 1: in the talcoum powder, used um in your baby powder.
Speaker 1: And I might point out that some of that Talcoulm
Speaker 1: powder comes from minds that J and J you owned,
Speaker 1: not just got, you know, used as vendors. They own
Speaker 1: the minds where the um testing on the talk was
Speaker 1: turning up traces of asbestos. They're going to use that
Speaker 1: in hopes of, you know, and hopes of convincing the
Speaker 1: jury that this, you know, the tapam powder is and
Speaker 1: unreasonably dangerous product, and that J and j knew so
Speaker 1: and continued to sell it Jeff about thirty seconds left.
Speaker 1: How has J and J been doing in the in
Speaker 1: the trial? So far they have lost five out of
Speaker 1: six trials and the damage amounts are increasing. The last
Speaker 1: one in California generated a four and seventeen million dollar
Speaker 1: birthdate against Johnson and Johnson. Well, thanks for joining us
Speaker 1: on Bloomberg Law with this exclusive report about the J
Speaker 1: and J case. That's Jeff Feely. He is a Bloomberg
Speaker 1: News legal reporter.