Johnson & Johnson announced on Monday that it has agreed to pay as much as $5.5 billion to settle roughly 69,000 US lawsuits alleging its talc-based baby powder caused ovarian cancer, closing a long-running legal battle that started more than a decade ago.
The settlement covers about 69,000 cases in US federal and state courts, accounting for 99.75 percent of outstanding talc-related cases in the country. J&J will offer up to $3 billion next year, with no additional payments due before 2028. J&J has denied that its talc-based products caused cancer and has changed the formula of its widely used baby powder.
A decade of claims
Lawsuits against J&J over its talc-based baby powder started as early as 2009. In 2016, a US jury ordered the company to pay $72 million to the family of a woman who died of ovarian cancer, the first such verdict related to the use of the mineral in the country. The case was overturned a year later. But claims multiplied. Juries across the US have since awarded plaintiffs damages in talc cases.
Earlier in July, a federal court handed J&J a victory by questioning individual plaintiffs’ ability to show that talc was the direct cause of their ovarian cancer. Erik Haas, J&J’s vice president of litigation, said on Monday that the allegations are “meritless” and that J&J was willing to settle in order to finally resolve the matter. He said the company is confident it would have “ultimately prevailed with further litigation” just as it has in the majority of cases heard in court to date.
The proposed resolution, he said in a statement, “allows the company to put this matter behind it” and enables J&J to “remain focused on its mission to develop medicines and devices that save lives.” Lawyers representing the plaintiffs welcomed the settlement as a good resolution to a decade-long court battle that began with individual suits and grew into tens of thousands of claims across US courts.
Product withdrawal and global litigation
Talc is a natural mineral made of magnesium, silicon, oxygen, and hydrogen, known for its soapy feel and often used in baby powder. It was once a staple ingredient in cosmetics and baby products, but its use has declined as concerns rose over its links to cancer. J&J has repeatedly denied the allegations. The company says studies show talc is safe, does not contain asbestos, and does not cause cancer. Consumers and their survivors have filed lawsuits claiming that J&J’s talc products caused cancer due to contamination with asbestos, a material known to cause cancer, because talc is mined from the earth in seams close to those of asbestos.
In 2024, the World Health Organization classified talc as “probably carcinogenic to humans.” J&J stopped selling talc-based baby powder in the US in 2020. The worldwide halt came in 2022, when J&J said it would stop making and selling the product around the world. “As part of a worldwide portfolio assessment, we have made the commercial decision to transition to an all cornstarch-based baby powder portfolio,” J&J said at the time. Sales of the talc-based product ended worldwide in 2023.
The deal does not cover the United Kingdom, where the largest product liability case in UK history, covering more than 7,000 potential claimants, is being adjudicated. Filed in October 2025, the UK case alleges that J&J knew its talc could cause cancers, chiefly ovarian and mesothelioma, but continued to sell the product despite that knowledge. The case has gone before the UK High Court. J&J denies the claim. The proposed US settlement, which requires acceptance by law firms representing 95 percent of ovarian cancer claims in state and federal courts before it can be finalised, does not extend to those UK proceedings.