Johnson and Johnson hit with $55M damages in talc cancer case
bbc.com
bbc.com
Relevant quote:
> In the 1990s a toxicologist named Alfred Wehner worked as an outside consultant for J&J. His official role was to help evaluate the research on ovarian cancer and talc and advise the company on its response. Unofficially, he was its scold. Wehner was on J&J’s side, but he was concerned that a cosmetics trade group (partly funded by the company) was mischaracterizing the scientific case for talc. “A true friend is not he who beguiles you with flattery but he who discloses to you your mistakes before your enemies discover them,” Wehner began a 1997 letter to Michael Chudkowski, J&J’s manager of preclinical toxicology. Wehner described statements on talc research from the group as inept, misleading, and outright false. Referring to a statement a few years earlier, he wrote: “At that time there had been about 9 studies (more by now) published in the open literature that did show a statistically significant association between hygienic talc use and ovarian cancer. Anybody who denies this risks that the talc industry will be perceived by the public like it perceives the cigarette industry: denying the obvious in the face of all evidence to the contrary.” He wanted the trade group to argue that the studies’ biological significance was questionable.
That article helpfully links the paper itself, which is happily is available to read in full: http://journals.lww.com/epidem/Citation/2016/05000/The_Assoc...
Glancing at it, it seems like a very professional writeup, with many appropriate disclaimers about possible confounders. The key statistic that I have not been able to find in the paper (although I presume it's in there somewhere) is the incidence rate of ovarian cancer among the 1000 control subjects. SEER says (http://seer.cancer.gov/statfacts/html/ovary.html) that 1.3% of women will be diagnosed with ovary cancer during their lives.
Since the control subjects haven't lived their entire lives, and since diagnosis is mostly in older women (age 63), I'd guess that they'd have only something like fewer than 10 subjects on the control side with ovarian cancer. I think this means that if by chance there happened to 2 or 3 more subjects with cancer on the control side, the 1.3 increase in risk would be reversed, and thus the evidence is extremely weak! Or am I wrong, and there is some way of determining the odds ratio without knowing the true incidence rate among the controls?
P-values can indicate how incompatible the data are with a specified statistical model.
P-values do not measure the prob. that the studied hypothesis is true, or the prob. that the data were produced by random chance alone."
Source: http://amstat.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/00031305.2016....
Instead, the US government is trying to do the opposite by repealing such policies in the EU and making them more like in the US where anything is accepted until millions get cancer from it.
"May do harm" cannot possibly be the standard.
This is incoherent. There are no substances like this.
We know that processed red meat causes cancer. Processed red meat has not been banned by the EU. There are countless other examples.
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/ATAG/2015/57130...
Your link starts with hyperbole (no one is being told not to eat meat)
Why are you telling me that talc is legal in eu? That just agrees with my point that eu does not ban things that we know are dangerous.
I can tell you're an expert on the subject from the very technical language you use.
Here's a preliminary release on the original study: http://www.thelancet.com/pdfs/journals/lanonc/PIIS1470-2045(...
They picked a 95% confidence level, which means they accept that 1/20 of their positives will be false positives.
They did this when conducting a study on "more than 15 types of cancer".
These people are about as smart as you are.
J&J's annual revenue is $70B so $55M is what, 0.07% or something like that? They probably spend more on refilling their vending machines.
Or let's put it another way. Say you are making $100K, it would be like paying one $70 fine for giving someone cancer. A speeding violation will be more than that in most states.
It does appear that way, but it's not true. The marketing was simply toward those who buy it more often that's all.
Knowingly selling a dangerous product is bad enough (it says not to inhale the dust - how exactly are you supposed to use it without making dust?), but let's not criticize them for things that are not real.
Talc is an ancient, traditional material. They never hid the fact that their powder is made of talc. (And that is the selling point. I wouldn't buy some starch-based substitute myself.)
Alcohol turns to acetaldehyde, which is carcinogenic. Thus, sue the fuck everyone who produces wine, whisky, beer, sauerkraut or fermented anything. They are all covering it up by not mentioning cancer on their label!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talc#Food_grade : The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) considers talc (magnesium silicate) to be generally recognized as safe (GRAS) for use as an anti-caking agent in table salt in concentrations smaller than 2%.
Compare it with someone who forged a $100 bill a few times and went to jail for 20+ years.
JNJ's total annual earnings is around $15BB (from all products).
JNJ's total annual sales of talcum powder are around $400MM. It would take them ~150 years to SELL $60BB of talc, let alone have that amount of profit from talc.