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In what may be the largest award so far in a lawsuit tying ovarian cancer to talcum powder, a Los Angeles jury on Monday ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $417 million in damages to a medical receptionist who developed ovarian cancer after using the company’s trademark Johnson’s Baby Powder on her perineum for decades. (Rabin, 8/22)

The judgment, reached after a roughly one-month long trial in Los Angeles Superior Court, includes $347 million in punitive damages against Johnson & Johnson. It was the latest among several verdicts against the consumer-products maker, with about 2,000 women having filed similar cases. In the latest verdict, plaintiff Eva Echeverria alleged that Johnson & Johnson was aware of potential dangers from consistently using its talcum-based products for personal hygiene but refused to warn the public. (Jones, 8/21)

The verdict here comes in the sixth completed trial alleging the talcum powder in J&J’s popular bath product causes ovarian cancer, and that the company failed to warn about the risks. The company won a trial in March but lost four others, leading to jury awards totaling more than $300 million that are now on appeal. (Randazzo, 8/21)

The verdict in the lawsuit brought by the California woman, Eva Echeverria, marks the largest sum awarded in a series of talcum powder lawsuit verdicts against Johnson & Johnson in courts around the U.S. Echeverria alleged Johnson & Johnson failed to adequately warn consumers about talcum powder’s potential cancer risks. She used the company’s baby powder on a daily basis beginning in the 1950s until 2016 and was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2007, according to court papers. (Balsamo, 8/21)

Johnson & Johnson immediately announced it would seek to overturn the verdict. “We will appeal today's verdict because we are guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson's Baby Powder,” the company said in a statement. (Winton, 8/21)

Mark Robinson, a lawyer for plaintiff Eva Echeverria, said outside the courtroom that J&J should start warning women immediately about the risks of its talcum powder. “J&J needs to see they not only have verdicts against them in St. Louis, they now also have them in Los Angeles,” Robinson said. “There’s a problem all over the country with women using talcum powder on daily basis for 10, 20, 30, 40 years.” (Fisk and Pettersson, 8/21)

Johnson & Johnson (JNJ) chief executive officer Alex Gorsky was initially chastised last week for deciding to stay on President Trump’s manufacturing advisory council, before reversing course just as Trump announced the panel would be dissolved after a series of defections. A trio of internal memos sent to J&J employees, reviewed by STAT, offer some insight into Gorsky’s reasoning. An exodus from the council began with Merck chief executive Ken Frazier, one of the most prominent African-American business leaders in the country, two days after Trump’s initial comments on Saturday, Aug. 12. Originally, Gorsky planned to sit tight. In a memo distributed on Monday, Aug. 14, Gorsky essentially argued that J&J had an opportunity to influence the Trump administration. (Silverman, 8/21)