4 ms·

J&J can contest evidence linking its talc to cancer, US judge rules

17 points by pg_1234 3y ago

throwaway5959 3y ago
Christ. They’re going to get away with it.
- reverendjames 3y ago
  Get away with what?
  - pfdietz 3y ago
    Get away with being innocent. How evil of them! /s
- scotty79 3y ago
  Scientifically case against them didn't look that strong for me. If they were accused of causing lung cancer I could see that. You breathe in a littly bit when you apply talcum. Or some skin cancer or cancer local to the spot you apply the talcum. But ovarian cancer specifically and only that? I'd believe it if they had evidence of presence of asbestos in those tumors or ovaries. But there was none. I mean they still shouldn't have asbestos in talcum but proving they did damage with it is something else.
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - martyvis 3y ago
    Every person aged between 20 and 120 at least in the west probably had copious quantities of baby powder applied all over them. Also this 60 year old man used talc based powders as underarm deodorant until aerosol based ones became dominant maybe 40 years ago. I'm wondering if talc is so causal for cancer why isn't it as prominent it is from say smoking?
    - dboreham 3y ago
      Perhaps it is? There are many people who have been exposed and cancers with no known cause are common.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    It might not be the asbesthos but the talc itself that cause ovarian cancer? I mean, it is a stone powder. There might be batches with other contaminations than asbesthos depending on the mine too.
486sx33 3y ago
In theory we should put all this money towards welcoming scientific study. In fact I’m sure chemical analysis would be far cheaper than lawyers. Does talc really cause cancer or not ? My understanding is that it is a bit like vermiculite insulation, which on its own it’s completely fine, but most vermiculite mines are naturally “contaminated” with asbestos. Wouldn’t it be great if we knew what about talc caused cancer and we could make it safe and have use of it without fear? Probably 3% of the money spent on litigating all this could have gotten us good testing and an industrial process to produce clean talc. Unfortunately, I think that, this isn’t that - J&J wants to obfuscate the science and get off the financial hook :( And what the hell is the “revised standard” that j&j lawyers feel they can now meet? That sounds like the con of the century.
- cryptonym 3y ago
  I think like you, their finance and lawyers are not stupid. They did the maths or already know. Doing actual scientific study might be more risky, proving product is not good. Producing clean stuff might be impossible or too expensive, too risky to go there if regulation doesn't require it. They may have to pay reparation to existing customers.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    They are going to court - science is a very different bar. Even if the science shows it is safe, someone will testify that it isn't and sway the jury with how bad life is for the heirs of someone who died from cancer. Of course in reality science gives probabilities not absolutes and so the jury gets told this causes cancer in .0001% of cases but this person was that one even though there is no way to determine that and cancer has many different causes. What matters is what you can convince a jury who doesn't have a background in science or statistics.
- vasco 3y ago
  > And what the hell is the “revised standard” that j&j lawyers feel they can now meet? Sounds to me like it could be the engineering equivalent of reducing SLO thresholds and admitting defeat either due to not enough traffic or not enough capacity to deal with the problem properly [1]: > You might also want to reconsider if the impact of a single failure on the error budget accurately reflects its impact on users. If a small number of errors causes you to lose error budget, do you really need to page an engineer to fix the issue immediately? If not, users would be equally happy with a lower SLO. With a lower SLO, an engineer is notified only of a larger sustained outage. Without thinking of: > Lowering the SLO does have a downside: it involves a product decision. Changing the SLO affects other aspects of the system, such as expectations around system behavior and when to enact the error budget policy. These other requirements may be more important to the product than avoiding some number of low-signal alerts. The "product decision" is the court ruling and the "other aspects of the system" is how many people will die. [1] https://sre.google/workbook/alerting-on-slos/ https://sre.google/workbook/alerting-on-slos/
SilverBirch 3y ago
At some point the US court system needs to examine the timeliness of judgements as a core component of justice. It's wild that J&J can hold off the lawsuits for years while it's tries dodgy shell games to offload the legal liability. It's twice as insane for the slimey J&J guy to then come out and say "Oh well the passage of time means..". Yes, the passage of time means that all the people that J&J gave cancer will be dead long before a single penny of compensation will be paid. It's also wild that the judge has decided to re-open the examination of evidence based on a recent rule change approved by the supreme court. It's almost like their spurious corporate bullshit bought them enough time to literally change the rules around their case. Good thing the supreme court is above the suspicion of being bribed though. Here's a simple question: If your product doesn't cause cancer, why did you stop selling it.
- cowsandmilk 3y ago
  > If your product doesn't cause cancer, why did you stop selling it We lost the Lyme vaccine to untrue reports about their side effects. The truth doesn’t dictate public opinion and public opinion dictates what stays on the market.
- pfdietz 3y ago
  > If your product doesn't cause cancer, why did you stop selling it. If you didn't do anything, why did I have to beat you? This is abuser logic.
- DannyBee 3y ago
  "At some point the US court system needs to examine the timeliness of judgements as a core component of justice" It does. The rest of what you write isn't actually what happened, though to be fair the article sort of makes a hash of it. The trial hasn't happened yet. There is no reopening of anything, this is normal resolution of pre trial motions that happens in all lawsuits. The lawsuit is actually moving at a normal speed (fast even. It is also the case that the time taken he is as much plaintiffs needing time as defendants) and this particular ruling is totally normal and would have happened anyway. Your last question has a simple answer that is the same as why everyone stopped using MSG despite it turning out to not be bad for you.
londons_explore 3y ago
For cases like this where the judgement depends heavily on currently-unknown science, I think courts should be able to order scientific studies be done (and paid for the same as other court costs). The study would then be commissioned by, and report to, the judge - rather than the prosecution or defence, who both obviously want to hire experts who will see everything from their point of view.
- phrz 3y ago
  Federal Rule of Evidence 706 already provides for court-appointed experts which report to the court and the parties and for whom the costs are shared. But a battle of the parties' experts can allow the jury to weigh the credibility of the opposing opinions after the court has vetted them. J&J can afford the right experts, and the collective resources of plaintiffs (and the investment of their counsel) can easily match this.

17 points by pg_1234 3y ago

throwaway5959 3y ago

Christ. They’re going to get away with it.

reverendjames 3y ago
Get away with what?
- pfdietz 3y ago
  Get away with being innocent. How evil of them! /s
scotty79 3y ago
Scientifically case against them didn't look that strong for me. If they were accused of causing lung cancer I could see that. You breathe in a littly bit when you apply talcum. Or some skin cancer or cancer local to the spot you apply the talcum. But ovarian cancer specifically and only that? I'd believe it if they had evidence of presence of asbestos in those tumors or ovaries. But there was none. I mean they still shouldn't have asbestos in talcum but proving they did damage with it is something else.
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- martyvis 3y ago
  Every person aged between 20 and 120 at least in the west probably had copious quantities of baby powder applied all over them. Also this 60 year old man used talc based powders as underarm deodorant until aerosol based ones became dominant maybe 40 years ago. I'm wondering if talc is so causal for cancer why isn't it as prominent it is from say smoking?
  - dboreham 3y ago
    Perhaps it is? There are many people who have been exposed and cancers with no known cause are common.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  It might not be the asbesthos but the talc itself that cause ovarian cancer? I mean, it is a stone powder. There might be batches with other contaminations than asbesthos depending on the mine too.

486sx33 3y ago

In theory we should put all this money towards welcoming scientific study. In fact I’m sure chemical analysis would be far cheaper than lawyers. Does talc really cause cancer or not ? My understanding is that it is a bit like vermiculite insulation, which on its own it’s completely fine, but most vermiculite mines are naturally “contaminated” with asbestos. Wouldn’t it be great if we knew what about talc caused cancer and we could make it safe and have use of it without fear? Probably 3% of the money spent on litigating all this could have gotten us good testing and an industrial process to produce clean talc. Unfortunately, I think that, this isn’t that - J&J wants to obfuscate the science and get off the financial hook :( And what the hell is the “revised standard” that j&j lawyers feel they can now meet? That sounds like the con of the century.

cryptonym 3y ago
I think like you, their finance and lawyers are not stupid. They did the maths or already know. Doing actual scientific study might be more risky, proving product is not good. Producing clean stuff might be impossible or too expensive, too risky to go there if regulation doesn't require it. They may have to pay reparation to existing customers.
- bluGill 3y ago
  They are going to court - science is a very different bar. Even if the science shows it is safe, someone will testify that it isn't and sway the jury with how bad life is for the heirs of someone who died from cancer. Of course in reality science gives probabilities not absolutes and so the jury gets told this causes cancer in .0001% of cases but this person was that one even though there is no way to determine that and cancer has many different causes. What matters is what you can convince a jury who doesn't have a background in science or statistics.
vasco 3y ago
> And what the hell is the “revised standard” that j&j lawyers feel they can now meet? Sounds to me like it could be the engineering equivalent of reducing SLO thresholds and admitting defeat either due to not enough traffic or not enough capacity to deal with the problem properly [1]: > You might also want to reconsider if the impact of a single failure on the error budget accurately reflects its impact on users. If a small number of errors causes you to lose error budget, do you really need to page an engineer to fix the issue immediately? If not, users would be equally happy with a lower SLO. With a lower SLO, an engineer is notified only of a larger sustained outage. Without thinking of: > Lowering the SLO does have a downside: it involves a product decision. Changing the SLO affects other aspects of the system, such as expectations around system behavior and when to enact the error budget policy. These other requirements may be more important to the product than avoiding some number of low-signal alerts. The "product decision" is the court ruling and the "other aspects of the system" is how many people will die. [1] https://sre.google/workbook/alerting-on-slos/ https://sre.google/workbook/alerting-on-slos/

SilverBirch 3y ago

At some point the US court system needs to examine the timeliness of judgements as a core component of justice. It's wild that J&J can hold off the lawsuits for years while it's tries dodgy shell games to offload the legal liability. It's twice as insane for the slimey J&J guy to then come out and say "Oh well the passage of time means..". Yes, the passage of time means that all the people that J&J gave cancer will be dead long before a single penny of compensation will be paid. It's also wild that the judge has decided to re-open the examination of evidence based on a recent rule change approved by the supreme court. It's almost like their spurious corporate bullshit bought them enough time to literally change the rules around their case. Good thing the supreme court is above the suspicion of being bribed though. Here's a simple question: If your product doesn't cause cancer, why did you stop selling it.

cowsandmilk 3y ago
> If your product doesn't cause cancer, why did you stop selling it We lost the Lyme vaccine to untrue reports about their side effects. The truth doesn’t dictate public opinion and public opinion dictates what stays on the market.
pfdietz 3y ago
> If your product doesn't cause cancer, why did you stop selling it. If you didn't do anything, why did I have to beat you? This is abuser logic.
DannyBee 3y ago
"At some point the US court system needs to examine the timeliness of judgements as a core component of justice" It does. The rest of what you write isn't actually what happened, though to be fair the article sort of makes a hash of it. The trial hasn't happened yet. There is no reopening of anything, this is normal resolution of pre trial motions that happens in all lawsuits. The lawsuit is actually moving at a normal speed (fast even. It is also the case that the time taken he is as much plaintiffs needing time as defendants) and this particular ruling is totally normal and would have happened anyway. Your last question has a simple answer that is the same as why everyone stopped using MSG despite it turning out to not be bad for you.

londons_explore 3y ago

For cases like this where the judgement depends heavily on currently-unknown science, I think courts should be able to order scientific studies be done (and paid for the same as other court costs). The study would then be commissioned by, and report to, the judge - rather than the prosecution or defence, who both obviously want to hire experts who will see everything from their point of view.

phrz 3y ago
Federal Rule of Evidence 706 already provides for court-appointed experts which report to the court and the parties and for whom the costs are shared. But a battle of the parties' experts can allow the jury to weigh the credibility of the opposing opinions after the court has vetted them. J&J can afford the right experts, and the collective resources of plaintiffs (and the investment of their counsel) can easily match this.