Judge orders Johnson & Johnson to pay $572 million for its role in Oklahoma’s opioid crisis

An Oklahoma judge on Monday found Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiaries helped fuel the state’s opioid crisis and ordered the consumer products giant to pay $572 million to clean up the problem.

Cleveland County District Judge Thad Balkman’s ruling followed the first state opioid case to make it to trial and could help shape negotiations over roughly 1,500 similar lawsuits filed by state, local and tribal governments consolidated before a federal judge in Ohio.

“The opioid crisis has ravaged the state of Oklahoma,” Balkman said before announcing the verdict. “It must be abated immediately.”

The companies are expected to appeal the ruling to the Oklahoma Supreme Court. Continue reading

Johnson & Johnson Found To Have Knowingly Allowed Asbestos Into Baby Powder

talcum powderRichard Enos – We are starting to awaken to the fact that it seems to be the rule, and not the exception, that large Western corporations put profits above human health considerations. The only time they seem to give any regard to human health concerns is when their forecasts of potential lawsuits down the road would likely exceed the cost measures needed to ensure the safety of their product.

Johnson & Johnson is just one of a long line of corporate perpetrators who believed that covering up and lying about known health concerns would make better business sense than taking the time and resources to actually address those health concerns within their products.

Contaminated Baby Powder: The Height Of Indignity

One would think, regardless of an understanding that the bottom line is a priority for most private companies, that the health and safety of a nursing mother and her newborn child would be sacrosanct for any industry. The reality is that this is simply not the case, even though J&J could have mitigated this problem from the start. Continue reading

Court Upholds $50 Million Award For Girl Whose Life Was Destroyed By Johnson & Johnson’s Children’s Motrin

– The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court upheld a lower court’s judgment that pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson should be required to pay $50 million to a girl who suffered a rare but devastating side effect from Children’s Motrin when she was seven years old. The judgment took more than a decade to be reached.

Samantha Reckis experienced toxic epidermal necrolysis (TEN), which burned off 90 percent of her skin, destroyed 80 percent of her lung capacity and left her blind. Only luck and the efforts of her doctors prevented her from dying or suffering permanent brain damage.

Johnson & Johnson will also be required to pay $6.5 million to each of Reckis’ parents. On top of that, the company will owe interest on all three payments, bringing the total owed to more than $109 million.

Widespread organ failure

TEN is a severe form of Stevens-Johnson syndrome, which occurs most commonly as a side effect of drugs including nonsteroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs, which includes ibuprofen/Motrin), penicillin, anticonvulsants and anti-gout drugs.

Reckis’s case was triggered in 2003, when her father gave her two doses of Children’s Motrin for a fever and sinus congestion. The next morning, her symptoms were no better, and she had also developed a rash and a sore throat. Her father gave her more Motrin and took her to a pediatrician, who told her parents to give her the drug three times per day. Continue reading