THE WHAT? Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is facing a class-action lawsuit brought by Houston litigator Mark Lanier’s new UK firm, which is accusing the personal care giant of its talc products causing UK customers to develop cancer. 

THE DETAILS According to City A.M., the lawsuit will claim that British customers may have developed cancer due to the asbestos in talc products developed by J&J and other pharmaceutical companies. 

Lanier said: “Companies have made many millions from the sales of its talc, and we believe there are many more victims, including in the UK, who deserve justice for having their lives cut short by these terrible and incurable cancers, which could so easily have been avoided.”

THE WHY? The firm is set to propose that pharmaceutical companies such as J&J continued selling talc products to UK consumers, despite being aware of the presence of asbestos fibres in the products for decades. 

The lawsuit comes off the back of a previous win by Lanier’s Houston headquartered law firm – the Lanier Law Firm, which received a US$4.69bn payout from J&J in 2018 following claims the company’s talc products had caused 22 women to develop ovarian cancer.