A baby powder trial has culminated in a $70 million damage award for a woman who attributes her ovarian cancer to talcum powder.

Plaintiff Deborah G. is the third plaintiff this year to receive a multi-million dollar award from a St. Louis jury over allegations that use of talc-based products made by defendant Johnson & Johnson can lead to ovarian cancer.

Deborah says she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2012. For 45 years prior to that diagnosis, she says, she used Johnson’s Baby Powder near her genital area.

She now believes her ovarian cancer was directly caused by the talc in that powder, and she faults J&J for failing to offer an adequate warning about the risk of cancer associated with its talc-based products.

Overall, J&J is facing about 2,000 similar baby powder lawsuits. Those that have progressed to a baby powder trial have gotten mixed results, but successful plaintiffs have tended to win judgments in the tens of millions of dollars.

Earlier this year, another St. Louis baby powder trial yielded a $72 million award for the plaintiff. A third claimant received an award of $55 million.

Other plaintiffs have not been as successful as those in St. Louis. In New Jersey, J&J’s home state, two similar claims have already been dismissed for lack of sufficient evidence of a causal relationship between talcum powder.

With so many other baby powder lawsuits left to face, J&J continues to dig in for a serious fight. The company still insists its talc-based products are safe. It also plans to appeal the plaintiffs’ awards already issued.

J&J maintains that the scientific evidence fails to conclusively show that talcum powder is the cause of these plaintiffs’ ovarian cancer.

Despite the multi-million dollar jury awards issued so far, the company has given no particular indication that it will add a warning about ovarian cancer to the labeling for its talcum powders.

More plaintiffs continue to bring their claims in St. Louis. The next baby powder trial in that court is scheduled to begin in January.

Baby Powder Trial Puts Cancer Risk in the Spotlight

Scientific studies that examine the relationship between talc and ovarian cancer have yielded varying results.

However, there are dozens of studies that have found an increased risk of ovarian cancer, as much as 20 to 40 percent, among women who report using talcum powder in their genital area.

Research from as far back as the early 1970s has suggested a possible link between talc and ovarian cancer. In one of the earliest studies, scientists found talc particles embedded in tissue sampled from ovarian tumors.

Then in 1982, a study published in the journal Cancer found a possible correlation between use of talcum powder and later development of ovarian cancer.

A more recent study published in Cancer Prevention Research in 2013 found a 20 to 30 percent increase in cancer rates among women who reported perineal talcum powder use. This study’s findings were consistent with those from an earlier research study in 2003.