The first ever California-based talcum powder cancer trial against Johnson & Johnson recently opened in Los Angeles.

In this talcum powder cancer trial, plaintiff Eva E. alleges that because Johnson & Johnson wanted to preserve its wholesome image, it intentionally did not put warning labels on its products that included the possibility of cancer.

Eva has been diagnosed with terminal ovarian cancer, and she believes it is as a direct result of her use of Johnson’s Baby Powder.

According to Law360, her attorney opened the talcum powder cancer trial recently by arguing that Johnson & Johnson cared more about its image as a family-geared company than it did about the safety of its customers.

He said, “It’s the safe and gentle corporate image of a mother and baby that the defendants are placing over human life, in this case.”

The attorney for the plaintiff in this talcum powder cancer trial noted that peer-reviewed research studies found that ten percent of ovarian cancer cases in the United States were connect to the use of baby powder or talcum powder in the genital area.

The results of these studies, the attorney claims, were known by Johnson & Johnson for at least 20 years.

During his opening statements to the jury in this talcum powder cancer trial, the attorney explained about the different categories of studies that support the ovarian cancer-talcum powder link as well as various decisions as well as Johnson & Johnson’s internal communications that proved their knowledge of the research. He claimed that Johnson & Johnson lobbied for federal regulators to not include warnings about ovarian cancer on their product labels.

The plaintiff’s attorney also explained that his client, Eva, would never have used talcum powder manufactured by Johnson & Johnson if she had known of the ovarian cancer risk.

Because Johnson & Johnson allegedly knew about these studies and essentially covered up their knowledge by not including risks on the labels, he believes that Johnson & Johnson should also suffer punitive damages.

However, the attorney for Johnson & Johnson in this talcum powder cancer trial disagreed. In his opening statement, he noted that their products are “absolutely safe” and that they have been used safely by millions of people for many decades.

“There’s nothing wrong and we do not apologize for the notion that when the product is safe, we’re not going to stop selling the product when someone tries to claim the product is harmful or toxic when it is not,” the attorney said in his opening statements.

He claims that there are no true studies that prove the connection between cancer and talcum powder use. In fact, the attorney explained, correlation and causation are two different things. According to the attorney, just because something is correlated does not mean it the cause of something.

Dairy products, he claims, have a higher correlation with ovarian cancer than talcum powder use.

This Talcum Powder Cancer Trial is in Case No. BC628228, and is part of the coordinated proceeding Johnson & Johnson Talcum Powder Cases, Case No. JCCP4872, in the Superior Court of the State of California, County of Los Angeles.