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 Johnson & Johnson lost a third straight trial over claims its talcum powder can cause ovarian cancer with a St. Louis jury awarding a California woman more than $70 million. 
 
 J&J is accused in about 1,700 lawsuits in state and federal court of ignoring studies linking its baby powder and Shower-to-Shower talc products to ovarian cancer and failing to warn customers about the risk. Thursday’s verdict follows damages verdicts of $72 million and $55 million against the company this year in the first two talc claims to go to trial in St. Louis. Both are being appealed. 
 
 Deborah Giannecchini, 62, used J&J’s baby powder for feminine hygiene for more than four decades until her diagnosis with ovarian cancer three years ago, according to her lawyers. She has an 80 percent chance of dying in the next two years, and has undergone surgery, radiation and chemotherapy, they said. 
 
 A J&J unit was ordered to pay $65 million in punitive damages and 90 percent of about $2.5 million for medical costs and pain and suffering. Co-defendant Imerys Talc America, the supplier of the talc, was hit with $2.5 million in punitive damages. Jurors returned the verdict after deliberating for about three hours. 
 
 The company should have provided a warning label on the product to let consumers decide whether to use talc, one juror Billie Ray, 76, of St. Louis, said after the trial. “It seemed like Johnson & Johnson didn’t pay attention,” she said. “It seemed like they didn’t care.” 
 
 Giannecchini appeared overwhelmed by the verdict. “I’ve waited for a long time for this,” she said. “I’ve wanted this so badly.” 
 
 J&J will appeal, said Carol Goodrich, company spokeswoman. “We are guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson’s Baby Powder,” she said in a statement. 
 
 Imerys ‘Disappointed’ 
 
 Imerys is “disappointed’’ with the verdict, said Dan Rene, a company spokesman. Imerys had been cleared in the two prior St. Louis trials, as well as in two claims dismissed in New Jersey, Rene said in a statement. 
 
 “This verdict serves to undermine efforts by the scientific community to determine the true causes of ovarian cancer,’’ Rene said. “The theories relied upon by plaintiffs’ experts lacked scientific foundation.’’ 
 
 J&J is facing hundreds of claims in St. Louis state court, which has become a magnet for plaintiffs’ product defect claims, as well as about 300 suits in Los Angeles, another 200 in New Jersey and a growing number of federal cases combined before one judge in that state. A New Jersey state court judge last month threw out two talc cases set for trial, finding inadequate scientific support for the claims. 
 
 JNJ has denied any link to talc use and ovarian cancer. 
 
 “Science, research, clinical evidence and decades of studies by medical experts around the world continue to support the safety of cosmetic talc,’’ Goodrich said before the verdict. The New Jersey dismissal decision “highlights the lack of scientific evidence behind plaintiffs’ allegations,” she said. 
 
 Risk Known 
 
 J&J was aware of “30 years of studies showing an increased risk of ovarian cancer from the use of talc,” Giannecchini’s lawyer, Allen Smith, told jurors in the St. Louis trial. “They knew, and they knew the public was unaware of the risk.” Instead of adding warning labels, J&J “developed a defense strategy to prevent government regulation of its products,” he said. 
 
 “I think the jury heard our message loud and clear,” Smith said after the verdict. “If this doesn’t send a message to J&J to add a warning, I don’t know what will.” 
 
 The case is Hogans v. Johnson & Johnson, 1422-CC09012-01, Circuit Court, St. Louis City, Missouri (St. Louis). ||||| A St. Louis jury on Thursday awarded a California woman more than $70 million in her lawsuit alleging that years of using Johnson & Johnson's baby powder caused her cancer, the latest case raising concerns about the health ramifications of extended talcum powder use. 
 
 The jury ruling ended the trial that began Sept. 26 in the case brought by Deborah Giannecchini of Modesto, California. She was diagnosed with ovarian cancer in 2012. The suit accused Johnson & Johnson of "negligent conduct" in making and marketing its baby powder. 
 
 "We are pleased the jury did the right thing," said Jim Onder, an attorney for the plaintiff. "They once again reaffirmed the need for Johnson & Johnson to warn the public of the ovarian cancer risk associated with its product." 
 
 Carol Goodrich, a spokeswoman with Johnson & Johnson, could not immediately be reached for comment. In a statement provided to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, she said: "We deeply sympathize with the women and families impacted by ovarian cancer. We will appeal today's verdict because we are guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson's Baby Powder." 
 
 Earlier this year, two other lawsuits in St. Louis ended in jury verdicts worth a combined $127 million. But two others in New Jersey were thrown out by a judge who said there wasn't reliable evidence that talc leads to ovarian cancer, an often fatal but relatively rare form of cancer. Ovarian cancer accounts for about 22,000 of the 1.7 million new cases of cancer expected to be diagnosed in the U.S. this year. 
 
 About 2,000 women have filed similar suits, and lawyers are reviewing thousands of other potential cases, most generated by ads touting the two big verdicts out of St. Louis — a $72 million award in February to relatives of an Alabama woman who died of ovarian cancer, and a $55 million award in May to a South Dakota survivor of the disease. 
 
 Much research has found no link or a weak one between ovarian cancer and using baby powder for feminine hygiene, and most major health groups have declared talc harmless. Johnson & Johnson, whose baby powder dominates the market, maintains it's perfectly safe. 
 
 But Onder of the Onder Law Firm in suburban St. Louis, which represented plaintiffs in all three St. Louis cases, cited other research that began connecting talcum powder to ovarian cancer in the 1970s. He said case studies have indicated that women who regularly use talc on their genital area face up to a 40 percent higher risk of developing ovarian cancer. ||||| KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri appeals court on Tuesday that vacated a $72 million award to an Alabama woman who claimed her use of Johnson & Johnson products that contained talcum contributed to her ovarian cancer has thrown the fate of awards in similar cases into doubt. 
 
 The Missouri Eastern District Court's ruled that Missouri was not the proper jurisdiction to hear a lawsuit filed by Jacqueline Fox, 62, of Birmingham, Alabama, who claimed the baby powder she used for feminine hygiene for about 25 years contributed to her cancer. She died in 2015, about four months before her case went to trial in St. Louis Circuit Court. In February 2016, a jury awarded Fox $10 million in actual damages and $62 million in punitive damages — the first award in the lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson. 
 
 The appeals court cited a Supreme Court ruling in June that placed limits on where injury lawsuits could be filed, saying state courts cannot hear claims against companies not based in the state where alleged injuries occurred. The case involved suits against Bristol-Myers Squibb over the blood-thinning medication Plavix. 
 
 More than 1,000 others have filed similar lawsuits in St. Louis against Johnson & Johnson, which is based in Brunswick, New Jersey. In four of five trials held so far, jurors awarded more than $300 million combined. Only two of the 64 cases attached to Fox's case lived in Missouri. 
 
 The company appealed all the awards against it and says its products are safe. A spokeswoman said after Tuesday's ruling that Johnson & Johnson is confident its appeals will be successful. 
 
 "In the cases involving nonresident plaintiffs who sued in the state of Missouri, we consistently argued that there was no jurisdiction and we expect the existing verdicts that we are appealing to be reversed," spokeswoman Carole Goodrich said in a statement. 
 
 Jim Onder, who is representing many plaintiffs in the lawsuits, has argued that Missouri is a proper jurisdiction because Johnson & Johnson packages and labels some products in Missouri. Onder's firm did not immediately return a call from The Associated Press Tuesday but he told The St. Louis Post Dispatch that the Supreme Court sent the Bristol case back to California state court and he is confident the Missouri Supreme Court will do the same. 
 
 Within days of the Supreme Court ruling, a mistrial was declared in a Missouri state court in another lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson that involved three plaintiffs, two from out of state. That trial has not yet been rescheduled. 
 
 Talc is a soft mineral that is widely used in personal care products to absorb moisture and for other products including paint and plastics. 
 
 Most research has established no link or a weak one between ovarian cancer and using baby powder for feminine hygiene, and most major health groups have said talc is harmless. But some smaller studies have found a small link and the International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies genital use of talc as "possibly carcinogenic." 
 
 Ovarian cancer accounts for about 22,000 of the 1.7 million new cases of cancer likely to be diagnosed in the U.S. this year. Women's risk factors for the ovarian cancer can include age, obesity, use of estrogen therapy after menopause, not having any children, certain genetic mutations and a family history of breast or ovarian cancer. 
 
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 Linda Johnson contributed to this story from Trenton, New Jersey. 
 
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– For more than 40 years, Deborah Giannecchini used Johnson & Johnson baby powder and other talcum powder products—and on Thursday, a St. Louis jury awarded more than $70 million in damages on her claim, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports. The 63-year-old Californian said those J&J products contributed to her developing ovarian cancer. The jury voted against J&J 10-2—one of the dissenters actually didn't think the award was enough—with an award of $575,000 in medical damages, $2 million in compensatory damages, $2.5 million in compensatory damages against Imerys Talc (the producer of the talcum powder), and $65 million in punitive damages against J&J. About half of the punitive damages will go to the Missouri Crime Victims' Compensation Program, per Jim Onder of Onder Law, which has handled all three cases with awarded damages so far. Memos from inside J&J show the company knew for decades about research tying the use of talc powder to ovarian cancer, Onder says—though CNBC says "much" of that research has been "weak." Giannecchini, however, had no clue of possible risks. "There isn't a way to describe how you feel ... when you're told you probably won't make it beyond the next year," she says of receiving her stage 4 cancer diagnosis in 2012. Per her lawyers, Giannecchini has about an 80% chance of dying within the next two years, Bloomberg reports. Not that Onder expects J&J to cede to the nearly 2,000 state and federal complaints against it; instead, he believes the company will take a "scorched-earth legal policy" and not settle "until they absolutely have to." In a statement, a J&J rep says the company will appeal because it's "guided by the science, which supports the safety of Johnson's Baby Powder."