Talc Powder and Cancer - Does the science support the Lawsuits?

 If you have younger siblings you probably remember helping your parents change diapers or at least watching and being grateful you didn't have to do it.  If there is one thing I remember very clearly it was every clean diaper got a good shake of baby powder.  That nice fresh smell of Johnson's baby powder really did the room good when my little sister decided to fill a diaper.

However times have changed and Johnson's baby power or talcum powder is not associated with clean and fresh anymore.  Instead it is associated with cancer.  There used to be a time when talcum powder included asbestos and that definitely had an association with cancer.  Asbestos was removed in the 70s, but there are still claims it is correlated with ovarian cancer.  I don't really have any answers today.  I was just reading and listening to some stories about talcum powder decided to dig a little deeper.

The first question is what does the science say?   Secondly, should juries be awarding large settlements to women who develop ovarian cancer they claim is from talcum powder?

Just do a Google search for Talcum powder and cancer and you will see this:

  

The next big thing to see is that settlements are being handed out, thus I guess the reason for the prevalence of these lawyer ads.

Here is one source talking about the settlements awarded so far:  http://www.cbc.ca/beta/news/business/talcum-powder-cancer-johnson-johnson-1.3563809

A St. Louis jury awarded a family 72 million dollars in another case.

I don't want to take away from the deaths and sickness these families are going through.  I do want to look at the facts though.  Is talcum really causing cancer?  If so then of course these lawsuits have merit.  The entire reason I bring this topic up is that I have found conflicted evidence that seems inconclusive in some cases are more conclusive in others that talc powder causes cancer.

The first paper I found was published in 1999 from the Journal of the National Cancer Institute :  http://jnci.oxfordjournals.org/content/92/3/249.full

Take a read, but here is the summary.

Of course this paper admits that they lacked information.

The American Cancer Society says:

http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/talcum-powder-and-cancer

They bring up a point we need to consider which is recall bias.  If someone has cancer they may remember talc powder more than other factors simply because it has been in the news as a possible cause.

Another paper that just came out in May of 2016 thinks talc may be more of a factor in causing cancer.   http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4820665/

We have studies that say yes, there may be some correlation to ovarian cancer and genital talc use.  Many more studies are are much less clear.  Some have trends that show cancer correlations, but no statistical differences.  And most papers have a hard time controlling for recall basis.

Does talc powder cause ovarian cancer?   I would certainly be cautious after reading literature, but at this point the science is still trying to figure it out.  Is there enough scientific evidence to dish out 72 and 55 million dollar lawsuits?   There are over 1200 more lawsuits pending.  How should we handle cases where juries really need to dig into scientific evidence and not rely on emotion?   I do not feel like Johnson and Johnson was hiding evidence like the big tobacco companies may have in our past.    Even now the papers are divided, but how liable should Johnson and Johnson be? I also am trying to wade through these waters in my own mind.

Any other opinions?