It's appalling that J&J knew about the link to asbestos from the earliest days of their talc business. Documents exposed during the (consumer) lawsuits show that the company knew that asbestos was a natural part of talc's formation in the earth and would always be present. They also knew there was no way to get rid of it. And that it was harming their own workers. So, no need for any modern researchers to "libel" them. It's all true and they went ahead with it anyway, the most successful product of theirs for something like 100 years.

This is a pretty spurious over-simplification. Arsenic is a natural formation in fruits and vegetables and there is no way of getting rid of it. But the poison is the dose.

If you actually read the internal documents that were presented in the case (https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsona...), I don't actually think they are the smoking gun they were touted as. They threw out some outlier tests and then had an internal war with their marketing department about how to disclose trace amounts.

> It's appalling that J&J knew about the link to asbestos from the earliest days of their talc business.

Reminds me of how Dupont put Teflon in cigarettes and handed them out to their own employees to smoke: https://www.ewg.org/research/dupont-workers-smoke-teflon-lac...

This looks like a plan B, after the spinoff was blocked. Also could have future impact on deterring this type of studies.

Similar lawsuits have been filed by other companies in similar situations.

I feel like there should be laws deterring these kinds of lawsuits. E.g., laying out good faith scientific practices and appropriate procedures for dealing with scientific fraud that could be considered libelous.

Many US states have laws against "strategic lawsuits against public participation"

Backup plan as needed: we can fund, or staff, their defense.