Johnson & Johnson has sued four doctors who published studies citing links between talc-based personal care products and cancer, escalating an attack on scientific studies that the company alleges are inaccurate.
It’s a pretty wild allegation. They would have to have known about the other sources of exposure and deliberately withheld that information. Even if the patients had had some other exposure, it’s even less likely that the doctors would have known about it, and their study will have been designed as well as practicable to find out.
My favourite example of this is when McDonalds sued Irish burger chain SuperMac’s for trademark infringement, only to lose their entire trademark for Big Mac’s across all of Europe.
This needs to happen to Monster Energy drink (who is suing everyone who uses the term “monster”) and Bethesda (who got lawsuit shot with the term “scroll”).
It’s a pretty wild allegation. They would have to have known about the other sources of exposure and deliberately withheld that information. Even if the patients had had some other exposure, it’s even less likely that the doctors would have known about it, and their study will have been designed as well as practicable to find out.
You don’t have to have merit to file a lawsuit. You can try to intimidate or bleed a defendant out.
But this is also how you end up with stuff blowing up in your face spectacularly.
My favourite example of this is when McDonalds sued Irish burger chain SuperMac’s for trademark infringement, only to lose their entire trademark for Big Mac’s across all of Europe.
This needs to happen to Monster Energy drink (who is suing everyone who uses the term “monster”) and Bethesda (who got lawsuit shot with the term “scroll”).
That’s what makes it do damning. If J&J proves this, it would be a disaster for the researchers.
I’ll be very interested in seeing how this plays out.