Gynecology expert witness Daniel Cramer, MD, ScD, testified at the Johnson & Johnson trial regarding the link between talc powder and ovarian cancer. The St. Louis jury awarded $72M to the family of Jackie Fox. Fox died of ovarian cancer after using Johnson talc powder products for 35 years. The jury found Johnson & Johnson guilty of failing to warn the public and keeping information about the possible link between their product and ovarian cancer from the public. The world’s sixth-largest consumer health company was ordered to pay $10M in compensatory damages and $62M in punitive damages.
Dr. Cramer is an obstetrician/gynecologist at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston and wrote the first study linking talc powder with ovarian cancer in 1982.
The Dana-Farber / Harvard Cancer Center website describes Dr. Cramer’s research.
Dr. Cramer’s research focuses on the epidemiology of ovarian cancer with the goal of developing a model to explain risk factors for the disease and biomarkers that might correlate with risk. There are three events which increase risk for ovarian cancer that are associated with chronic inflammation affecting the lower or upper genital tract. These include: cosmetic talc powder use; repeated ovulation not interrupted by pregnancies, breastfeeding, or oral contraceptive use (incessant ovulation), and endometriosis.
Dr. Cramer is a Professor of Epidemiology at Harvard T.H. Chan School Of Public Health, Professor of Obstetrics, Gynecology and Reproductive Biology at Harvard Medical School, and Professor of Gynecology and Reproductive Science at Brigham And Women’s Hospital.
