A Missouri court has ordered pharmaceutical and hygiene products giant Johnson & Johnson to pay $US55 million ($A71.72 million) to an ovarian cancer patient who developed the disease after years of using their talcum powder.
Gloria Ristesund, a 62-year-old woman from South Dakota, used Johnson & Johnson's talc-based feminine hygiene products for around four decades.
In 2011, she was diagnosed with ovarian cancer, after undergoing a hysterectomy, or removal of the uterus, and other operations.
After the hysterectomy, doctors found talc in her ovarian tissue.
The costs for the ovarian cancer treatment exceeded $US174,000.
Although Ristesund's cancer is subsiding, she filed a lawsuit against the company for hiding the danger of its talc-based products from consumers for years.
She will now be awarded $US50 million for the damage caused and another $US5 million as additional compensation.
In February, Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay $US72 million to the family of another woman, Jacqueline Fox, who died of cancer after years of using talc powder for feminine hygiene.
The cases of Ristesund and Fox are only two of the more than 1000 similar lawsuits the company faces in Missouri and New Jersey courts.
In 2005, researchers at the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine published a study suggesting that women who avoid using talc in genital hygiene are less likely to develop ovarian cancer.
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