LOS ANGELES – In a trial over allegations that Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder tainted with asbestos caused a woman’s mesothelioma, attorneys for the company on Thursday sought to undermine the testimony of a key plaintiff witness saying bottles of the powder he tested were of uncertain origin.
“These bottles (J&J powder) were in someone else’s possession before they were acquired by (plaintiff) lawyers,” said Kimberly Branscome, an attorney for Johnson & Johnson.
“Correct,” agreed Dr. William Longo.
“You had no idea of who had possession of the bottles before the lawyers got them, or when and where they were purchased?”
“Correct,” Longo answered.
The trial in the Los Angeles Superior Court is being streamed live courtesy of Courtroom View Network.
Fong, 48, a resident of Pasadena, sued Johnson & Johnson and its talc powder supplier Imerys Talc America claiming she developed mesothelioma, a deadly cancer of the lungs, as a result of breathing in asbestos-contaminated baby powder over a long period of time.
Talc, a mined mineral, has been taken from mines in Italy, Vermont, Korea and China. Fong’s attorneys are claiming talc powder mined in Korea and inhaled by Fong in Hong Kong where she lived in the 1970s is the cause of her disease.
Johnson & Johnson attorneys are attempting to demonstrate the woman's mesothelioma could have been contracted from asbestos in fumes inhaled from an incinerator at a landfill near her home in Hong Kong.
A materials scientist and microscope researcher with the MAS lab in Georgia, Longo appeared for a third day of testimony. On Monday, he told Joseph Satterley, Fong’s attorney, that tremolite and anthophyllite asbestos had been found in samples of Johnson & Johnson powder.
Longo agreed with Branscome’s assertion that he had been critical of the testing method for asbestos used by Johnson & Johnson, which placed emphasis on the use of the transmission electron microscope (TEM).
“You’re not a medical doctor; you’re not offering anything about the health impact?” Branscome asked.
“I am not,” Longo said.
TEM, as well as the polarized light microscope (PLM) and X-ray diffraction, which is used to analyze a mineral’s crystal structure, are used to detect asbestos in baby powder.
Another method of testing is called heavy liquid separation, which spins heavy liquid in a tube to cause talc to separate from heavier particles that can then be observed under a microscope.
Critics of Johnson & Johnson faulted the company for deciding not to use the concentration method, saying it would have provided them with better detection of smaller amounts of asbestos called “trace amounts.”
Johnson & Johnson officials at the time said they didn’t believe concentration was effective and instead opted to rely on high-powered microscopes and the X-ray diffraction technique. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) also declined use of the concentration method.
Longo, a proponent of the concentration technique along with the use of microscopes, used a different density liquid and spin rate for concentration testing than that used by Alice Blount. Blount, a noted asbestos researcher, also testified that asbestos had been found in the powder using heavy liquid concentration.
“Before you were hired for litigation (as a witness), you never heard of Blount, right?” Branscome asked.
“Correct,” Longo said.
One of the limitations of the concentration method is that it cannot spot chrysotile, one of six asbestos-related minerals.
“You haven’t found chrysotile?” Branscome asked.
“That would be correct,” Longo said.
“The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) chose not to use the concentration method,” Branscome said.
“That is correct,” Longo said.
“Concentration has not been adopted by any (government) agency?”
Longo answered that concentration methods other than heavy liquid, for example flotation of materials, have been used by agencies.
Branscome cited a 1970s report in which Dr. F.D. Pooley, a Cardiff, Wales, UK researcher, said concentration was found to be unsatisfactory and “very inaccurate.”
“Did I read that correctly?” she asked.
“That’s what it states,” Longo said.
Bottles of baby powder for testing by Longo came from plaintiff lawyers. Some were purchased off the shelf, through purchase on eBay, or acquired from a historic museum collection of bottles from Johnson & Johnson.
“You have no knowledge of how (plaintiff) lawyers acquired the bottles?” Branscome asked.
“I have no knowledge of that,” Longo said.
Longo agreed bottles were un-sealed.
“You don’t know how they were stored, in a basement or a locker room?”
“Correct.”
Some of the bottles came to lawyers from collectors, one of whom Branscome said was the father of an attorney employed with Satterley’s law firm.
“Out of 34 bottles, four were purchased off the shelf and 24 were made before 1964, correct?”
“That’s correct,” Longo said.
Branscome said the FDA audited Longo's Georgia-based MAS lab for potential sample contamination and paperwork violations. Longo denied there were violations and called Branscome's line of questioning "misleading."