J&J to Pay $75 Million to Settle Mississippi’s Baby Powder Suit

Johnson & Johnson will pay $75 million to resolve a consumer protection lawsuit filed by Mississippi over the company’s failure to add a safety warning to its talc-based baby powder, according to people familiar with the settlement.

The pact comes as lawyers for the state’s attorney general’s office and J&J were gearing up for a non-jury trial next month, said the people, who asked not to be named because the accord isn’t yet public.

The state sought as much as $6 billion in damages over J&J’s alleged failure to warn consumers about the powder’s cancer risks over nearly a 50-year period.