on the whole story. i blame johnson & johnson baby powder. we have never confirmed a finding of asbestos in any product that has been sold. do you consider it an abuse of bankruptcy law? i do. what johnson ask johnson did. i definitely do. welcome to the whole story. i m anderson cooper. tonight, cnn chief investigative correspondent pamela brown brings us the story of three women in legal battles with one of the largest health care companies in the world over a commonly used household item they say is responsible for causing their cancers. that product is johnson & johnson talcum baby powder. for more than a century, the name johnson & johnson was synonymous with baby powder. the lawsuit from these women claimed the powder contained asbestos. and these are just three out of tens of thousands of lawsuits johnson & johnson is facing over this product, which was discontinued in the u.s. and canada in 2020. johnson & johnson staunchly denies these claims, and
coming up i was loyal to that product. on the whole story. i blame johnson & johnson baby powder. we have never confirmed a finding of asbestos in any product that has been sold. do you consider it an abuse of bankruptcy law? i do. i definitely do. welcome to the whole story. i m anderson cooper. tonight, cnn chief investigative correspondent pamela brown brings us the story of three women in legal battles with one of the largest health care companies in the world over a commonly used household item they say is responsible for causing their cancers. that product is johnson & johnson talcm baby powder. for more than a century, the name johnson & johnson was sin onmm with baby powder. these are just three of tens of thousands of lawsuits johnson & johnson is facing over this product which was discontinued in the u.s. and canada in 2020. johnson & johnson staunchly denies these claims and you ll hear from them directly in this hour about their methodology and the
johnson & johnson is facing around 40,000 allegations of people saying that its talc based baby powder caused their cancer. this is not even an exhaustive list. this is just an example of one case list. and so what they say is, look, this is a solution. we filed for bankruptcy through this texas two-step maneuver. so in october of 2021, johnson & johnson executes what is known as the texas two-step. johnson & johnson took its consumer products business and merged it with a newly created entity in texas. it then immediately split that entity in two. one of the segments, which is now known as ltl management, llc, was left holding all of the liabilities of the talc lawsuits.
around 40,000 allegations of people saying that its talc-based baby powder caused their cancer. this is not even an exhaustive list. this is just an example of one case list. and so what they say is, look, this is a solution. we filed for bankruptcy through this texas two-step maneuver. so in october of 2021 johnson & johnson executes what is known as the texas two-step. johnson & johnson took its consumer products business and merged it with a newly created entity in texas. it then immediately split that entity in two. one of the segments, which is now known as ltl management llc, was left holding all of the liabilities of the talc lawsuits. ltl immediately filed for bankruptcy in north carolina.
ltl immediately filed for bankruptcy in north carolina. johnson & johnson set aside something like $2 billion for ltl to use to potentially play out plaintiffs in addition with access to some other funding. plantdfes lawyers say that plaintiffs are likely going to have a smaller pot from which to be paid out from. there was the so-called texas two-step. was that just a way for johnson & johnson to avoid another multi-billion dollar payout? absolutely not. so with the history of trying to resolve this litigation in the court system showed us is that it hasn t been fair to plaintiffs and it hasn t been fair to johnson & johnson. over ten years with 40,000 cases pending, only two plaintiff verdicts have ever been paid. so i think the important takeaway from that was that we needed to find a way to resolve this litigation for all current claimants and all future