US court

A US court has upheld a verdict that talcum powder sold by Johnson & Johnson caused ovarian cancer and ordered the pharmaceutical giant to pay $2.1 billion in damages.

The decision by the Missouri Court of Appeals cut by more than half the $4.4 billion a jury had awarded 22 people in 2018. The court agreed that some of the plaintiffs should not have been included in the case as they were from outside the state.

But the Tuesday decision upheld the awarding of damages for the company “knowingly selling products that contained asbestos to consumers.”

“Because defendants are large, …