Associated Press

Associated Press

ST. LOUIS

Twice in the past three months, juries have awarded tens of millions of dollars to ovarian cancer victims who blamed Johnson & Johnson talcum powder for their illness – among the first verdicts in a gathering courtroom assault by law firms that are aggressively recruiting clients through TV ads and the Internet.

While the link between ovarian cancer and talc is a matter of scientific dispute, a St. Louis jury Monday ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $55 million to a South Dakota survivor of the disease. In February, another St. Louis jury awarded $72 million to relatives of an Alabama woman who died of ovarian cancer.

They are among hundreds of lawsuits claiming that regularly applying products such as Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower to the genitals can cause the often-lethal cancer.

Both cases were handled by the Onder Law Firm, based in St. Louis, one of the firms with ads running nationwide that urge cancer victims to come forward.

Attorney Jim Onder said Johnson & Johnson’s marketing targeted overweight women, blacks and Hispanics, “knowing that those groups were most at-risk for talc-related ovarian cancer,” he said. “It’s horrible.”