Johnson & Johnson has built a health care empire. It includes prescription and over-the-counter drugs, orthopedic implants, surgical products and household products.

The most popular consumer brands include Band-Aids, Tylenol and Johnson’s Baby Powder. Still, the bulk of J&J’s revenue comes from prescription drugs and medical devices.

But the health care giant has faced its share of lawsuits. A Huffington Post investigation called J&J “America’s most admired lawbreaker.”

J&J has been at the center of scandals and government investigations. It has issued recalls of some of its drugs and devices.

Consumers harmed by J&J products are suing the company. They question the company’s motives and say it puts profits over people.

On Feb 26, 2021, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration granted an emergency use authorization to J&J’s COVID-19 vaccine. The vaccine, developed by the company’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals unit, is the third to be granted an EU.

“Johnson & Johnson is committed to making its COVID-19 vaccine available on a not-for-profit basis for emergency pandemic use,” the company said in a February 2021 press release.

J&J plans to deliver 20 million doses by the end of March 2021 and 100 million shots to the United States during the first half of 2021.

Unlike the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, it can be stored in refrigerator temperatures, only takes one shot to be effective and was tested against new COVID-19 variants prior to receiving its EUA.

The J&J vaccine does not contain a live virus. It uses a modified adenovirus type 26, a virus that causes cold symptoms and pink eye, to help the body make proteins that prepare the body to fight COVID-19.

Common side effects were headache, pain at the injection site, fatigue, muscle aches and nausea. These side effects were mostly mild to moderate and lasted 1-2 days.

Johnson & Johnson has over 135,000 employees spread across 60 countries. Its main headquarters are in New Brunswick, New Jersey.

J&J brought in more than $82.6 billion in 2020. It ranked No. 1 in annual revenue among its competitors.

Alex Gorsky is its CEO. He is the seventh CEO to head J&J.

Robert, James and Edward Johnson founded Johnson & Johnson in 1886 in New Brunswick, New Jersey. The company focused on bandages, sterile sutures and wound care.

The company also sold women’s health products. These included sanitary protection products. It also sold maternity kits with first-aid products to make childbirth safer.

J&J created the first commercial dressings applied by consumers. We know this product made in 1921 as Band-Aids.

Johnson & Johnson is a parent company for over 250 subsidiaries. Together, the companies make up “the Johnson & Johnson family of companies.”

Johnson & Johnson products fall into three categories. These include consumer health care products, medical devices and pharmaceutical drugs.

Johnson & Johnson recalled some of its most popular products after patients reported injuries. The FDA and other government agencies investigated.

In May 2020, J&J made the decision to stop selling Johnson’s Baby Powder with talc in the United States and Canada.

J&J has faced hundreds of thousands of lawsuits over claims its products are defective.

Lawsuits point to internal documents showing J&J and its subsidiaries knew about problems with their products but sold them anyway.

In addition to individual product liability lawsuits, individual states who say Johnson & Johnson helped fuel the opioid crisis are suing the company for millions of dollars.

The company is facing smaller, emerging litigations for the interstitial cystitis (IC) drug Elmiron and DePuy’s Attune knee implants.

Elmiron litigation is in the beginning stages with a handful of cases filed in state courts, but lawyers expect hundreds more. People who filed lawsuits say Johnson & Johnson’s Janssen Pharmaceuticals unit failed to warn them that the drug could cause vision problems, particularly a condition called pigmentary maculopathy.

DePuy’s Attune knee implant litigation is ongoing, and people who filed lawsuits say the implant loosened and failed leading to pain and revision surgery.

DePuy hip litigation is ongoing, and juries have awarded more than a billion dollars to plaintiffs who say they were injured by faulty Pinnacle hip implants. In February 2019, Bloomberg reported the company may be willing to pay $400 million to settle 3,300 of the claims but was not offering a global settlement.

Talcum Powder Litigation

In 2019, J&J recalled tens of thousands of bottles of its iconic Johnson’s Baby Powder after the FDA found small amounts of asbestos in a sample.

Then in May 2020, the company said it would stop selling talcum-based baby powder in Canada and the United States. The company said it stopped selling the product because of low sales.

But state juries have ordered the company to pay billions of dollars to people who claimed the product gave them cancer. In October 2020, Johnson & Johnson agreed to settle more than 1,000 talcum powder lawsuits for $100 million.

Lawyers in the federal lawsuits expect to prepare for bellwether trials soon but none have been scheduled as of February 2021.

J&J still faces more than 27,100 federal talcum powder lawsuits in multidistrict litigation and many more in state courts as of February 2021.

J&J was involved in seven of 2017’s top ten health-care-related verdicts.

The company was also involved in the third-largest pharmaceutical settlement with the U.S. Department of Justice. In 2013, J&J paid the Justice Department more than $2.2 billion. The settlement resolved civil and criminal allegations involving Risperdal, Invega and Natrecor.

J&J has successfully defended many of its product liability cases, but it has still faced billions in jury verdicts and settlements.

One of the largest verdicts was an $8 billion award to a single Risperdal plaintiff in October 2019. The trial judge later reduced the verdict to $6.8 million.

Talcum powder lawsuits continue to pile on for J&J. In 2021, Reuters reported the company set aside about $4 billion in 2020 for litigation expenses related to talc.