Noted mesothelioma researcher Dr. Richard L. Kradin is one of several scientists being sued by Johnson & Johnson over a peer-reviewed article linking talc products to the rare and fatal illness. In response to a request from Johnson & Johnson subsidiary Pecos River Talc LLC, that he be sanctioned for having deleted emails years before being named in the suit, he submitted a brief arguing that he had no duty to preserve emails from 2019 and 2020, and asserting that the company was using “cherry-picked” statements and innuendo to imply he knew he would be sued.
Mesothelioma Scientist Insists His Email Deletion Was Innocent
Dr. Kradin is being sued over an article he published in 2023 titled “Malignant mesothelioma following repeated exposures to cosmetic talc: A case series of 75 patients,” which he co-authored with Drs. Theresa Swain Emory and John Coulter Maddox. In its lawsuit, Pecos River alleged the doctors knew it was false to claim within its article that the 75 patients’ only asbestos exposure was talc products because there were eight overlapping participants referenced within another article subject to similar litigation, despite the authors claiming no overlap existed.
As part of its discovery process, the company found that Dr. Kradin had deleted correspondence regarding the mesothelioma study from his email account several years before its lawsuit was filed. It moved to sanction the mesothelioma expert, arguing that he’d done so deliberately to hide evidence he knew would someday be subjected to litigation, but Dr. Kradin denied this, noting that the company hadn’t shown that any relevant evidence was lost. He asserted that they were speculating that he might have emailed plaintiffs’ attorneys or other experts, even though he’d testified that he’d never communicated with plaintiffs’ attorneys about anything but his deposition and trial testimony.
Mesothelioma Expert Notes Rarity of Litigation Over Scientific Publications
Pecos River had supported its request for sanctions by noting that Dr. Kradin had told his mesothelioma co-authors to “get ready for J&J’s lawyers,” but the scientists countered that his comment referred to anticipating challenges to their testimony as expert witnesses in other litigation. He also said that not that he hadn’t expected to be a defendant in a lawsuit over the scientific article itself, as litigation over peer-reviewed publications is “exceedingly rare.”
Dr. Kradin said that since he had no reason to anticipate becoming a defendant, he had no duty to keep email communications about his mesothelioma research years before the company’s suit was filed, and that conjecture about him sending secret emails about publishing alleged junk science is “wholly implausible.” He also pointed to evidence that he’d cautioned his co-authors via email that their data must be preserved and the article must be “ABSOLUTELY ACCURATE.” He further testified to routinely deleting all his emails \, not just those potentially related to the article, because he doesn’t like having “long chains of emails” in his inbox. Pecos River dismissed this assertion as not being credible.
The lawsuit filed by Johnson & Johnson is part of its overall response to the thousands of mesothelioma and ovarian cancer lawsuits currently pending against it. If you or someone you love has been diagnosed with an asbestos-related disease and you need guidance, contact the Patient Advocates at Mesothelioma.net today at 1-800-692-8608.
