January 16, 2024

To Whom It May Concern,

I am not just a name on a piece of paper.

I am more than cancer. I am a daughter, a mother, a grandmother, a sister, an aunt, a friend, a partner.

You don’t recover from cancer. There is only before and after.

I will live with this diagnosis for the rest of my life — which I hope is a long and healthy one.

I trusted a long-standing, family-created company. I believed the commercials. I never felt the need to question an institution like Johnson & Johnson.

Now, I question everything.

I am saddened by the lengths Johnson & Johnson has gone to avoid taking responsibility for a product I used on myself — and at one time, on my baby.

I have lived a healthy life. I have always been active.

And like so many others, I used J&J products daily, trusting it was safe.

My cancer diagnosis came as a shock to me and my family.

There is no history. I had never been sick. I had never had surgery — until now.

I have spoken with many women with ovarian cancer.

Physically, it affects us all differently.

But mentally, we are the same.

We are scared.

Scared of what our future holds.
Scared it will come back.
Scared of dying.

We all know we will die someday.

But with ovarian cancer, we are reminded every three months — with tests, scans, and waiting.

Always waiting.

While we wait, we ask:

Why? How? What did we do?

And now many of us know the answer:

We didn’t do anything.

Johnson & Johnson knowingly continued to produce and market a product that has devastated lives.

The legal maneuvering that followed only makes that clearer.

Please fight for us. Please fight for your mothers and your daughters.

They must be held accountable.

If money is the only consequence, then it should hurt.

Sincerely,

Dana Smith Kurtbek