The wording is that “researchers concealed”, which is what they need to prove.
Keep in mind, it was that same research that cost them billions of dollars and tens of thousands of lawsuits, so anything to invalidate the original papers is going to benefit them.
This finding basically cuts J&J’s apparent argument off at the knees
It might be quite the opposite! The study itself concludes that “for individuals with mixed exposures to asbestos, all exposures should be considered”.
If J&J is saying what I think they are saying, then the researchers made these products look more harmful than they were, and included people who would have been harmed by other exposure to asbestos but concealed that fact in the study.
Either way, J&J did a horrible thing by having asbestos-laden products in the market. I’m not on their side at all, but I also don’t like bad science, so the outcome of this lawsuit will interest me regardless of who wins.