J&J to stop selling talc-based baby powder after 38,000 lawsuits

Written by Adam Solomons on August 16, 2022. Posted in Current News

Johnson & Johnson will stop selling its trademark talc-based baby powder as the pharma giant pays out billions of dollars to women alleging it caused their cancer.

The company has been forced to fight more than 38,000 cases brought by women claiming asbestos in the powder caused deadly ovarian infections.

It has been off sale in the US and Canada since 2020 and will now be discontinued worldwide.

A Reuters investigation in 2018 found that the New Jersey-founded firm knew for decades that traces of the deadly carcinogen were found in its baby powder.

Internal records, trial testimony and other evidence showed that from 1971 to the early 2000s, the company’s raw talc and finished powders contained asbestos.

In 2019 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) recalled the powder after finding asbestos in nine of the 43 bottles tested.

Johnson & Johnson continues to insist the product does not contain asbestos, blaming ‘misinformation’ for the claims.

It said its move to cornstarch-based ingredients was prompted by ‘evolving global trends’.

A spokesperson said: ‘We stand firmly behind the decades of independent scientific analysis by medical experts around the world that confirms talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder is safe, does not contain asbestos and does not cause cancer.’

In an effort to avoid the brunt of the lawsuits, J&J spun off subsidiary LTL Management last October, assigning its talc claims to the company.

J&J then placed LTL into bankruptcy, which stalled the pending lawsuits.

Those suing claim Johnson & Johnson ought to defend itself.

The ‘bankruptcy gimmick is as despicable as it is brazen’ and ‘an unconscionable abuse of the legal system,’ said Linda Lipsen, chief executive of the American Association for Justice, a trial lawyers’ group, in a statement.

But earlier this year, New Jersey judge Michael Kaplan ruled that bankruptcy proceedings will not allow Johnson & Johnson to avoid the class action suits.

Ben Whiting, an attorney with the plaintiffs firm Keller Postman, said because the lawsuits are paused in bankruptcy, the company’s sales decision won’t immediately impact them.

But if a federal appellate court allows the cases to move forward, the consumers could try to use Johnson & Johnson’s decision to pull the products as evidence, Whiting said.

‘If these cases were to go again, then it´s a very big deal,’ Whiting said.

A shareholder proposal calling for an end to global sales of the talc baby powder failed in April.

In response to evidence of asbestos contamination presented in media reports, in court room and on Capitol Hill, J&J has repeatedly said its talc products are safe, and do not cause cancer.

Sold since 1894, Johnson’s Baby Powder became a symbol of the company’s family-friendly image.

An internal J&J marketing presentation from 1999 refers to the baby products division, with Baby Powder at the core, as J&J’s ‘#1 Asset’.

The baby powder accounted for only about 0.5 per cent of its U.S. consumer health business by the time the company pulled it off the shelves.

Mounting suits have not hurt the company much financially, though. According to an analysis by Fierce Pharma, J&J is still the largest pharma company in the world, with revenue even growing by 14 percent last year.

Worldwide distribution of its Covid vaccines, along with many other consumer products, have proved to be a boon for the company.

The most significant case brought against Johnson & Johnson since evidence first linked the company’s baby powder to cancer diagnoses, a jury in St Louis, Missouri decided in 2018 to award 22 women a total of $4.69billion.

It concluded that J&J’s talc-based products contained asbestos, causing the women, six of whom died before they got justice, to develop ovarian cancer.

CEO Alex Gorsky said he hoped the decision would be overturned on appeal, but it was upheld in December 2018, encouraging thousands more to come forward.

Toni Roberts, who died just months after the decision, told Reuters at the time: ‘Justice has been served.’

‘We have made a difference. We have alerted the public.’

Another of the women, Krystal Kim, said she used J&J baby powder several times a day from the age of ten until her early-50s.

She put the powder on bed sheets, carpets, her hair, face and body and even on her dog.

‘They call it baby powder to make it seem innocuous,’ Krystal said.

During the trial, the company’s lawyer, Peter Bicks, said J&J had sympathy for the women, but that J&J was not to blame for their diseases.

‘Just because something terrible happened doesn’t mean that Johnson & Johnson had anything to do with it,’ Bicks said.

See more here: dailymail.co.uk

Editor’s note: If the talc is safe as J&J claims, why would they stop selling it?

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