Asbestos in Talcum Powder
On July 13, 2018, Johnson & Johnson was ordered to pay 4.69 billion in punitive damages to 22 women and their families who claimed that asbestos in the company’s talcum powder had caused them to develop ovarian cancer.
Asbestos is a carcinogen that can cause asbestosis, a scarring of lung tissue. Although it can occur naturally in talc, its inclusion in commercial talcum powders was banned in 1970.
Today, we highlight another controversy of asbestos contaminated talcum powder. This article was written by Steve Lawrence and published in The New York Post in 1971. It discusses study conducted by EPA administrator Jerome Kretchmer on two unnamed baby powders. The results indicated that their asbestos content ranged from 5% to 25%.
In response, Johnson & Johnson issue a statement denying that their products contained any asbestos:
Still, Kretchmer advocated a “better safe than sorry” approach, advising consumers to “look for other alternatives, such as cornstarch, for use as baby powder.”
Still, more than forty years later, we face the same problem once again. We will be posting more documents from our asbestos collection shortly.