Asbestos exposure in Johnson & Johnson talcum powder products can lead to mesothelioma and ovarian cancer, thus worrying the population using this type of product. There is an enormous number of talcum powder lawsuits against Johnson & Johnson due to its negligence, lack of warning, and weak preventive action concerning the carcinogenic risks of the company’s talc products and the increased risk it brings to the health of its consumers.
Talcum Powder and Health Risks
The journal Ovarian Cancer, Cancer Prevention Research, “Cancer Prevention Research,” released a study arguing that women who used talcum powder for intimate hygiene were at a 20 to 30 percent increased risk of developing ovarian cancer.
This increased risk of ovarian cancer is the basis for several lawsuits filed against Johnson & Johnson. Johnson & Johnson was recently ordered to pay $72 million for a talc-related trial. The carcinogenic effects of asbestos are well-studied. In 1973, the U.S. passed a law requiring all household talcum powder to be asbestos-free.
The International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies the use of talcum powder for intimate cleansing as a “possible human carcinogen.
A real expert on the subject of asbestos, Francisco Báez, perhaps the person who knows the most about it in Spain (and part of the foreigner) and author of the book Asbestos: An Impune Genocide, tells me that the most reliable evidence corresponds to talc from the Vanderbilt mine.
The type of asbestos that naturally pollutes talc and steatite (the “soap” that tailors use to mark and of which the statue of the ‘Christ of the Sugar Loaf’ is made, in Brazil), is called tremolite.
Talcum Powder Lawsuits
In recent years, Johnson & Johnson has faced lawsuits for damages caused by its hip replacement parts, vaginal mesh, and prescription drugs.
In the current lawsuits brought against Johnson & Johnson baby powder, there are claims that the company should have taken steps to prevent customers from developing cancerous conditions such as ovarian cancer and mesothelioma. Since the first study linking talc to cancer, the discovery process has revealed that the company had enough time to inform consumers about the danger of its talc-based products.
Talcum powder has been the subject of lawsuits for years by private individuals who claim that their favorite cosmetic product has caused cancer. One of the first to file one of these lawsuits was a woman named Darlene Coker in 1997. Coker contended that the company’s continued use of talcum powder had caused mesothelioma, a type of asbestos exposure-related condition.
According to Reuters, the company refused to provide internal documents about the amount of asbestos in its talc mining operations and products because that would have revealed that Coker was right. The woman resigned in 1999 and died ten years later.
Since her case, there have been more than 11,000 cases in which the plaintiffs have blamed talcum powder for causing various health problems such as ovarian cancer or mesothelioma. Many of these lawsuits resulted in multi-million dollar penalties against the company.
