Asbestos in baby powder? A jury says yes

Years after the first baby powder cancer cases have come before a jury, it’s still hard to wrap your head around the fact that something so seemingly benign could be so deadly.

Why, moms have been sprinkling it on babies’ bottoms since 1894!

But along the way, it’s also become apparent that this white powder has a dark side.

Way back in the 1960s, pediatricians were warning moms about the potentially lethal danger of a baby inhaling talcum powder. And in the decades that followed, evidence came out showing how particles of talc — the white, fluffy ingredient in numerous brands of powders — can travel through a woman’s reproductive tract.

In fact, talc has long been linked to deadly ovarian cancer when used by women for personal hygiene. Researchers have even found talc particles in numerous ovarian tumors!

But Johnson & Johnson appears to have been covering these dangers up… and for decades. It’s only in the past two years that the truth has finally come out, thanks to the deluge of lawsuits that have been filed by thousands.

Now, however, the plot thickens – because in the latest in the ongoing litigation against J&J, a jury in St. Louis recently ruled that Johnson’s Baby Powder (along with Shower to Shower) contains one of the most potent cancer-causing substances you can find.

Asbestos!

If it feels like this has left you between a rock and a hard place… not knowing whether you’ll be the next victims of this big baby-powder cover-up… I’ll have a simple solution for you in a moment.

The FDA ‘takes a powder’

In the last couple of years, juries have been able to hold Johnson & Johnson’s feet to the fire for keeping these risks a secret – and in this latest case that confirmed the presence of asbestos in its baby powder, a jury ordered J&J to pay a whopping $4.69 billion to a group of 22 women.

But whenever one of these talc-related cancer cases (there are around a thousand pending) are decided on the side of the plaintiffs, J&J apologists like to say the science isn’t “settled.”

That’s baloney – to be polite.

And with this latest development, the science is so settled that there’s not even any dust left.

The link between asbestos and cancer goes back to the 1930s, and it’s been so well proven since then that even the lackluster EPA (a full 30 years ago!) set about to phase it out of almost every single product made in the U.S., from electrical insulation to brake linings.

And if you think that would make such adulterated baby powder a danger to inhale, you’re absolutely right. Other litigation is currently pending against J&J over mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer caused by asbestos, with one case successfully proving that the asbestos-contaminated powder gave a New Jersey man the deadly disease.

Now, asbestos and baby powder are two things that don’t seem to belong even in the same sentence… much less the same product!

But the asbestos in talc isn’t deliberately added. That lethal mineral often contaminates talc deposits buried in the ground – and when talc is mined, asbestos comes right along with it.

While all traces of asbestos were supposed to have vanished from talcum powders back when we were watching All in the Family on TV, even the FDA isn’t so sure that’s the case.

Commenting on a study done eight years ago (which thank goodness found no asbestos in the samples of talcum powder it tested), the agency said that while its findings were “informative,” they “do not prove” that “most or all” products that contain talc are “likely to be free of asbestos.”

But shockingly enough, baby powder containing pure talc is still being marketed by J&J and other companies — with the FDA’s blessings.

Mark Lanier, the attorney who represented 22 women in a recent case and helped them get that giant settlement, claims that J&J has “covered up the evidence of asbestos in their products” for 40 years.

He suggests that J&J should “pull” its talc products from the market, or, at the very least slap a warning on the containers. And that would certainly make a lot of sense.

What would make even more sense, however, is to simply choose talc-free baby powder — the kind that contains corn starch instead!

“$4.69 billion verdict against Johnson & Johnson’s talcum powder” Jen Christensen, July 13, 2018, CNN, cnn.com