Johnson & Johnson says its product is safe. But asbestos, a carcinogen that can exist underground near talc, was a concern inside the company for decades.
The memos were concise and direct.
An executive at Johnson & Johnson said the main ingredient in its best-selling baby powder could potentially be contaminated by asbestos, the dangerous mineral that can cause cancer. He recommended to senior staff in 1971 that the company “upgrade” its quality control of talc.
Two years later, another executive raised a red flag, saying the company should no longer assume that its talc mines were asbestos-free. The powder, he said, sometimes contained materials that “might be classified as asbestos fiber.”
The carcinogen, which often appears underground near talc, has been a concern inside the company for decades. In hundreds of pages of memos, executives worried about a potential government ban of talc, the safety of the product and a public backlash over Johnson’s Baby Powder, a brand built on a reputation for trustworthiness and health.
Executives proposed new testing procedures or replacing talc outright, while trying to discredit research suggesting that the powder could be contaminated with asbestos, according to corporate documents unearthed by litigation, government records obtained by The New York Times through the Freedom of Information Act, and interviews with scientists and lawyers.
In one instance, Johnson & Johnson demanded that the government block unfavorable findings from being made public. An executive ultimately won assurances from an official at the Food and Drug Administration that the findings would be issued only “over my dead body,” a memo summarizing the meeting said.
Those efforts are now forming the crux of a new legal front in a long-running battle over Johnson’s Baby Powder, potentially leaving the company exposed in nearly 12,000 lawsuits across the country claiming that the product can cause cancer.
This summer, 22 women with ovarian cancer successfully sued the company, arguing that Johnson & Johnson knew about the connection between talc and asbestos. A jury in St. Louis awarded them $4.69 billion, one of the largest personal injury verdicts ever.
The company lost two other cases this year, in California and New Jersey, brought by people with mesothelioma, a cancer of the lining of internal organs that is associated with asbestos.
The prospect of asbestos “puts the defense in a much more difficult position,” said Nathan Schachtman, a lawyer who has defended asbestos companies. “You get a much higher degree of indignation from juries.”
Shares of Johnson & Johnson dropped 10 percent on Friday on an article by Reuters about the asbestos concerns related to Johnson’s Baby Powder.
Johnson & Johnson is appealing the three asbestos-related cases. The company has won three cases related to mesothelioma, while four others were declared mistrials.
The company defends the safety of its baby powder, saying that it has never contained asbestos and that the claims are based on “junk science.” Johnson & Johnson says that the lawyers in the cases have “cherry-picked” the memos, and that they instead show the company’s focus on safety.
“Johnson & Johnson’s talc has been tested by scientists at multiple entities since the early 1970s up to the present,” said Peter Bicks, a partner at Orrick, one of the law firms representing the company in the lawsuits. “None of these routine tests over the past 50 years detected the presence of asbestos.”
For more than a century, Johnson & Johnson has promoted its baby powder as pure and gentle enough for babies’ bottoms, a product that mothers can trust, made by a company that puts customers first.
The company’s image has long been bound up in the product and its iconic white bottle, even though baby powder counts for only a sliver of overall sales. Its fragrance is said to be among the most recognizable in the world. Employees have called it a “sacred cow” in emails, according to court documents.
Krystal Kim, a 53-year-old mother of two from Philadelphia, was 10 when her mother suggested she use Johnson’s Baby Powder to stay “fresh” and “clean smelling.” She continued using it for decades, on her face, between her legs and on her sheets. Many women use baby powder as a feminine hygiene product, applying it to their bodies and breathing in airborne powder.
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/business/baby-powder-asbestos-johnson-johnson.html
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