J&J and its Controversial Baby Powder
Febe Christian/01043170092
(Reuters, The Guardian, AP) After there were thousands of lawsuits that J&J powder caused cancers, for decades the company has been trying to shore up weakening sales using advertisements that are aimed at specific types of woman.
Image from: CNBN.com
Johnson & Johnson and its signature Baby Powder has been pressured for quite a long time. In 2006, cosmetic talc such as Baby Powder was beginning to be classified as “possibly carcinogenic” by an arm of the World Health Organization when women had been using it as a genital antiperspirant and deodorant for many years. Talc supplier Luzenac America Inc was the one that started including that information on its shipments to J&J and other customers.
But J&J still looked for ways to sell more Baby Powder to two main groups of longtime users: African-American and overweight women. J&J then turned their proposals into action, and distributed Baby Powder samples through churches and beauty salons in African-American and Hispanic neighborhoods, did promotions with weight-loss and wellness company called Weight Watchers and launched a $300,000 radio advertising campaign aimed to “curvy Southern women 18-49 skewing African American.”
After pediatricians started warning the danger to infants inhaling talc, adults have been the main users of Johnson’s Baby Powder since at least the 1970. As adults became ever more crucial to the brand – accounting for 91 percent of Baby Powder use by the mid-2000s – J&J honed its powder pitches to court a variety of targeted markets, from teen-focused ads touting the product’s “fresh and natural” qualities, to promotions aimed at older minority and overweight women.
Today, women who fall into those categories make up a large number of the 13,000 plaintiffs alleging that J&J’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower, a powder brand the company sold off in 2012, caused their ovarian cancer or mesothelioma.
Many of the ovarian cancer lawsuits have blamed the disease on perineal use of J&J cosmetic talcs – a claim supported by some studies showing an association between such use and increased cancer risk. The most recent cases have alleged that J&J’s talc products contained asbestos, long a known carcinogen.
Award in Johnson & Johnson cancer case
In California, jury has awarded $29m to a woman who claimed that Johnson & Johnson’s talcum powder-based contained asbestos that caused her cancer. The California superior court in Oakland marks the latest defeat for the healthcare conglomerate facing more than 13,000 talc-related lawsuits nationwide.
Johnson & Johnson argued that the woman had fundamentally failed to show that its baby powder contains asbestos. They also stated that they respect the legal process and reiterate that jury verdicts are not medical, scientific or regulatory conclusions about a product.
The company that is based on New Jersey denies that its talc causes cancer, and that it has shown that it is safe and asbestos-free from numerous studies and tests by regulators worldwide.
The lawsuit was brought by Terry Leavitt, who said she used Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower – another powder containing talc sold in the past – in the 1960s and 1970s and was diagnosed with mesothelioma in 2017. It was the first of more than a dozen talc cases against the company scheduled for trial in 2019. The nine-week trial began on 7 January and included testimony from nearly a dozen experts on both sides. The jury deliberated for two days before delivering its verdict.
Jurors found the talc-based products used by Leavitt were defective and that the company had failed to warn consumers of the health risks, awarding $29.4m in damages to Leavitt and her husband. The jury declined to award punitive damages.
Image from: Evan Allgood
J&J has already known from a long time about asbestos in its baby power
It is reported by Reuters that there are documents that show consulting labs as early as 1957 and 1958 found asbestos in J&J talc. According to the Reuters story, further reports by the company and outside labs showed similar findings through the early 2000s. But Johnson & Johnson denied the report and stated that thousands of independent tests by regulators and the world’s leading labs have proven that its baby powder never contained asbestos.
Image by: Dan Peled
Reuters cited documents released as part of a lawsuit by plaintiffs claiming that the product can be linked to ovarian cancer. The New Brunswick, New Jersey company has battled in court against such claims and called the Reuters report “one-sided, false and inflammatory.”
When the report by the Reuters news service came out, it made the company’s stock to fell for $14.84, or 10 percent, making it the most severe single-day decline since 2002.
Sources:
Reuters: https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsonandjohnson-marketing/
AP: https://www.apnews.com/118c26257e434a53959d6f827f4115b9
The Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/mar/14/woman-awarded-29m-in-damages-in-johnson-johnson-cancer-case