Johnson & Johnson Has a Baby Powder Problem

April 14, 2016 5:52 PM

More than 1,000 women and their families are suing J&J and Imerys, claiming the companies have known of the association with ovarian cancer for years and failed to warn them. The next trial is scheduled to begin on April 11 in a St. Louis circuit court. “Whether or not the science indicates that Baby Powder is a cause of ovarian cancer, Johnson & Johnson has a very significant breach of trust,” says Julie Hennessy, a marketing professor at Northwestern’s Kellogg School of Management. “In trying to protect this one business, they’ve put the whole J&J brand at risk.”
posted by Bella Donna (38 comments total)

Holy shit, I had no idea about this. Thank you. Going to throw out my talcum powder right now.
posted by gusandrews at 6:14 PM on April 14, 2016

Similar to douches: products marketed by sheer horror at the very idea of a vagina.
posted by Dashy at 6:29 PM on April 14, 2016

Yeah, I'm like it's in the makeup my kid wears and it's being put on my grandson and that's okay because the FDA doesn't get to regulate makeup or baby powder so they get to be poisoned anyway, WTF?
posted by Bella Donna at 6:42 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Also, never mind that woman are getting cancer, an entire brand is at risk. Thanks, professor!
posted by Bella Donna at 6:44 PM on April 14, 2016 [16 favorites]

I had my baby two years ago and we got several containers of baby powder with different gift sets. I had no idea it was a problem and probably would have used it all the time if we hadn't gone to an infant care class at the hospital. How is ignoring the dangers possibly better for their brand?
posted by mmmbacon at 6:47 PM on April 14, 2016 [2 favorites]

This article from a UK based cancer research charity provides an interesting counterpoint to the OP.
posted by motty at 6:50 PM on April 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

Since there are cornstarch-based alternatives, seems like an appropriate place to use the precautionary principle.
posted by larrybob at 6:56 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

This makes me shudder.

Is there no evidence to the contrary -- I mean, it really is this clear-cut? Jesus, I'd rather stay sweaty.
posted by wenestvedt at 7:02 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Yes, and Ed Yong, who wrote that piece for the British cancer group is one of the world's most respected science writers. Still, given that it's a completely inessential product with a substitute that seems to have no similar issues and a cancer that is both deadly and hard to detect, this is definitely a case where there's no reason to take the risk, even if it may turn out not to exist.

Talc also apparently is bad for dance floors— they ban it at some studios for that reason. No idea why.
posted by Maias at 7:04 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

I’d read about this recently and it seems to me "whether or not the science indicates any causal link" is a very bad premise for any legal action, especially because the science is not indicating any causal link - or even "any substantial association".
posted by bitteschoen at 7:04 PM on April 14, 2016 [14 favorites]

Among the most painful revelations, he says, was that in the 1990s, even as the company acknowledged concerns in the health community, it considered increasing its marketing efforts to black and Hispanic women, who were already buying the product in high numbers.

I remember my grandmother using a lot of scented products--not baby powder in this specific fashion, that I would have known about anyway, but just a lot of things that were intended to cover up smells. A lot of cosmetics. A lot of hair products. A lot of cleaning products that were meant to impart "fresh" more than they were meant to remove dirt, which she already was doing aggressively beforehand. And I realized later that she'd spent the last 50 years of her life in Ohio in a mostly-white community where the implication of being Mexican--as it would have been for being black--was that you were dirty. Unkempt, unwashed, sweaty, greasy. She spent a small fortune on Avon products like they were charms, protections against any such accusation. I remember there was a whole cabinet full of old perfume bottles. She didn't really have the money for that sort of thing, not even if it wasn't fancy department store stuff, but it was a question of dignity.

I hate the fact that I live in this world when I read a sentence like that and the first thing I think is that of course they make us dirty and then they sell us a version of "clean" that kills us. Of course they do. That's just how the world works, now. The more rational part of me thinks that, sure, it's possible this isn't actually a direct causal link... but that there is some very entrenched racism here in the fact that they considered this an acceptable risk, to keep marketing it even while it was an open question.
posted by Sequence at 7:26 PM on April 14, 2016 [31 favorites]

Also, if you search clinical studies on "talc and ovarian cancer" you also come across studies that, while also finding "no evidence that perineal application of talc was associated with increased risk", did find "a statistically significant… association between hair dyeing and risk of ovarian cancer", so... where’s the legal action against all manufacturers of hair dyeing products?

I guess it’s so much more convenient and easy to sue a single manufacturer with a well-known product, but that doesn’t make it any less dubious from a scientific perspective. I don’t know, I just recoil at statements like "not being able to prove how talc powder could contribute to cancer doesn’t relieve a company of the responsibility to warn women of the association".

Imagine if that kind of "logic" was applied to every product and ingredient and component on sale, the labels would have to be entire booklets attached to the packaging... "This product may or may not have any statistically significant association with an increased risk of any known forms of cancer, but we’re just warning you just in case, so you cannot sue us later".
posted by bitteschoen at 7:27 PM on April 14, 2016 [16 favorites]

I remember my grandmother using a lot of scented products--not baby powder in this specific fashion, that I would have known about anyway, but just a lot of things that were intended to cover up smells. A lot of cosmetics. A lot of hair products. A lot of cleaning products that were meant to impart "fresh" more than they were meant to remove dirt, which she already was doing aggressively beforehand. And I realized later that she'd spent the last 50 years of her life in Ohio in a mostly-white community where the implication of being Mexican--as it would have been for being black--was that you were dirty. Unkempt, unwashed, sweaty, greasy. She spent a small fortune on Avon products like they were charms, protections against any such accusation. I remember there was a whole cabinet full of old perfume bottles. She didn't really have the money for that sort of thing, not even if it wasn't fancy department store stuff, but it was a question of dignity.

Not to continue the derail too much, but is it possible you're extrapolating a little bit more than necessary? I grew up in the San Fernando/Pacoima area of Los Angeles with tons of family(my Mom's seven sisters and their kids, almost all settled within a five mile square region), Mexicans in an area with a large Mexican population going back decades, to this day. OMG, they went wild over stuff like Avon. Scented things, makeup, sprays, tonics, all that jazz. Is it not possible your mom just liked the stuff? I know my Mom still does. Yes, her cohort was fastidious to a fault (don't get me started with her thing about ironing clothes), but I have doubts that it was all white people's fault.

Imagine if that kind of "logic" was applied to every product and ingredient and component on sale, the labels would have to be entire booklets attached to the packaging... "This product may or may not have any statistically significant association with an increased risk of any known forms of cancer, but we’re just warning you just in case, so you cannot sue us later".

Have you heard of California Proposition 65?
posted by 2N2222 at 8:10 PM on April 14, 2016

Have you heard of California Proposition 65?
posted by 2N2222

Yes, but before I respond, I am obligated to inform you that the contents of this comment are known to the State of California...
posted by TheNewWazoo at 8:20 PM on April 14, 2016 [12 favorites]

It is science vs. one verdict in a state court that will likely be reduced, if not totally reversed on appeal.
posted by humanfont at 8:52 PM on April 14, 2016

Johnson & Johnson seems to have a lawsuit problem far more than they have a baby powder problem.
posted by a box and a stick and a string and a bear at 9:16 PM on April 14, 2016

Interesting to see this in the news again! I very recently had to review the literature on this to write my thesis intro. The 2008 article linked above is still pretty much correct - several studies do show a (fairly small) risk increase with talc use for many years, but many other studies show no effect of talc. So with the current evidence, we can't really confidently say that there is a link or that there is not a link.

I would not recommend using talc, mostly because it's not particularly essential anyway, but if you've been using it for years I wouldn't freak out too much about any increased risk you may have. If there is any real increase at all, it's a small one. Best to focus on the things with known carcinogenic effects (which millions of people ignore).

It's pretty weird that they can sue "whether or not the science indicates that Baby Powder is a cause of ovarian cancer"....there must be more to it than that. Maybe some kind of sketchy behaviour by the company that isn't discussed in the article?

A couple comments on the article:

J&J and Imerys, the talc supplier, argue that the statistical associations between use of the powder and ovarian cancer are limited, weak, and based on unreliable data. - this is true

They say a causal link isn’t biologically plausible - this is not. It's entirely plausible. There's a decent rationale. But there is no consistent evidence for it, either experimentally or in the epidemiological studies the lawsuit is based on.

Also I wish the article would go into more detail about how they analyzed the existing research to come up with the numbers they did, because e.g. a 33% increased risk is about the highest risk reported in any of the studies I'm familiar with, so I'm suspicious that they're doing something fishy like only combining the studies showing an increased risk while conveniently leaving the ones that show no increased risk out of their "average".
posted by randomnity at 9:49 PM on April 14, 2016 [8 favorites]

Maias: "
Talc also apparently is bad for dance floors— they ban it at some studios for that reason. No idea why."

Talc is a micro abrasive; it probably acts like sand paper.
posted by Mitheral at 10:39 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

Never used it; not because we thought it was dangerous but because it served no purpose and smelt disgusting.
posted by Segundus at 11:33 PM on April 14, 2016 [1 favorite]

If there's a lawsuit that needs to happen, it's one about "Glade Plugins" and other scented bullshit products. Talk about inviting cancer into your house.
posted by five fresh fish at 12:13 AM on April 15, 2016 [7 favorites]

Not a professional chemist here, but talcum is a clay mineral. It's composed mostly of things that are largely inert, especially in the form in which you encounter them in talc. A cursory check says that its chemical formula is Mg3Si4O10(OH)2. That's magnesium, silicon, oxygen and hydroxide (one oxygen and hydrogen atom bonded together).

For reference, the chemical formula for feldspars - literally the most common mineral found in earth's crust and a large component of many soils - is varying amounts of aluminum, silicon, oxygen, sodium, potassium, and calcium. The magnesium in talc is also found in chlorophyll - just about every plant you eat - and the silicon is everywhere, in sand and quartz, the second most common mineral in earth's crust.

I have no real reason to believe that talc is any more dangerous than the dirt you touch, or the plants you eat. Is it safe to breathe? Is it safe to put in your genitals or any part of your body internally? Probably not, but you really shouldn't be breathing any solids, or putting grit in your body and that includes all the common dusts. I very much doubt that the talc in most peoples' lives is even a fraction as harmful as the vehicle fumes we all breathe regularly (if you can smell the gasoline, it's not good for you) or the many, many, many common household products that contain carcinogens.

There's no particular reason to use talc powder unless it's needed, it doesn't need to be on your body. But, let's be clear here: there is not substantial evidence that it causes harm even close to the level of all the carcinogens you are exposed to on a very regular basis, that live in so many common products. Assuming you're not breathing it or rubbing it in yourself, this is less harmful to you than the exposure to volatile organic compounds you will get from mowing your lawn. I don't know what's in the scents or other additives in the product - it could be that there's something bad in there - but talc and talcum powder pose no real threat to human health in any way unless you breathe them, eat them, or otherwise put them inside you. Don't breathe metals of any kind and avoid breathing solids. Your respiratory system is the most vulnerable, and incidentally, is under threat near constantly from all manner of industrial gases. Silicosis happens because you're breathing silica particles, not because silica is harmful to you when you touch it. Inherently dangerous is different from "causes harm in the wrong place"

Don't throw away talcum powder because of this article. Throw it away because you don't need it, if you feel like it. Maybe they marketed it for putting it on yourself, and they shouldn't have done that - nothing should really be put on your genitals. But if you read this article and consider baby powder a cause for concern, I have news for you: your life is full of far more damaging things. I spent five years as an environmental consultant testing soil, groundwater, and air. As part of the air screening, I had to survey the buildings for common sources of volatile organic compounds. Pretty much every building has something, somewhere, that could possibly be a source. You'd be surprised how many carcinogens live under your sink or in your basement or even in the materials with which your house was built. Or how many carcinogens are emitted by a nice, all-natural camp fire.

Don't breathe solids, dusts, or metals. Don't put things on your genitals that aren't medically recommended. I don't think using corn starch will necessarily be better.

Regarding the pull quote, oh boy. J&J has done far worse things to breach people's trust - like troublingly persistent quality control problems and a long history of far worse abuses.

Not to minimize the issues felt by the people in this article, but if you're serious about protecting yourself from harm and bad products, there are a lot of other places to look. Nothing in this is even close to the respiratory damage (or radiation!) experienced collectively by U.S. citizens as a result of burning coal. Talcum powder, without additives, is exactly as dangerous as clay. That is to say, very fine particles of dirt. And that's why it's not exactly regulated in the U.S. They're not about to regulate minerals like they're foods. We're not regulating the many chemicals sold and in products. That's a much more important target for regulation than a powdered common mineral.
posted by Strudel at 12:31 AM on April 15, 2016 [35 favorites]

I've started seeing the ambulance chasers run TV ads looking for plaintiffs who have had ovarian cancer and used talcum powder. When those scumsuckers are running television ads you know they smell blood in the water.
posted by Justinian at 1:45 AM on April 15, 2016

I was confused when I heard this on the news because I buy J&J baby powder regularly, for at least the past 15 years, and it's always been cornstarch. Even weirder is, I've seen it on the shelf in Southeast Asia, same J&J, same scent, and there it's made from talc.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 3:03 AM on April 15, 2016

2N2222: no but wow, thanks for that link, that’s some impressive law... substances with "1 in 100,000 chance of causing cancer". And warnings on the back of coffee mugs too... I’m seriously impressed with a legal system that is brave enough to go beyond science, and aim for the heights of the rarest of probabilities, it’s almost poetic, how it makes the concept of warning about potentially harmful substances completely useless. Nice one, California!

On the J&J talc lawsuit - what’s fascinating to me is also that growing up in Italy the oldest most common brand of talc I’m familiar with is actually this one, "made in Florence since the 1800s, according to old recipes". And of course they haven’t had any legal trouble about that. But it’s the same basic product, or at least same component, right? Talc is talc, no matter what recipe, there are probably other local brands in other parts of the world, despite J&J’s omnipresence. But they’d be smaller brands and in legal systems where it’s not easy to start that kind of lawsuit.

Now, lawsuits aside, I was curious about how talc is actually regulated by official bodies, so I googled talc and safety regulations and came up with this "Get the facts" web page for the "campaign for safe cosmetics" claiming that "Talc is restricted in the European Union", and another website, by a law firm, even going further to claim that "the possibility of asbestos-free talc being carcinogenic has prompted the European Union to ban talc-based cosmetics altogether". And that claim even made it to Buzzfeed - "the ingredient is still banned in the EU".

I read it and thought, wait, that’s not true, talc and talc-based cosmetics are still sold all over the place, what are they talking about? So I googled a bit more based on a very vague unhelpful reference from the Safe Cosmetics website to some "European Commission Annex III" and eventually landed on the EU regulations on cosmetics supposedly being referred to there – Regulation (EC) No 1223/2009 and Directive 76/768/EEC - and there is indeed a reference to talc in Annex III, which is the "LIST OF SUBSTANCES WHICH COSMETIC PRODUCTS MUST NOT CONTAIN EXCEPT SUBJECT TO THE RESTRICTIONS LAID DOWN" (not Annex II which is "LIST OF SUBSTANCES PROHIBITED IN COSMETIC PRODUCTS"), and that reference to talc in there is about "powdery products intended to be used for children under 3 years of age" and the only restriction mentioned is a "Wording of conditions of use and warnings" and... guess what it is? You’ll be shocked: "keep powder away from children’s nose and mouth".

That’s all - as far as I can gather searching all over EU legislation, that’s the only restriction, a requirement for a simple warning on the label of talc powder, so it’s a bit disingenous to translate it into "talc is restricted" and decidedly false to turn it into "banned in the EU", right?

Now I am as familiar as anyone with the amount of misinformation and confusion you can come across, online and offline, about safety of individual products and components of all kinds, but this is the first time I read such a blatant claim that something is banned when it’s not.
posted by bitteschoen at 3:46 AM on April 15, 2016 [10 favorites]

When I was first pregnant six years ago, the hospital child birth educator advised our Lamaze class not to use baby powder because it had been linked to respiratory problems in babies. This was in a very conservative area. We called it "monster truck nation." Not at all the "all natural, organic" community I am from. Needless to say, when the hospital nurse advised us this, I listened to her because I was kind of shocked she was giving us any kind of environmental warnings. But I also just thought it was unnecessary to use baby powder any way. Around the same time, there were news stories about formaldehyde in J&J bubble bath. All this is to say, being a parent is hard. I have zero respect for a company marketing products to babies and parents that is not 100% honest and confident of its product's safety.
posted by areaperson at 6:17 AM on April 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Is there a resource available that lists maybe on the X axis how common a carcinogen is, and on the Y axis how dangerous it is? I'd like to focus my anxiety on the "low hanging fruit" as it were.
posted by rebent at 6:50 AM on April 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Talcum powder, without additives, is exactly as dangerous as clay. That is to say, very fine particles of dirt. And that's why it's not exactly regulated in the U.S. They're not about to regulate minerals like they're foods. We're not regulating the many chemicals sold and in products. That's a much more important target for regulation than a powdered common mineral.

You mean like asbestos?
posted by one_bean at 7:47 AM on April 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

Strudel - while I appreciate your point there are much worse carcinogens... did you read the article? Regardless of the effect of talc vs industrial chemicals and products of incomplete combustion, there is evidence that talc might be a concern. The article mentions that the effect size in several of the studies has been higher than HRT. If talc isn't necessary, why not pitch it for being a potential carcinogen?
posted by anthropophagous at 8:04 AM on April 15, 2016

rebent - you could at least start with alcohol, tobacco, charred meat, cured meat, and tanning. here's some others.

your effect size, standard error and mileage may vary
posted by anthropophagous at 8:11 AM on April 15, 2016

But, let's be clear here: there is not substantial evidence that it causes harm even close to the level of all the carcinogens you are exposed to on a very regular basis, that live in so many common products.

I can respect that, but it's scary they found talc INSIDE ovarian tumors. I don't use but I wouldn't be comfortable with any woman I know using it.
posted by agregoli at 9:07 AM on April 15, 2016

Maybe they marketed it for putting it on yourself, and they shouldn't have done that - nothing should really be put on your genitals.

I would not have survived being a bartender in South Florida without gold bond powder and it would have been embarrassing to tell people at the pearly gates that I died of an infected ****** friction burn. I would have been willing to use a cornstarch based product instead but nothing would have been a non-starter.
posted by phearlez at 9:29 AM on April 15, 2016 [2 favorites]

Well, no one has mentioned this yet, but I presumed it might be the structure of the talc that might be a problem. I had heard about talc being a problem years ago. It seems there are a lot of sceptics here, and with good reason. I just though it might be a problem like silicosis, or asbestos.
posted by annsunny at 11:32 AM on April 15, 2016

Anthropophagous: I read the article. Talc is indeed not necessary, but I'm pointing out that if it is a carcinogen, it's carcinogenic because dirt is a carcinogen. This is a really common mineral, and its composition is not very different from the MOST common minerals. Assuming there's no asbestos in it - and I grant that they may very well have asbestos in it at some time or another.

Remember my repeated comments about not putting things in your genitals or not using them unless it's actually necessary? I don't doubt that talc particles could have caused those problems. But I DO doubt that if it was pure talc, that it was any worse than any other foreign particle in the same place may have been. By all means, hold these companies accountable for shoddy manufacturing processes - and as I've pointed out, J&J has had many issues wight his in the past. But talcum is often a component of dirt. If this is a carcinogen, so too is kitty litter and many cosmetics and many, many other common products. I wouldn't suggest you put ANYTHING on your genitals, and I recently learned that Listerine mouthwash was originally a household cleaning product they marketed by pushing the fears of bad breath on people. Avoid these products because you don't need them, not because common minerals may cause cancer. Avoid J&J products because of their history of negligence, not because talcum powder is now a scary cancer risk. There are studies saying it is, and studies saying it's not. Guarantee you are exposed to far less ambiguous risks, daily.

Either way, I'll repeat it for clarity: Don't put dry fine particles in your body, period, if you can avoid it. If they're wet, they'll fall right off with the application of more water. Dust of all kinds is a real hazard, as people have pointed out with silicosis and the like. Don't breathe sand!
posted by Strudel at 11:38 AM on April 15, 2016

I honestly didn't know that powdering your (adult) genitals was a thing.
posted by Gwynarra at 12:39 PM on April 15, 2016

I honestly didn't know that powdering your (adult) genitals was a thing.

Me neither, which makes me wonder if it's a cultural or regional thing - a correlation but not a causation; e.g. people who share similar genes having a a higher risk for ovarian cancer.

Still, I use baby powder to de-grease by bangs and now I'm wondering if I have forehead cancer.
posted by Brain Sturgeon at 1:04 PM on April 15, 2016

Mark my words, genital powdering is our new "wipe while sitting or standing" thread. I predict an FPP, robust over sharing, and expressions of shock, confusion, and horror within the week
posted by five fresh fish at 10:59 PM on April 15, 2016 [1 favorite]

My guess is that those of you who have never considered the possibility of using talc or cornstarch in easily chafed areas live in fairly low humidity places and/or do not work outside. As someone who does field work for days in the summer in the US southeast (especially in the summers I worked in the temperate rain forest of the Black Mountain Range in North Carolina), using nothing can be really uncomfortable, as phearlez notes.
posted by hydropsyche at 4:53 AM on April 16, 2016 [1 favorite]

The article mentions that the effect size in several of the studies has been higher than HRT.

I almost included this in my earlier list of problems with the article, but didn't want to start a derail. Their source is either misinformed or deliberately being misleading. For one thing, the effect size of HRT is higher than their "33% increased risk" for talc, even if you believe that (which again, I don't). A recent, very comprehensive meta-analysis of the existing data on HRT found that the overall risk increase was about 40% for current or recent users. (Their source may be thinking of earlier meta-analyses which showed a lower increase, closer to 20%, but this study is very high quality, done by experts in the field, and includes newer information. It's open access if you want to read it, and please feel free to me-mail me if you want me to explain any of the science jargon, I don't mind at all)

More importantly, HRT has been studied in many, many more women than talc, and the results have been far more consistent - most studies do show an increased risk. And perhaps even more importantly still, there is extensive experimental evidence that estrogen promotes ovarian cancer initiation and growth, but little to no evidence that talc does. (If you don't believe me, do a quick search on pubmed for ovarian cancer and estrogen vs. talc and see how many results you get)

In other words, HRT and talc are worlds apart and equating them like this is offensively misleading as someone who works in the field.

And to put this into context, even with long-term HRT use, you're going from a roughly 1.5% lifetime risk of ovarian cancer to maybe a 2% risk. Not something to ignore, ovarian cancer is awful, but even this confirmed risk factor has a much lower effect size than, for example, alcohol has on several different cancer locations with as few as two drinks a day. Alcohol and HRT aren't banned because they have benefits as well as risks, and weighing those risks is a personal choice.

I still wouldn't suggest using talc if there's a less-potentially-risky alternative, but if talc has any effect at all on ovarian cancer, it's a drop in the bucket compared to other risk factors.
posted by randomnity at 2:43 PM on April 16, 2016