The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), though it dropped the non-fibrous forms of the minerals from its definition of asbestos in 1992, nonetheless recommends that fiber-shaped fragments indistinguishable from asbestos be counted in its exposure tests. … She just wanted to know why. At the time, J&J’s Baby Powder franchise was consuming 20,000 tons of Vermont talc a year. #LuvdByErica #TheCryerFamily #RoadTo30K #LikeCommentSubscribe Hi there supporters! J&J, based in New Brunswick, New Jersey, has dominated the talc powder market for more than 100 years, its sales outpacing those of all competitors combined, according to Euromonitor International data. Talc’s safe use has been confirmed by multiple regulatory and scientific bodies.”. J&J’s worry at the time was that contaminants made the company’s powder abrasive. Then, in 1992, three years after J&J sold its Vermont mines, the new owner, Cyprus Minerals, said in an internal report on “important environmental issues” in its talc reserves that there was “past tremolite” in the Hammondsville deposit. Many plaintiffs allege that the amounts they inhaled when they dusted themselves with tainted talcum powder were enough. The doctor told Ashton that J&J was receiving safety questions from pediatricians. The World Health Organization and other authorities recognize no safe level of exposure to asbestos. It does its job by absorbing moisture, which in turn keeps the delicate skin in the diaper area dry and smooth. Bicks noted that the Italian study has been updated three times – in 1979, 2003 and 2017 – “confirming the lack of association between exposure to asbestos-free talc, lung cancer and mesothelioma.”. Nutribiotic Natural Body & Foot Powder. Buy top selling products like Baby Brezza® Formula Pro Advanced Formula Dispenser and Noodle & Boo® 8.8 oz.& Delicate Baby Powder. Talcum Powder Lawsuits. Baby Powder von Demeter Fragrance Library die volle Ladung lieblicher und extrem trockner Badypuder! In 1972, President Richard Nixon’s newly created OSHA issued its first rule, setting limits on workplace exposure to asbestos dust. Now, it says, quoting the industry’s standards, that all cosmetic talc products in the United States “should be free from detectable amounts of asbestos.”, The revised ACS web page also notes that the World Health Organization’s International Agency for Research on Cancer classifies talc that contains asbestos as “carcinogenic to humans.”, Despite the success of J&J’s efforts to promote the safety of its talc, the company’s test lab found asbestos fibers in samples taken from the Vermont operation in 1984, 1985 and 1986. “This philosophy, so far, has allowed us to neutralize or hold in check data already generated by investigators who question the safety of talc.”, Also, the memo said, “we minimize the risk of possible self-generation of scientific data which may be politically or scientifically embarrassing.”. Hobson agreed to postpone his discovery demands until he got the pathology report on Coker’s lung tissue. In a memo, a J&J lab supervisor said the concentration technique, which the company’s own researchers had earlier used to identify a “tremolite-type” asbestos in Vermont talc, had one limitation: “It may be too sensitive.”, “No mother was going to powder her baby with 1% of a known carcinogen irregardless of the large safety factor.”. Hobson asked J&J for any research it had into the health of its mine workers; talc production records from the mid-1940s through the 1980s; depositions from managers of three labs that tested talc for J&J; and any documents related to testing for fibrous or asbestiform materials. Without evidence from J&J and no hope of ever getting any, Hobson advised Coker to drop the suit. It sent tons of its Italian talc to a private lab in Columbus, Ohio, to find ways to improve the appearance, feel and purity of the powder by removing as much “grit” as possible. When customers complained of skin irritation, the brothers sent packets of talc. It also found no mesothelioma, the signature cancer of asbestos exposure. “When people really understand what’s going on, I think it increases J&J’s exposure a thousand-fold,” said Mark Lanier, one of the lawyers for the women in the St. Louis case. Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe. The documents also depict successful efforts to influence U.S. regulators’ plans to limit asbestos in cosmetic talc products and scientific research on the health effects of talc. Unsere Philosophie. He added that he would send it to a scientific ghostwriter “who will hold it in confidence and rewrite it.”, More Reuters investigations and long-form narratives, Got a confidential news tip? At a meeting on Sept. 27, 1974, for a “Talc/powder Safety Studies Review,” he reported the Italian study would dispel the “cancer concern associated with exposure to talc.”, The following spring, Hildick-Smith got a draft of the Italian study from the lead researcher. While the agency’s cosmetics division was considering similar action on talcum powders, it asked companies to suggest testing methods. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, for example, “makes no distinction between fibers and (comparable) cleavage fragments,” agency officials wrote in a response to an RJ Lee report on an unrelated matter in 2006, the year before the firm hired Sanchez. He told the New York Times that the agency’s investigation a decade earlier had prompted the industry to ensure that talc was asbestos-free. When applied to the skin, it can help prevent rashes and other skin irritations like chafing. J&J’s original records don’t always make that distinction. In terms of health risk, regulators since the early 1970s have treated small fiber-shaped particles of both forms the same. Byrdie Associate Editor Holly Rhue swears by the finely-milled, featherweight pick, which boasts light-reflecting particles to blur away the look of any imperfections. The study found fewer lung cancer deaths than expected, a result that the authors said supported “the thesis of no cancerogenic effect attributable to pure talc.”. And as the product safety director for J&J’s talc supplier acknowledged in a 2008 email to colleagues: “(I)f a deposit contains ‘non-asbestiform’ tremolite, there is also asbestiform tremolite naturally present as well.”. 92 ($0.48/Ounce) $1.82 with Subscribe & Save discount. The company referred all inquiries to its outside litigation counsel, Peter Bicks. Children under 2 years: C hange wet and soiled diapers promptly, cleanse the diaper area, and allow to dry. Another lab found asbestos in more than half of multiple samples of Baby Powder from past decades – in bottles from plaintiffs’ cupboards and acquired from eBay, and even a 1978 bottle held in J&J’s corporate museum. The edited version was less definitive: “Our talc-based consumer products are have always been (we cannot say “always”) asbestos free, as confirmed by regular testing since the 1970s.”. In fact, among the thousands of documents Hobson’s request could have turned up was a letter J&J lawyers had received only weeks earlier from a Rutgers University geologist confirming that she had found asbestos in the company’s Baby Powder, identified in her 1991 published study as tremolite “asbestos” needles. 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Langer said he told J&J lawyers who visited him last year that he stood by all of his findings. Bicks, the J&J lawyer, said Coker dropped her case because “the discovery established that J&J talc had nothing to do with Plaintiff’s disease, and that asbestos exposure from a commercial or occupational setting was the likely cause.”. And she knew it afflicted mostly men who inhaled asbestos dust in mines and industries such as shipbuilding that used the carcinogen before its risks were understood. Fighting for every breath and in crippling pain, Coker hired Herschel Hobson, a personal-injury lawyer. Burt's Bees Baby Daily Cream to Powder, Talc-Free Diaper Rash Cream - 4 Ounces Tube - Pack of 3 4.3 out of 5 stars 448 $25.95 $ 25 . Hobson is still practicing law in Nederland, Texas. Even Robert Wood Johnson II, the founder’s son and then-retired CEO, had expressed “concern over the possibility of the adverse effects on the lungs of babies or mothers,” he wrote. They shared their preliminary findings with New York City’s environmental protection chief, Jerome Kretchmer. Bicks, the J&J lawyer, said the contract lab’s results were irrelevant because the talc was intended for industrial use. He said the company now believes that the actinolite the Dartmouth professor found “was not asbestiform,” based on its interpretation of a photo in the original lab report. A 1979 article in the Journal of Environmental Pathology and Toxicology detailing the findings of the study was not good news for talc. Dermatologist Tested to be Hypoallergenic. The persistence of the industry’s view that cosmetic talc is asbestos-free is why no studies have been conducted on the incidence of mesothelioma among users of the products. According to an FDA account of the meeting, J&J shared “evidence that their talc contains less than 1%, if any, asbestos.”, Later that month, Wilson Nashed, one of the J&J scientists who visited the FDA,  said in a memo to the company’s public relations department that J&J’s talc contained trace amounts of “fibrous minerals (tremolite/actinolite).”. He wrote that talc in general, if subjected to the most sensitive testing method, using concentrated samples, “will be hard pressed in supporting purity claims.” He described this sort of testing as both “sophisticated” and “disturbing.”, Actress Blair Brown touts Baby Powder in this 1970s-era TV commercial, By 1977, J&J appeared to have tamped down concerns about the safety of talc. The FDA declined to comment on the ruling. The same scientist confided in an Oct. 23, 1973, note to a colleague that, depending on what test the FDA adopted for detecting asbestos in cosmetic talc, “we may have problems.”, The best way to detect asbestos in talc was to concentrate the sample and then examine it through microscopes, the Colorado School of Mines Research Institute told J&J in a Dec. 27, 1973, report. Since 2003, talc in Baby Powder sold in the United States has come from China through supplier Imerys Talc America, a unit of Paris-based Imerys SA and a … Bicks said: “The samples that we know of during this time period that contained a fiber or two of asbestos were not cosmetic talc samples.”. Many were shielded from public view by court orders that allowed J&J to turn over thousands of documents it designated as confidential. Much of their contents is reported here for the first time. Before it came in, J&J asked the judge to dismiss the case, arguing that Coker had “no evidence” Baby Powder caused mesothelioma. Hildick-Smith died in 2006. For more than two months, it turned down repeated requests for an interview with J&J executives. In a Sept. 6, 1974, letter, J&J told the FDA that since “a substantial safety factor can be expected” with talc that contains 1 percent asbestos, “methods capable of determining less than 1% asbestos in talc are not necessary to assure the safety of cosmetic talc.”, Not everyone at the FDA thought that basing a detection method on such a calculation was a good idea. It reported a “significant increase” in “respiratory cancer mortality” among miners. The American Academy of Pediatrics points out that baby powder can cause breathing trouble and serious lung damage for babies if they inhale the particles. Until recently, the American Cancer Society (ACS) accepted the industry’s position, saying on its website: “All talcum products used in homes have been asbestos-free since the 1970s.”, After receiving inquiries from Reuters, the ACS in early December revised its website to remove the assurance that cosmetic talcs are free of asbestos. If so, you may have other symptoms that can reveal more information before you … That approach was summed up by a J&J applied research director in a “strictly confidential” March 3, 1975, memo to managers of the baby products division, which used the talc in J&J’s signature Baby Powder. The mounting controversy surrounding J&J talc hasn’t shaken investors. Hammondsville was the primary source of Baby Powder talc from 1966 until its shutdown in 1990. “It is quite possible that eventually tremolite will be prohibited in all talc,” Shelley wrote on Feb. 20, 1973, to a British colleague. Some of them, including tremolite, also occur as unremarkable “non-asbestiform” rocks. “The attached letters demonstrate responsibility of industry in monitoring its talcs,” the cover letter said. On Dec. 8, the company offered to make an expert available. Just two months after the Dartmouth professor reported his findings, Windsor Minerals Research and Development Manager Vernon Zeitz wrote that chrysotile, “fibrous anthophyllite” and other types of asbestos had been “found in association with the Hammondsville ore body” – the Vermont deposit that supplied Baby Powder talc for more than two decades. This hypoallergenic powder is free of parabens, phthalates, dyes or sulfates that may harm your child’s skin and is clinically proven to be gentle and mild on sensitive skin. Me? Shop now! Baby Powder Talc Free - USDA Certified Organic Dusting Powder for Excess Moisture & Chafing That’s Actually Good for Your Skin- Non Toxic, Non-GMO, Cruelty Free Era-Organics. Imerys and J&J said the Chinese talc is safe. How had she been exposed to asbestos? Talc cases make up fewer than 10 percent of all personal injury lawsuits pending against J&J, based on the company’s Aug. 2 quarterly report, in which the company said it believed it had “strong grounds on appeal.”, J&J Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Alex Gorsky has pledged to fight on, telling analysts in July: “We remain confident that our products do not contain asbestos.”. It’s also partly why regulations that protect people in mines, mills, factories and schools from asbestos-laden talc don’t apply to babies and others exposed to cosmetic talc – even though Baby Powder talc has at times come from the same mines as talc sold for industrial use. Our Asbestos lawyers serving Ann Arbor understand that specific jobsites are the most common source of asbestos exposure, however residents may be also exposed from damaged homes or buildings where asbestos could be disturbed, even household and consumer products such as talc-based baby powder … 89 ($3.30/Ounce) $10.66 $10.66. I recommend against it because of the risk of respiratory problems. The reports identify contaminants in talc and finished powder products as asbestos or describe them in terms typically applied to asbestos, such as “fiberform” and “rods.”, In 1976, as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was weighing limits on asbestos in cosmetic talc products, J&J assured the regulator that no asbestos was “detected in any sample” of talc produced between December 1972 and October 1973. Two decades later, the material Coker and her lawyer sought is emerging as J&J has been compelled to share thousands of pages of company memos, internal reports and other confidential documents with lawyers for some of the 11,700 plaintiffs now claiming that the company’s talc caused their cancers — including thousands of women with ovarian cancer. Zeitz’s May 1974 report on efforts to minimize asbestos in Vermont talc “strongly urged” the adoption of ways to protect “against what are currently considered to be materials presenting a severe health hazard and are potentially present in all talc ores in use at this time.”. $9.89 $ 9. Others have failed to reach verdicts, resulting in mistrials. She knew that her cancer, mesothelioma, arose in the delicate membrane surrounding her lungs and other organs. Reuters Investigates offers several ways to securely contact our reporters, The article that appeared in 1976 in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine reported results even better than J&J had bargained for. Hammondsville mine records, according to a 1993 J&J memo, “were destroyed by the mine management staff just prior to the J&J divestiture.”. The Johnsons took note. J&J’s selective use of test results figured in a New Jersey judge’s decision this year to affirm the first verdict against the company in a case claiming asbestos in J&J products caused cancer. A few months after Petterson’s recognition that talc purity was a pipe dream, the FDA proposed a rule that talc used in drugs contain no more than 0.1 percent asbestos. The group said the more sensitive electron microscopy was impractical. Baby powder is an inexpensive and effective way to keep your baby happy by preventing diaper rash, chafing, and irritation. "Plaintiffs’ attorneys out for personal financial gain are distorting historical documents and intentionally creating confusion in the courtroom and in the media,” Ernie Knewitz, J&J’s vice president of global media relations, wrote in an emailed response to Reuters’ findings. There is no evidence J&J manipulated or misused the data. He homed in on a suspect: the Johnson’s Baby Powder that Coker had used on her infant children and sprinkled on herself all her life. She died in 2009, 12 years after her diagnosis, at age 63. While most people exposed never develop cancer, for some, even small amounts of asbestos are enough to trigger the disease years later. As early as 1976, Ashton, J&J’s longtime talc overseer, recognized as much in a memo to colleagues. It has maintained in public statements that its talc is safe, as shown for years by the best tests available, and that the information it has been required to divulge in recent litigation shows the care the company takes to ensure its products are asbestos-free. Facing thousands of lawsuits alleging that its talc caused cancer, J&J insists on the safety and purity of its iconic product. The lawsuit Coker and her husband, Roy, filed that year against J&J in Jefferson County District Court in Beaumont, Texas, is the earliest Reuters found alleging Baby Powder caused cancer. Though a private lab in Chicago found trace amounts of tremolite, it declared the amount “insignificant” and the samples “substantially free of asbestiform material.” J&J reported that finding to the FDA under a cover letter that said the “results clearly show” the samples tested “contain no chrysotile asbestos.” J&J’s lawyer told Reuters the tremolite found in the samples was not asbestos. Ten days later, the pathology report landed: Coker’s lung tissue contained tens of thousands of “long fibers” of four different types of asbestos. J&J continued to search for sources of clean talc. This is especially true of talc-based powders, with their small, easily inhaled particles. It is 100% free of talc, gluten, fragrances, dyes, as well as other common allergens. Is Baby Powder Safe? Get it as soon as Wed, Mar 24. In two cases earlier this year – in New Jersey and California – juries awarded big sums to plaintiffs who, like Coker, blamed asbestos-tainted J&J talc products for their mesothelioma. And while talc products contributed just $420 million to J&J’s $76.5 billion in revenue last year, Baby Powder is considered an essential facet of the healthcare-products maker’s carefully tended image as a caring company – a “sacred cow,” as one 2003 internal email put it. Selikoff died in 1992. Coker sued Johnson & Johnson, alleging that “poisonous talc” in the company’s beloved product was her killer. Product Description. The CTFA, which now does business as the Personal Care Products Council, declined to comment. Darlene Coker knew she was dying. J&J denied the claim. As if that weren’t enough, there’s also actual diamond powder in the mix to impart the prettiest (and subtlest) shimmer. By 1966, it was blasting and bulldozing white rock out of the Green Mountain state. Regulation was in the air. “I recognize the concern,” he told Reuters. But in an April 9, 1969, memo to a company doctor, Ashton said it was “normal” to find tremolite in many U.S. talc deposits. For those and other reasons, J&J couldn’t guarantee its Baby Powder was asbestos-free when plaintiffs used it, according to experts, including some who  testified for plaintiffs. Matthew Sanchez, a geologist with consultants RJ Lee Group Inc and a frequent expert witness for J&J, dismissed those findings in testimony in the St. Louis trial: “I have not found asbestos in any of the current or modern, what I consider modern, Johnson & Johnson talc products,” Sanchez told the jury. In 2009, the FDA, responding to growing public concern about talc, commissioned tests on 34 samples, including a bottle of J&J Baby Powder and samples of Imerys talc from China. Apply powder close to the body away from child’s … Since pulmonary disease, including cancer, appeared to be on the rise, “it would seem to be prudent to limit any possible content of Tremolite … to an absolute minimum,” came the reply from another physician executive days later. “Occasionally, sub-trace quantities of tremolite or actinolite are identifiable,” he wrote in an April 1973 report on the visit. The Link Between Talcum Powder and Cancer Nor did the company tell the FDA about a 1975 report from its longtime lab that found particles identified as “asbestos fibers” in five of 17 samples of talc from the chief source mine for Baby Powder. But J&J’s FDA submission left out University of Minnesota professor Thomas E. Hutchinson’s finding of chrysotile in a Shower to Shower sample – “incontrovertible asbestos,” as he described it in a lab note. Any suggestion that Johnson & Johnson knew or hid information about the safety of talc is false.”. Johnson's Baby Powder for Delicate Skin, Hypoallergenic and Free of Parabens, Phthalates, and Dy… The FDA’s own examinations found no asbestos in J&J powder samples in the 1970s. Hobson knew that talc and asbestos often occurred together in the earth, and that mined talc could be contaminated with the carcinogen. It needed work to meet the “form and style” requirements of the target journal, he told colleagues in a March 31, 1975, memo. Both forms often occur together and in talc deposits. Just how small hasn’t been established. Had the information about asbestos in J&J’s talc come out earlier, he said, “maybe there would have been 20 years less exposure” for other people. Just sprinkle a light dusting of baby powder inside all of your shoes that have odor and allow them to sit overnight. The proposal to study the health of miners of the Italian talc used in Baby Powder for decades came from William Ashton, J&J’s longtime talc supply chief. Therefore, he added, the “process may well be valuable property to us.”, At the end of March, Shelley recognized the sensitivity of the plan in a memo sent to a J&J lawyer in New Jersey: “We will want to carefully consider the … patents re asbestos in talc. “It was calculated that even if talc were pure asbestos the levels of exposure of a baby during a normal powdering are far below the accepted tolerance limits,” the minutes state. The company has made some of the same arguments about lab tests conducted by experts hired by plaintiffs. Talcum powder is also commonly added to makeup products like foundation and cosmetic powder in order to prevent caking and ensure a smooth appearance. In a pair of reports from 1957 and 1958, the lab said the talc contained “from less than 1 percent to about 3 percent of contaminants,” described as mostly fibrous and “acicular” tremolite. That’s why he zeroed in on Johnson’s Baby Powder after he took on Darlene Coker as a client in 1997. By then, a team at Mount Sinai Medical Center led by pre-eminent asbestos researcher Irving Selikoff had started looking at talcum powders as a possible solution to a puzzle: Why were tests of lung tissue taken post mortem from New Yorkers who never worked with asbestos finding signs of the mineral? It has blamed its losses on juror confusion, “junk” science, unfair court rules and overzealous lawyers looking for a fresh pool of asbestos plaintiffs. Plant-based and completely natural, this baby powder without talc keeps skin dry. Hildick-Smith sent money to the Italian talc exporter-physician to hire a team of researchers. It had not done so as of Thursday evening. Anti-inflammatory ingredients such as kaolin clay, arrowroot and plaintain leaf help soothe irritation and calms itchy skin. Sanchez, the RJ Lee geologist whose firm has agreed to provide him as a witness in up to 100 J&J talc trials, has testified that tremolite found decades ago in the company’s talc, from Italy and later Vermont, was not tremolite asbestos at all. Rather, he has said, it was “cleavage fragments” from non-asbestiform tremolite. DON'T FORGET TO "LIKE", SHARE, AND SUBSCRIBE!! The following year, Zeitz reported that based on weekly tests of talc samples over six months, “it can be stated with a greater than 99.9% certainty that the ores and materials produced from the ores at all Windsor Mineral locations are free from asbestos or asbestiform minerals.”Â.