Johnson & Johnson Continues To Market Baby Powder to Women in India, Africa, and Brazil

The vast sub-continent of India is now questioning the safety of Johnson's Baby Powder

Tuesday, July 21, 2020 - Health safety experts are asking Johnson & Johnson to explain why if Johnson's Baby Powder is not fit for sale in North America, why is it safe to sell in India and elsewhere? Johnson & Johnson spokespersons have replied to The Hindu Business Line.com that they remain supremely confident that the talc used in Johnson's Baby Powder is safe, pure, and asbestos-free. JNJ told HBL, "Decades of research and clinical evidence by independent researchers and scientific review boards across the world support the safety of our product. Johnson’s baby is a beloved brand in India for over 70 years and is the #1 choice of mothers in providing their babies the gentle care they need, with products that are trusted to meet and exceed the highest standards of safety, quality, and purity around the world." The US Food and Drug Administration as well as most juries disagree. The FDA recently tested Johnson's Baby Powder taken from samples on store shelves and found them to be contaminated with asbestos, a known and deadly carcinogen. The attorneys representing families and individuals nationwide for talcum powder cancer lawsuits, offer a free consultation to women, men and family members of loved ones currently suffering or that may have passed from talcum powder cancer.

The FDA has made the statement that raw talc supplies could become contaminated at their source in foreign countries where it is mined and also in the US since talc and asbestos veins are often interlaced or adjacent to one another. Entire communities that are in the vicinity of asbestos mines have been proven to have alarmingly high rates of mesothelioma, a form of lung cancer, due to asbestos floating in the air and then settling everywhere the same way volcano dust would settle. Cancer experts believe that the needle-like asbestos fibers cause microscopic contusions in the softest of membrane tissues in the lungs and lead to scar tissue build-up and abrasions that may lead to cancer. Juries have awarded women with ovarian cancer billions of dollars in punitive damages for their suffering allegedly due to using Johnson's Baby Powder regularly for their lifetime. Judge Rex Burlison presiding over the circuit court of appeals in Missouri issued a statement condemning Johnson & Johnson's marketing practices. "substantial evidence was adduced at the trial of particularly reprehensible conduct" by Johnson & Johnson, including that the company "knew of the presence of asbestos in products that they knowingly targeted for sale to mothers and babies, knew of the damage their products caused, and misrepresented the safety of these products for decades," the judge told the New York Times.

Johnson & Johnson claims that the decision to withdraw from the multi-billion dollar North American market was taken as a general update to the company's product line during the new economic realities presented by the Coronavirus. Others from consumer and racial equality organizations in the US think that the company may have simply re-targeted their sales efforts toward black women in countries emerging from third-world status and are accusing the company of racism. Writers from Democracy Now finds the company's reasoning for discontinuing North American sales disingenuous in the light of their now targeting black women in India, Ghana, South Africa, Kenya, and also Brazil with their baby powder advertising.