The FDA May Have Covered Up For Johnson & Johnson For Decades

The FDA's lack of oversight of the cosmetics industry may have allowed millions to develop cancer unnecessarily

Monday, December 9, 2019 - In 1971, a former employee of cosmetics industry giant Johnson & Johnson was at the helm of the US Food and Drug Administration's (FDA)s cosmetics division and influenced the agency's official stated opinions on asbestos testing of talc, the main ingredient in Johnson's Baby Powder and also thousands of other cosmetic products. Recently released internal memos obtained from court proceedings reveal that then (1971) FDA cosmetics division head Heinz J. Eiermann was alerted to the findings of asbestos in talc as early as 1976. According to a Reuters expose, researchers from Mount Sinai Medical Center in New York "found what appeared to be asbestos in unnamed brands of talc powder." In spite of those damning findings Eiermann was persuaded to abandon the FDA's stricter asbestos testing methods and to allow the cosmetics industry to self-regulate and adopt asbestos methods that the industry and Johnson & Johnson saw fit, a method that incredibly, "cannot detect most types of asbestos at low levels, nor one common type-chrysotile-at all." On top of that, the agency issued a statement that they saw no connection between chrysotile and asbestos in talc at all, according to Reuters. Talcum powder ovarian cancer attorneys are experts at handling big corporation litigations and offer a no obligations free consultation to women harmed from the prolonged use of talcum powder for perineal dusting.

As a result of Eiermann lack of effort in pursuing the asbestos/talc problem, the FDA's more stringent asbestos testing methods were shelved and the cosmetics industry made billions of dollars, all the while hiding for decades what they knew about asbestos contaminating talc from consumers. It was not until women started dying of ovarian cancer recently and in record numbers did the connection between talc and cancer resurface and draw scientific attention. Researchers studying the ovaries of the deceased women found particles of talc in all 22 women examined. According to the National Institute of Health, "Several studies conducted over the past 25 years found an association between peritoneal talc powders and ovarian cancer." These findings led to lawsuits and billion-dollar punitive damage awards against Johnson & Johnson for their failure to warn consumers of the health hazard of ingesting cosmetic talc.

A couple of months ago the FDA decided to revisit the idea of talc-containing asbestos and confirmed what many had suspected by finding several talc-based teenage makeup products sold by Claire's Stores to contain the chrysotile asbestos particle as well as did bottles of Johnson's Baby Powder the agency tested. On the surface, it looked like the FDA was finally getting serious about regulating the cosmetics industry when a recent event made one think otherwise. The FDA sponsored an event the other day called "Asbestos in Talc Symposium" and invited scientists to give their thoughts on asbestos testing methods and what should be done to regulate the industry. Unfortunately, according to Reuters, scientists that had represented plaintiffs suing Johnson & Johnson and had found particles of asbestos in talc were excluded from the meeting rendering it a sham.

Products that cause cancer are difficult to detect because of the latency period of ten to twenty years from exposure until the symptoms present themselves. Also, the pain and symptoms of diseases like ovarian cancer mask themselves as the monthly pain and discomfort that a healthy woman normally suffers from. Millions of women could now be walking around with ovarian cancer and men and women with mesothelioma in light of what we now know about talc containing asbestos and Johnson's Baby Powder talc containing asbestos.