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Talc/J&J
Thought this was already over.
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16 Replies
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There are over 1500 cases like this. I don’t think this will withstand appeal. The headline is terrible “New Jersey investment banker who got cancer from talcum powder…”
It should read “New Jersey investment banker who CLAIMS to have gotten cancer from talcum powder…”There is no scientific evidence that talcum powder causes cancer.
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@Perry if the Daily Mail ever publishes anything which is a) factually accurate, and b) not keyed to incite hysteria, you can bet your bottom dollar it’s been plagiarised from somewhere else
also, cancer is a favourite subject of theirs; some helpful soul has compiled a list of things the Daily Mail reckons cause cancer
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@Perry that is indeed how it should be but then sensationalism pays
@Bill_Toge that is one heck of a list, I had an idea that it’s top class BS. Just wanted to confirm if others share the same wavelength. -
I believe there was a woman who won a similar case, she got cancer after 20 years of use and won millions. Must be terrible, but I’d like to know the reseaech that lead to that conclussion.
I wonder if this will cause any kind of change on the control protocols.
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There’s this published by the American Cancer Society.
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/talcum-powder-and-cancer.html And this is an interesting view of the case.
https://theness.com/neurologicablog/index.php/the-johnson-and-johnson-talc-cancer-case/ -
Do these people eat or inhale talc?
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@em88 that depends how much the lawsuit is worth
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A massive company caught lying, can’t say I’m surprised.
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Relevant - https://www.jnj.com/our-company/johnson-johnson-responds-to-recent-news-coverage-on-talc
The Reuters article is misleading in that they don’t provide any evidence of baby powder causing cancer.
@Christopher - are you suggesting big companies lie more than small companies?
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Maybe not, but they lie big, and the consequences are huge.
But as always, they lawyer up, give some money, pull a PR stunt and business as usual.
The implant files should have been a scandal, and I haven’t seen even a slap on the wrist.
Perry, they did publish the internal memos. Didn’t read much, but they do show evidence. Im sure the research is available too.
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@DAS the research is available and the conclusions are that talc (baby powder) does not cause cancer.
https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/talcum-powder-and-cancer.html
The Dow Corning breast implant case is a perfect example of how companies can be ruined by junk science. Juries awarded plaintiffs millions and bankrupted the company. Years later the science exonerated silicone breast implants. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/11/17/washington/17cnd-breast.html
Incidentally, I’m not defending J&J and any claimed shady practices they had of obscuring talc contamination. But the way they communicate findings has no bearing on whether baby powder has caused cancer.
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@Perry All companies lie, it’s just a matter of how big the lie is and this one is huge in my opinion.And I am not making the case that talc causes cancer. What I am saying however is that J&J stated publicly that their tested samples didn’t contain any asbestos, while knowing that this was false. And we know that there is no safe level of exposure to asbestos, even the smallest amounts have been shown to cause issues. So while talc doesn’t cause cancer, talc contaminated with asbestos might.
The most interesting part, which we probably will never know, is whether or not this contaminated talc actually was made available for purchase. Even if their products at the moment are not contaminated, that doesn’t mean that they weren’t at some point.
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“And we know that there is no safe level of exposure to asbestos“
This may be something that you believe, but this statement is not based on science. I think we can both agree that one molecule of exposure to asbestos does not cause issues.
https://www.atsdr.cdc.gov/toxprofiles/tp61-c6.pdf
“The general population is exposed to low levels of asbestos primarily by inhalation. Small quantities of
asbestos fibers are ubiquitous in air.”By your assertion simply breathing air will cause cancer.
“Fibers in water arise mainly by erosion of natural deposits of asbestos or by corrosion of fibers from pipes
made with asbestos-containing cement. Asbestos concentrations in most water supplies are less than
1 million fibers per liter (MFL), but may exceed 100 MFL in some cases. For a human consuming
2 L/day, this would yield a dose of about 2–200 million fibers per day.”Again, with your assertion drinking water would cause cancer.
With all substances, the dose makes the poison. There is a safe level of asbestos exposure because we live with it every day.
I apologize for sounding aggressive, but this is just the kind of chemical fearmongering that scares consumers and leads to irrational regulations. I support chemical limit regulations but they should be based on scientific evidence, not fearmongering.
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I stand corrected. One of my sources was this which states:“Second, all levels of asbestos exposure studied to date have demonstrated asbestos-related disease, and a linear relationship appears to best describe the shape of the dose-response curve. These considerations led the committee to conclude that there is no level of exposure below which clinical effects do not occur. Third, the absence of a threshold is further indicated by the dramatic evidence of asbestos-related disease in members of asbestos-worker households and in persons living near asbestos-contaminated areas. These household and community contacts involved low level and/or intermittent casual exposure to asbestos. Studies of duration of exposure suggest that even at very short exposure periods (1 day to 3 months) significant disease can occur. “.
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On the talcum powder issue and for a good chuckle- My grandmother had pica from an iron deficiency (where you crave weird things you shouldn’t eat) and ate baby powder for the whole 15years of my life she was alive. And it had to be J&J! She’d get mad if you got the kind with cornstarch ?. She was only 4’ 9” and would use her cane to knock it off the top shelf and would toss handfuls of it in her mouth at a time. All Day Long Every Single Day!! And she lived to be almost 80 years old! So I think it’s hard to say that 20 years of baby powder causes cancer - I’m sure that person did a lot of other things everyday for that 20 years too! But sadly enough- sensationalism does sell ☹️
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This one made me cringe: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/jan/08/carcinogens-cosmetics-brexit-britain-eu-makeup
Leaving means losing stringent EU rules on hazardous chemicals in makeup in favour of opaque US-style self-regulation.
I don’t even know where to start but I wish it was possible to sue both the author and the newspaper for such misinformation.
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