Recently, the St. Louis District Court ruled on a lawsuit involving the use of Johnson & Johnson baby powder containing talc powder. Johnson & Johnson said it would appeal against this, which once again aroused the concern about the safety of talc powder. Johnson & Johnson stressed that it firmly believed that Johnson & Johnson baby powder was safe. In addition, Many organizations and experts also said that cosmetic grade talc powder is safe.
The latest statement issued by Johnson & Johnson in May stressed that in a similar lawsuit in St. Louis this March, the jury made a ruling in support of Johnson & Johnson. In September 2016, two similar lawsuits in New Jersey were also rejected by the judge because the plaintiff’s experts failed to provide sufficient medical evidence to prove that Johnson & Johnson baby powder caused ovarian cancer; Johnson & Johnson believes these decisions further show that the plaintiff’s allegations lack a credible scientific basis.
This is the seventh relevant lawsuit experienced by Johnson & Johnson since last year, and the current winning record is three to four. These protracted litigation wars have attracted extensive attention in the United States because of the huge amount of compensation, the diametrically opposite trial results of previous lawsuits and the high-profile advertising of the plaintiff’s attorney group, and have also become a hot topic of domestic media reports and public discussion.
Talc powder is the softest mineral on earth – talc, which is finely refined into powder. High purity talc powder is widely used. In addition to cosmetics and other personal care products, it is also used in different fields such as food and medicine. Regulatory authorities or industry associations in Britain, Australia and Israel issued statements last year to support the safety of talc powder for cosmetics.
The China perfume and fragrance and cosmetics industry association is a trade association of China’s cosmetics industry. Its expert committee has also made public statements that talcum powder is widely used in various cosmetics, especially in powder cosmetics. “According to the relevant regulations, products can be considered safe and healthy under normal, reasonable and predictable conditions, and will not cause harm to human health.” 。
Incidence rate incidence rate of white cancer is 12.5, with an average of 100 thousand people, and the incidence of Chinese is lower than that of whites, said Jiang Huajiang, vice president of the obstetrics and Gynecology Hospital Affiliated to Fudan University. There are many pathogenic factors of ovarian cancer, among which heredity is the main reason, and other factors are not clear.
Professor Tan Xianjie, chief physician of Obstetrics and Gynecology of Peking Union Medical College Hospital, pointed out that at present, the two largest prospective cohort studies have lasted for more than ten years, involving tens of thousands of people. Neither the nurse health study nor the women’s health observation cohort study found an association between talc powder and ovarian cancer.
Professor Li Qiong, former vice chairman and Secretary General of the National Standardization Committee of perfumery and fragrance cosmetics, explained that in natural environment, some talc and asbestos are mostly associated or symbiotic. Some industrial talcum powder with insufficient purity is easily mixed with asbestos, and asbestos is a known carcinogen, which leads to the two being often mentioned in the same breath.
Li Qiong said that talc powder for cosmetics is a high-quality and high-purity cosmetic raw material that has been strictly tested. The cosmetics testing standards issued by the regulatory authorities of various countries clearly require that “asbestos shall not be detected” in talc powder used in cosmetics. In order to ensure safe use and reassure consumers, regulatory authorities and third-party testing institutions in many countries have observed the application safety of talc powder for a long time, and the monitoring results have fully proved the safety of talc powder. Therefore, talc powder products for cosmetics can be safely used as long as they are produced by regular manufacturers, purchased through regular channels and strictly supervised and tested by national regulatory agencies, without unnecessary panic.