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Johnson's baby powder unsafe? Suit against firm over alleged cancer link: ‘Used talc all my life…'. Explained
One of the British claimants, Sue Rizzello, believes her ovarian cancer was caused by her lifelong use of Johnson &Johnson talcum powder.
Johnson and Johnson's baby powder, a household name across the world including India, being used for many years and a popular choice by parents for their babies, is facing a big lawsuit over alleged cancer links.
Thousands of people in the United Kingdom have filed a lawsuit against the US pharmaceutical and cosmetics giant J&J, alleging that its talcum powder products contained asbestos that caused cancer.
The case, lodged in the high court in London, is being brought by around 3,000 claimants represented by law firm KP Law. The compensation sought is estimated at over £1 billion ($1.3 billion), the firm said on Thursday.
According to the claim, victims or their relatives developed ovarian cancer or mesothelioma after using J&J’s Baby Powder between 1965 and 2023.
‘I have used talc all my life’
One of the British claimants, Sue Rizzello, believes her ovarian cancer was caused by her lifelong use of talcum powder, she said, “I’ve used talc all my life. I mean, when I was a child, everybody did. It was just always there. It was just always something you use,” The Guardian reported.
The 60-year-old marketing consultant from Slough was diagnosed with stage 3 ovarian cancer in 2012 after a doctor noticed unusual bloating. “I’m totally convinced this was the cause of my own illness, and all the nightmare of treatment and trials that followed,” the British daily quoted Sue Rizzello as saying.
Following chemotherapy and surgery that removed her reproductive organs, she reportedly went into menopause and later recovered from Cancer. However, she said this “earth-shaking experience” shook her confidence to the core.
But when she found out that she did not carry the BRCA gene mutations linked to ovarian cancer through genetic testing, her doubt shifted towards the cancer claims already levelled on J&J talcs and “I thought, hang on,” Rizzello said.
Johnson & Johnson’s talc products have faced criticism for several years. According to an AFP report citing KP Law, the company withdrew its talc-based baby powder from the North American market three years before pulling it off shelves in Britain in 2023.
The World Health Organization’s cancer agency has also classified talc as “probably carcinogenic to humans” in July 2024. However, a 2020 summary of studies involving 250,000 women in the US found no statistical link between the use of talc on genitals and ovarian cancer risk.
Despite these findings, mounting lawsuits and personal testimonies have renewed global scrutiny of talc-based products.
“The claim … details how Johnson & Johnson knew that their talc products contained carcinogenic fibres, including asbestos, for more than 50 years,” KP Law said, alleging that the company “chose to keep it on the market in the pursuit of profit,” reported AFP.
J&J distances itself
In response, a Johnson & Johnson spokesperson referred inquiries to its former consumer health division Kenvue, which became a separate company in August 2023.
“As a part of that separation, Kenvue retained the responsibility and any purported liability for talc-related litigation outside of the United States and Canada,” the spokesperson said.
A Kenvue representative defended the product’s safety, stating that “the safety of J&J's Baby Powder is backed by years of testing by independent and leading laboratories, universities, and health authorities in the UK and around the world.”
The spokesperson added that the talc used in the powder “was compliant with any required regulatory standards, did not contain asbestos, and does not cause cancer.”
Earlier this year, US courts rejected a J&J proposal to settle nearly 90,000 talc-related cases in North America for about $8 billion over 25 years, without any admission of liability.
