Johnson & Johnson recalls its Baby Powder after FDA finds asbestos in sample

Our plain-English summary of Johnson & Johnson recalls its Baby Powder after FDA finds asbestos in sample, by O. Dyer (BMJ, 2019).

The study

• Author: O. Dyer
• Journal: BMJ
• Published: 2019;367:l6118
• Cited by: 1 article, as counted by NIH iCite
• Read it: PubMed · Publisher

In plain English

This is a BMJ news article, not a research study, and it reports no original data. The author reported that Johnson & Johnson recalled one lot of its Baby Powder, about 33 000 bottles, after the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) found asbestos in a sample bought online. According to the article, the FDA tested bottles from two different lots and found chrysotile asbestos in one of them. The company said the FDA had found only sub-trace levels of chrysotile, no greater than 0.00002%. It also said it could not confirm whether the tested product was authentic or counterfeit, or whether it had been cross contaminated before or during testing. The article reported that about 15 500 US litigants alleged that the company's talcum products caused ovarian cancer or mesothelioma. It also mentioned a separate study in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. That study reported asbestos in tissue samples from six of six patients with mesothelioma, all of whom had used talcum powder. The article noted that that study's authors are expert witnesses in talcum litigation.

We wrote this plain-English summary from the full article with the help of AI, and a second AI model checked each sentence against the article. It is not the authors' wording; the abstract and the article are their own account.

What the study did and found

• Design: News article (journalistic report); not a research study
• Who was studied: No study population. The article concerns one recalled lot of Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder (about 33 000 bottles) in the United States, 2019. FDA testing covered bottles from two lots.
• Exposure: Chrysotile asbestos reported by the FDA in a sample of cosmetic talc Baby Powder (lot 22318RB)
• Main results:
  • According to the article, the FDA tested bottles from two different lots of Baby Powder and found chrysotile asbestos in one of them.
  • Johnson & Johnson said the FDA had found only sub-trace levels of chrysotile asbestos, no greater than 0.00002%.
  • The company said it could not confirm whether the tested product was authentic or counterfeit, or whether it had been cross contaminated before or during testing.
  • The article reported about 15 500 US litigants alleging that Johnson & Johnson's talcum products caused ovarian cancer or mesothelioma.
  • The article described a separate study, not this article's own work, in the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine. That study reported asbestos in tissue samples from six of six patients tested who had mesothelioma, all of whom had used talcum powder. The article noted that the study's authors are expert witnesses in talcum litigation.

Related studies

• Johnson & Johnson knew for decades talcum powder contained asbestos, reports allege — O. Dyer (2018)
• Johnson and Johnson under criminal investigation in US over asbestos in talcum powder — O. Dyer (2019)
• Risk Assessment of Baby Powder Exposure through Inhalation — M.C. Moon, J.D. Park, et al. (2011)
• Baby Powders and the Precautionary Principle — D. Rosner, G. Markowitz (2020)
• The follow-up study of skin reactivity to recall antigens and E- and EAC-RFC profiles in blood in asbestos workers — A. Lange, G. Skibiński, et al. (1980)
• Benign multicystic mesothelioma and peritoneal inclusion cysts: are they the same clinical and histopathological entities? A systematic review to find an evidence-based management — A.M.C. Rapisarda, A. Cianci, et al. (2018)

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