Baby Powder can be dangerous

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I've known there were lawsuits, but this is new. Johnson and Johnson just lost (again) on their baby powder that contains asbestos. I imagine some of the people here use it - it got used on us as babies, now this issue. As if we needed another issue.
Here's the new comment from Democracy Now!

This week, a federal court ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay more than $2 billion to a group of women who developed ovarian cancer after using talcum powder contaminated with asbestos. In its ruling, the Eastern District Missouri Court of Appeals said Johnson & Johnson, quote, engaged in conduct that was “outrageous because of evil motive and reckless indifference,” unquote. The appeals court reduced the original verdict amount from 2018, which had been $4.7 billion. But Johnson & Johnson still faces thousands more lawsuits. It recently stopped selling its brand of talcum powder in the United States and Canada, but it continues to sell the products overseas.

It's recommended you throw it out.
 
I'm gonna do that. It'll be interesting to find out if this is an industry wide issue - does anyone know? Or is it the practice only of one company?
 
Having heard of the risk, which might be true for any source of talcum powder, I don't use J&J Baby Powder or anything similar. I use corn starch. Very cheap though maybe not as effective but safe.
 
Asbestos in talcum powder??????:O That seems kind of odd! I really don't see how asbestos could be used in talcum powder. What purpose would it serve unless they're worried about it catching fire!:D I don't use that stuff either and at this point I definitely plan NOT to use it. I do agree with jdtat's suggestion of corn starch. Sounds a lot safer!
 
Asbestos is a contaminant in some of the talc that is ground up for talcum powder. There isn't much and I have no idea how dangerous it really is except that it is way too easy to avoid the problem. Hence,using corn starch, renewable and safer.
 
Talc is a mineral that's mined. Asbestos is as well. Some sources of talc have asbestos as a contaminant.

The cases I've heard of are women who've used it in the genital region for decades. Apparently at can get into the wrong places and eventually cause cancer. J&J, as far as I've read, is in trouble for burying research that showed that to be a hazard.

I imagine that the risk is low for occasional use. One problem that cornstarch can have is that, in cases of rash, it can actually feed the organisms that are causing the rash. If you have a rash, then, it might be wise to switch to talc for a while, then back to cornstarch when the rash has cleared.
 
According to WIKI, it depends on the deposit, but asbestos and talc can be mixed together in nature. Not sure what the level of contamination is, and doubt if it is the same from one mine to another. Most asbestos mines are closed, now. There's several varieties of asbestos, some more dangerous. There is a lung disease due to it, pretty deadly. I had a co-worker with it. He got it not so much from the contaminated ships we both worked on (the asbestos was pretty much sealed) but from the world war two shipyards. They wrapped hot pipes and machinery with it - from engine exhaust to hot water to some hydraulics, etc, handling the raw material. He died from it. Smoking made it far worse, the docs said.
On my first ship, the painted canvas pipe-wrapping above my upper bunk was damaged and the stuff just drifted down like flower. I had to make sure I got it off for the weekly inspection. That was in the early 1970s and no one cared. I just painted it some more to make it easier to keep my rack clean.
I've been following the story for a few years, never heard of it with another manufacturer. No idea why, no idea why not. I could have just missed it. J&J may be the biggest manufacturer and they've been around forever.
 
I do remember when asbestos was commonly used and no one even batted an eye! I think the house where I grew up had asbestos shingles. And I do know that asbestos mining was a mainstay in the Eastern Townships of Quebec. So the closure of those mines must've really sent places like Thetford Mines reeling. Not sure how the area recovered (if it did). And where I lived in Pennsylvania when I was in high school the nearby town had a company, Keesby & Mattison, that did something with asbestos and there was a huge pile taking up several acres across from the train station. I think they got rid of that. So asbestos now is material non grata.
 
In Canada in B.C., there a large mine on the upper Cassiar Hwy. The road connects the Alcan to the Yellowhead Hwy, going north-south. Beautiful country. In the 1980-1990 I had occasion to travel it. It was all gravel, then, and all the bridges were one-lane-wooden. The trucks carrying asbestos were hauling doubles. They'd come barreling at you, very high speed, throwing gravel. Sealed units like tankers. The way to keep your windshield whole was to pull over absolutely as far as you dared, and stop. You could then hope the gravel didn't hit you. Or you could throw your body across the hood. I never lost a headlight, but knew people who did. They were south-bound, loaded, took the product to a barge outfit at a place called Stewart-Hyder. Went out of business in the late '90s, I think. It's in WIKI. It is now a ghost town. A company town, it used to have 1,500 people, 2 schools, etc. Open pit mine, by the end was underground. There's a group who maintain a website to remember it.
B.C. paved the Cassiar Hwy, fixed the bridges, rerouted it better. If you are driving to Alaska from the west coast, it saves a lot of miles and the traffic is lighter. Great drive, incredible country, and there is a place called "Jade City". It's a large store with the product of their jewelry jade mine. The driveway is lined with boulders, and each had a small cut. That let you see those boulders are Jade. We have two pieces,about 6-8 pounds, each with one side cut so you can see the pattern the jade makes. You can watch them cut it with a diamond saw.
Have no idea where they barged it to, but it had to be processed some at the mine. Gives me the creeps. I think is a soft stone, like talc, so those trucks were probably carrying it in powder form. No idea which type of asbestos, there are several, and the South African stuff is supposed to be particularly dangerous.
Some of "The Great Asbestos Scare" got ridiculous, but it is hard to blame people as it IS dangerous, especially to breathe.
We had mandatory classes at my workplace on how to handle it. The sheetrock was loaded with it, for greater fireproofing.
 
Thanks Atlas, pretty neat to learn about that. Had no idea and appreciate the info.
Hope everyone is having a nice weekend.

Jim
 
It's not dangerous any more, and likely never really was. J&J baby powder contained tiny, trace amounts of asbestos but no longer does. This lawsuit one one hand is fair bc there's proof J&J knew about it but hid it....but the chances that all these women got ovarian cancer from it are pretty slim. Many men who worked in demolition, shipbuilding, pipe fitting etc and basically huffed the stuff daily for decades never got cancer. The idea of trace amounts of asbestos hitching a ride upstream from the vulva, up the vagina, tubes and into the ovaries is basically absurd since the vag is pretty much constantly rinsing and flushing itself. It's a classic BS ambulance chaser frivolous lawsuit.
 
(1) You call it classic BS ambulance chaser frivolous lawsuit material - ignoring the statistics and studies. I suppose you believe it wasn't tobacco that caused lung cancer, either. Are you a doctor? Maybe been through Nursing School? Or are you just spouting a Google search? Or yourown unfounded guesses?
(2) I find your comment about shipyard workers offensive. The studies were much more wide-ranging, and so were the autopsies. Not sure about demolition, as the lead and asbestos safety regulations have been in force for some years, now, and I seriously doubt they equaled 3 years worth in a shipyard.
We wore double-cartridge respirators when removing lead paint with a grinder (and therefore causing lots of fine dust). Of the six of us, 4 tested with lead in our blood, one over the Federal limit. Granted, the boss refused to let us use the other PPE's new every day. Sort of like what is happening in the overwhelmed hospitals. I suppose you call what's happening with Covid19 just Media Lies. It's just a regular flu that vanished in April.
Yeah, they didn't have to tear down the High School auditorium - that Asbestos was well sealed in.
Da** it, I lost friends. Others had weaken lungs to the point they couldn't hardly work at home projects.
Did drilling 4 holes in Marine-grade sheetrock with added asbestos for a towel bar harm anyone? We used clean, approved techniques and HEPA filter vacumns. And the woman in that room threw a fit - and the ambulance chasers didn't take the case, either. (How did she think we were going to put up that requested towel bar, anyway?)
I'll bet good money you never worked in one of those shipyard and have no idea how much they were exposed to. You might look for old newsreels, and other films from the era. Not much, but it came out at trials.
 
Since switching to mainly plastic backed products I've found that something is definitely needed to stop excess sweating and rashes but have been put off using powder due to this ongoing news story. I've found antiperspirant creams do the job just as well. It seems the jury is still out on the powder issue though.
 
AlasSouth said:
(1) You call it classic BS ambulance chaser frivolous lawsuit material - ignoring the statistics and studies. I suppose you believe it wasn't tobacco that caused lung cancer, either. Are you a doctor? Maybe been through Nursing School? Or are you just spouting a Google search? Or yourown unfounded guesses?
(2) I find your comment about shipyard workers offensive. The studies were much more wide-ranging, and so were the autopsies. Not sure about demolition, as the lead and asbestos safety regulations have been in force for some years, now, and I seriously doubt they equaled 3 years worth in a shipyard.
We wore double-cartridge respirators when removing lead paint with a grinder (and therefore causing lots of fine dust). Of the six of us, 4 tested with lead in our blood, one over the Federal limit. Granted, the boss refused to let us use the other PPE's new every day. Sort of like what is happening in the overwhelmed hospitals. I suppose you call what's happening with Covid19 just Media Lies. It's just a regular flu that vanished in April.
Yeah, they didn't have to tear down the High School auditorium - that Asbestos was well sealed in.
Da** it, I lost friends. Others had weaken lungs to the point they couldn't hardly work at home projects.
Did drilling 4 holes in Marine-grade sheetrock with added asbestos for a towel bar harm anyone? We used clean, approved techniques and HEPA filter vacumns. And the woman in that room threw a fit - and the ambulance chasers didn't take the case, either. (How did she think we were going to put up that requested towel bar, anyway?)
I'll bet good money you never worked in one of those shipyard and have no idea how much they were exposed to. You might look for old newsreels, and other films from the era. Not much, but it came out at trials.
Click to expand...

show me a "study" that proves talc caused ovarian cancer. I'll wait.

I don't care if you find my comment offensive, because it simply and obviously means you missed the point or misinterpreted my comment. The point was that these people who worked directly with asbestos didn't all get mesothelioma. Many did, many did not. If any material number of them (people exposed to large airborne quantities of it daily, breathing it in) did not get sick, then the likelihood of women exposed to TRACE amounts of it topically getting cancer from it is obviously mathematically very slim.
 
MikeJames; If I offended you, I'm sorry. You really clarified your views in the second response. You also hit my hot spot.
Some women got cancer, some did not. Same principle as what went on with shipyard workers. My understanding is less percent of women got cancer than did shipyard workers. I can guess why, as well as you, but I know I'm guessing and don't trust my guess until I research it. There appears to talc powder without asbestos. That doesn't mean the people here shouldn't know about the possibility and have a chance to do their own due diligence.
Okay, if you know how to use it, go to "google science". That takes you right to the scientific journals. A lot of those articles you will find you might want to read are on the free PubMed gov't site. My problem in the past is the amount of time I spent figuring out the correct search terms. There's some bad science out there, but you get to judge, and the peer-review is often referenced in the "related" list on the "Abstract" page. You can find a medical professional to use as a witness at any court case for pro and con for anything. I have a subscription for notification for two of my conditions, and I at least read the Abstracts. If the medicalese is too dense, I don't bother with the article. Or the abstract gives me a clue whether it fits my needs or not.
You're the one doubting the science or the court results. Not that the court results are "scientific"; I'm not arguing that. I try to include the caveats, and the maybes. Speaking of which, my experience with friends & co-workers is a maybe, in the sense that it is not a fair sample. I know that. You do. I hope you aren't rejecting the autopsy.
Is a clinical study of chemotherapy of 87 prostate cancer survivors a sufficient number? What about the demographics? Other variables? I do know mine was an incredibly complete investigation of my past before I was even admitted to the study. They did every test known to man or beast. I did read the study 10 years later, the peer review, the places where it was referenced in other studies. So I have some caveats. But our survival rate was higher, and not just by 1 or 2%. Now, due to that and other studies, chemotherapy is much more common for prostate cancer, and the drug list better (mine included an experimental drug - and it's now used regularly, I understand from my prostate cancer support group. Yes, that's actedotal).
I should have admitted I hadn't done the full search of the scientific literature, I suppose. Have you?
 
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