Johnson & Johnson Juggles a Dusty Disaster
The Hill took a sharp turn Wednesday when J&J pulled out full‑page ads that were better at selling science than a sure‑fire recipe. The backdrop? A Reuters exposé that at least 20‑year‑old baby powder contains traces of asbestos and might be a cancer springboard.
Stock Wobble and the S‑Book
- Margin call: The market value took a 10% plunge on Friday, wiping roughly $40 billion off the top.
- Day‑to‑day dip: Shares slid almost 3% on Monday, closing at $129.14 on the NYSE.
- Counter‑strike: J&J announced a $5 billion buy‑back to cushion the blow.
CEO on Camera: “We’re Finesse‑Ready”
Alex Gorsky had his first live TV interview on CNBC’s Mad Money with Jim Cramer. He insisted the company always knew the product sticks to the science— and never hid anything. “We never shipped talc with asbestos. We’re rock‑solid.” He delivered that with the calm of a bartender handing out apologies in a minty room.
The Big‑Ads of the Century
The headline read Science. Not sensationalism. – a bold claim printed in top papers like the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. The ad boasted that any “safety concerns” would already be addressed, “no–safety, no‑shelf.”
“Get the Good Stuff” – Written Rebuttal
On the company’s website, the rebuttal lists key arguments:
- Reuter’s covered material omitted documents that prove the talc is safe.
- Babies powder has been thoroughly tested and found asbestos‑free.
- J&J has been a partner with the FDA and global regulators.
The Senate Fight Back
Sen. Edward Markey sent a formal letter to the FDA, demanding an investigation into whether J&J misled regulators and if their products pose a real danger. The letter stands as the latest chorus in the regulatory debate.
Bottom Line: A Tough Dust‑Slam of Corporate Spin
On a day when the headlines are clean, the truth is a smeared layer. J&J hopes the strategy of stock buying, ads, and a high‑profile interview will smooth the cliffs. Whether investors stay put or bolt remains as puzzling as an unlabeled jar of baby powder. For now, every time someone shakes a bag, a question is floating in the air: is this just a puff of harmless powder, or a fine dust of risk?
A combination of handout photographs used in a report analysing a sample of Johnson’s Baby Powder from 1978, entered in court as a plaintiff’s exhibit in a case against Johnson&JohnsonPhoto: Reuters
A Reuters spokeswoman on Monday said the agency “stands by its reporting.”
Reuters’ investigation found that while most tests in past decades found no asbestos in J&J talc and talc products, tests on Baby Powder conducted by scientists at Mount Sinai Medical Center in 1971 and Rutgers University in 1991, as well as by labs for plaintiffs in cancer lawsuits, found small amounts of asbestos. In 1972, a University of Minnesota scientist found what he called “incontrovertible asbestos” in a sample of Shower to Shower. Other tests by J&J’s own contract labs and others periodically found small amounts of asbestos in talc from mines that supplied the mineral for Baby Powder and other cosmetic products into the early 2000s.
ALSO READ: Does talcum powder cause ovarian cancer?
The company did not report to the FDA three tests by three different labs from 1972 to 1975 that found asbestos in the company’s talc.
The Reuters story drew no conclusions about whether talc itself causes ovarian cancer. Asbestos, however, is a carcinogen. The World Health Organisation’s International Agency for Research on Cancer has listed asbestos-contaminated talc as a carcinogen since 1987. Reuters also found that J&J tested only a fraction of the talc powder it sold. The company never adopted a method for increasing the sensitivity of its tests that was recommended to the company by consultants in 1973 and in a published report in a peer-review scientific journal in 1991.
The ad J&J ran in newspapers Monday also pointed to an online talc fact page the company created with “independent studies from leading universities, research from medical journals and third-party opinions.”
That website has changed since early December, according to a Reuters review of online archives.
A lab that plaintiffs hired in a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson found asbestos in Baby Powder from past decades – in bottles from plaintiffs’ cupboards and acquired from eBay, and even a 1978 bottle held in J&J’s corporate museum. @Reuters investigates: https://t.co/AsT8BcwMzl pic.twitter.com/QH7wDGasr3
— Reuters (@Reuters) December 14, 2018
The website, for instance, no longer contains a section headlined “Conclusions from Global Authorities” that as recently as Dec. 5 listed organisations including the US FDA, the European Union and Health Canada as among entities that have “reviewed and analysed all available data and concluded that the evidence is insufficient to link talc use to cancer.”
On Dec. 14, the day Reuters published its report, that section of the website had been removed. It is not clear exactly when the online page changed.
The Canadian government released a draft report this month that found a “consistent and statistically significant positive association” between talc exposure and ovarian cancer. The draft report also said that talc meets criteria to be deemed toxic.
https://twitter.com/JNJNews/status/1074676596907433985
The draft report put forth proposed conclusions that are subject to a public comment period and confirmation in a so-called final screening assessment, Health Canada said.
If the conclusions are confirmed, Canadian officials will consider adding talc to a government list of toxic substances and implementing measures to prohibit or restrict use of talc in some cosmetics, non-prescription drugs and health products, Health Canada said.
A J&J spokeswoman said the company removed the website section after the Canadian government issued the draft report. “We chose to be conservative while that draft is under review,” the spokeswoman said.
While J&J has dominated the talc powder market for more than 100 years, the products contributed less than 0.5 per cent of J&J’s $76.5 billion in revenue last year.
Johnson & Johnsoncancer
