Johnson & Johnson said late Thursday that it would discontinue selling its talcum-based baby powder globally and replace it with its current cornstarch version beginning next year.
The decision follows hundreds of cases filed in recent years by women who claimed ingesting the powder caused them to develop ovarian cancer or mesothelioma, a malignancy that affects the lungs and other organs. According to the firm, and medical studies on talc, the baby powder is harmless and does not cause cancer.
According to a corporate spokesman, Johnson & Johnson chose to discontinue the product owing to “misleading talc lawsuit advertising that produced worldwide misunderstanding and unwarranted alarm.”
The New Jersey business said that demand for their talc powder had decreased, prompting the shift. According to company executives, the move would streamline Johnson & Johnson’s product assortment while still meeting shifting worldwide preferences.
Johnson & Johnson will discontinue selling talc-based baby powder in the United States and Canada in 2020.
A group of Black women sued Johnson & Johnson this summer, alleging that the firm marketed their baby powder to Black women for decades while knowing it included substances that might cause ovarian cancer. The National Council of Negro Women’s complaint comes about three years after a Missouri court ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay $4.7 billion in damages to women in a similar case. Later, the figure was cut to $2.1 billion.
Talcum is a mineral with a structure similar to asbestos, which is known to cause cancer, and they are occasionally mined together.
In 2020, the firm recalled 33,000 bottles of baby powder after FDA investigators discovered a trace of asbestos in a bottle bought online. Later that year, Johnson & Johnson said that 15 tests on the same container of baby powder by two labs contracted by the corporation revealed no asbestos.
A U.S. government-led research of 250,000 women, the biggest of its kind, found no significant evidence connecting baby powder to ovarian cancer, while the principal author of the study termed the findings “extremely equivocal.”
Last October, the corporation established a subsidiary called LTL Management to handle all of its talc litigation claims. LTL Management eventually filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy, which some feel was done to postpone payouts from the many claims. Johnson & Johnson said it put nearly $2 billion into a trust fund set up to settle claims that the bankruptcy court deems it owes.
Johnson & Johnson also announced last October that it would spin off its consumer health division, which marketed baby powder, Band-Aid bandages, and other goods, into a separate publicly listed company. J&J will continue to market prescription medications and medical equipment.
Johnson & Johnson stock dipped roughly 1% in early morning trade Friday, to around $165 per share. Nonetheless, the company has outperformed the Dow Jones Industrial Average, of which J&J is a component, for the most of the year.
The Associated Press contributed to this story.