State Files Suit Against Talcum Powder Companies

SANTA FE, NM---- State Attorney General Hector Balderas has filed a lawsuit in the First Judicial District Court of New Mexico against four corporations that manufactured, advertised, and sold talcum powder products, including baby powder, which contained hazardous and carcinogenic asbestos to New Mexicans.

The defendants named in the lawsuit are Johnson & Johnson, Johnson & Johnson Consumer Companies, Inc., Valeant Pharmaceuticals International Corporation; and Valeant Pharmaceuticals North America LLC.

The suit charges the companies with breaking three separate state statutes: the New Mexico Unfair Practices Act, the New Mexico Medicaid Fraud Act, and the New Mexico Fraud Against Taxpayers Act.

“Our office will take immediate action any time a corporation misleads a New Mexican consumer or endangers the health and safety of our families,” said Attorney General Balderas. “These products have been targeted at minority groups, especially Black and Hispanic women and children, with false messages about their safety, and I will hold these companies accountable.”

The affected products were sold under the names Johnson’s Baby Powder, Johnson’s Medicated Powder, and Shower-to-Shower Talcum Powder.

The lawsuit alleges that, despite knowing for over forty years that the products contained carcinogenic asbestos and increased the risk of some types of cancer, the companies actively worked to conceal that risk from the public and from government regulators. Instead, the corporations marketed the products as “safe” and “healthful."

Whilst the companies have long denied the talcum powder ovarian cancer risk, numerous studies from the 1970s onward have concluded that talc particles which reach the ovaries increase a woman's risk of ovarian cancer.

According to legal documents filed in two 2016 court cases, ovarian cancer causes approximately 14,000 deaths in the U.S. each year. In those 2016 cases the courts awarded more than $130 million in damages to women who suffered from ovarian cancer after using Johnson's Baby Powder routinely.

Talcum powder is made from talc, a mineral made up mainly of the elements magnesium, silicon, and oxygen. In its natural form, some talc contains asbestos, a substance known to cause cancers in and around the lungs when inhaled.

The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC), a branch of the World Health Organization (WHO), has classified talc that contains asbestos as “carcinogenic to humans.”

In 1976, the Cosmetic, Toiletry, and Fragrances Association (CTFA), the personal care industry trade association, issued voluntary guidelines stating that all talc used in cosmetic products in the United States should be free from detectable amounts of asbestos.

Despite that knowledge, in the U.S. talcum powder is classed as a ‘cosmetic’. Because of that label, the National Toxicology Program (NTP), a body formed from the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has still not fully reviewed talc for its possible carcinogenic qualities.

New Mexico is charging that the companies continued to manufacture, advertise and sell asbestos-containing products in the state even though research had already made them aware of the potential cancer risks.

New Mexico is one of the first states in the nation to file such a lawsuit. If successful, the state is asking the court to award punitive damages, court costs, and any further relief the court finds just and proper.