Johnson & Johnson participated in a number of court hearings on charges that baby powder can cause ovarian cancer. A lot of women used J&J powder for their intimate hygiene, and they appealed to the court.
Those women received huge amounts of compensation, but research on the powder is not unambiguous and the female population of Canada is still wondering whether the use of baby powder is safe or not.
Dr. Daniel Cramer from Brigham and Women’s Hospital expressed his doubts about the reliability of the use of the powder for women's intimate hygiene in 1982.
His recent study proved that the risk of ovarian cancer becomes 3 times higher if women use baby powder in their intimate area. The doctor thinks that powder causes inflammatory processes in the lymph nodes, which can lead to cancer.
Baby powder contains three elements: magnesium, silicon, and oxygen. However, it can be contaminated with asbestos, which, as it is known, causes a deadly cancerous mesothelioma.In 2012, the company was obliged to put warning signs on baby powder.
In total, the company has filed about 2.4 thousand similar claims with accusations that Johnson & Johnson ignores studies of the threat of talc and does not warn about the risks of developing cancer.
At the beginning of July in St. Louis there was the largest court hearing against Johnson & Johnson company, after which US$4.7 billion was paid to 22 women. Those women used J&J baby powder for more than 10 years and that led to the appearance of cancer.
Johnson & Johnson is sure that its product does not contain any harmful substances and is not associated with cancer.
The statistics are not very consolatory. More than 2,500 Canadian women had ovarian cancer in 2017.