Independent testing confirms no asbestos in Johnson’s Baby Powder

US healthcare corporation Johnson & Johnson (J&J) has announced that its widely-used consumer product, Johnson’s Baby Powder, was free of asbestos following allegations by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) of trace amounts of the material found in a bottle purchased online. According to J&J, the FDA’s reported results could have either been because of test sample contamination or analyst error at the lab, or both.

However, the regulatory agency is unmoved by the latest announcement from J&J and stands by its findings.

In October 2019, the FDA prompted a nationwide recall of around 33,000 bottles of Johnson’s Baby Powder, produced and shipped in the US, but two different third-party labs, which conducted multiple tests on samples from the same bottle tested by the FDA’s contracted lab, found no asbestos; neither was asbestos present in retained samples of the finished lot from which the bottle was produced. J&J said a smaller number of independent tests also found no asbestos.

The recall marks the first such event for J&J and is also the first time US regulators have announced a finding of asbestos in J&J’s baby powder -asbestos is a known carcinogen that has been linked to deadly mesothelioma, which commonly affects the lining of the lungs.

The blow comes as J&J faces more than 15,000 outstanding lawsuits over a variety of its products, including Johnson’s Baby Powder, which consumers say caused their cancer diagnosis.

Category: Features, Health alert