SPECIAL | Did Johnson & Johnson put profit over safety?
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What is the main focus of Gardiner Harris's book?
There are two products that immediately come to mind when I think of Johnson & Johnson. One inspired the title of your book, Johnson & Johnson's Baby Shampoo, No More Tears. The other, the topic of your investigation, is J&J's baby powder. What are the risks associated with talcum powder? And can you share some of the evidence you uncovered that the company knew about those risks?
What are the risks associated with talcum powder?
About talcum powder, the risks are clearly about its chronic contamination with asbestos. But I also want to make clear, Dana, that my book is not just about baby powder. It is about nine separate products. The products that I go through include Tylenol. that is the most widely used drug on the planet and is far more dangerous than most people know. I also talk about EPO or Procrit that most people know because Lance Armstrong used it to win seven tours to France, but actually ended up killing more than 500,000 Americans in the worst cancer drug disaster in American history. Also, Risperdal, an antipsychotic that is part of a disaster that's killed more than a million Americans. So through these various products, I point out that Johnson & Johnson has been responsible for contributing or causing more than 2 million American deaths over the last 50 odd years. And that's more deaths than have died in all of America's wars combined. It's an extraordinary toll from what has long been one of the most admired corporations in the world.
And it is that contrast between what we think of Johnson & Johnson and how Johnson & Johnson has actually behaved that is the focus of my book and that I hope people can sort of come away and find ways to protect themselves, not only against Johnson & Johnson, but against corruption writ large in American healthcare.
So can you give us some of the evidence that you uncovered specifically as relates to baby powder?
Sure. So talc and asbestos are chemically identical. They have the same exact constituencies. The only difference between the two is a little bit of pressure and time as to whether those chemicals form into talc deposits or they form in asbestos deposits.
How has Johnson & Johnson handled evidence of asbestos in baby powder?
And basically what geologists will tell you is that you cannot have a talc deposit without a little bit of asbestos ribboned in the middle of it. And you can't have an asbestos deposit without some talc ribboned in there. And basically Johnson and Johnson began to understand this problem in the 1950s and the 1960s. Now, in the 50s and 60s, these small contaminations and these tests showed that up to 3% to 5% of baby powder was asbestos in the early years. But there was asbestos everywhere in American society during those years. There wasn't a boat plane house car that didn't have asbestos in it and often pure asbestos so it didn't seem like kind of a big deal but science began to discover in the 1960s in the 1970s that even microscopic quantities of asbestos could cause cancer, particularly a cancer of the lining of the lung, which is known as mesothelioma.
The industry then sort of rallied, came up with an asbestos testing standard that it sold to the FDA as safe. In fact, this testing standard would bless talcum powders as being asbestos free, even when they had up to 3% asbestos. And then FDA basically washed its hands of the issue. It didn't have the money to police cosmetics at the time or even now, and it didn't.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main focus of Gardiner Harris's book?
1:00–1:25
2
What are the risks associated with talcum powder?
1:25–3:41
3
How has Johnson & Johnson handled evidence of asbestos in baby powder?
3:41–6:37
4
What are the implications of Johnson & Johnson's lawsuits?
6:37–7:57
5
Why is Johnson & Johnson using bankruptcy to address its liabilities?
7:57–14:09
Speakers
1 identifiedMore from The Excerpt
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