Johnson & Johnson Permanently Discontinues Iconic Product
Johnson & Johnson's products have been household names for decades, but it has decided to discontinue one of its iconic products for good.
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Johnson & Johnson is a household name whose products have occupied store shelves for seemingly countless decades. However, in an unexpected maneuver, the company has decided to pull one of its most iconic products from retailers permanently. The company will no longer make or sell its talcum-based baby powder.
Johnson & Johnson will stop selling its talcum-based baby powder but the company has not abandoned its baby powder product entirely. Instead, they are reformulating the powder to be made with cornstarch instead of talcum. The healthcare titan’s decision to make the switch from talcum to cornstarch in its baby powder comes following swaths of lawsuits against them. The lawsuits have been filed by women who allege that the company’s baby powder caused them to develop ovarian cancer.
It is unclear how long Johnson & Johnson has been getting slammed with damning lawsuits related to its baby powder product. However, their effect on the company became publicly evident back in 2018 when, according to CNN, a St. Louis, Missouri jury awarded nearly $5 million to the plaintiffs.
What’s interesting is that the healthcare giant has maintained that it still holds the utmost confidence in its baby powder products. “Our position on the safety of our cosmetic talc remains unchanged,” the company wrote in a statement. Although, this assertion comes alongside what they are calling a “worldwide portfolio assessment” and ultimately its decision to ax the talcum-based product entirely.
Perhaps the company realized that it could no longer hide from the science that suggests the asbestos in talcum has the propensity to increase a woman’s risk of ovarian cancer when used in the genital area. “This transition will help simplify our product offerings, deliver sustainable innovation, and meet the needs of our consumers, customers and evolving global trends,” said the company in a statement that spoke further to its decision to move away from talcum-based baby powder.
Curiously, even though Johnson & Johnson has elected to reformulate its iconic baby powder, the company never chose to warn the public via its product label about its potential to cause ovarian cancer in women. The company reasoned that it would be too confusing for people to see such a warning on a product that the company still fully stands behind. Most other companies still selling talcum-based baby powder have elected to put such a warning on their baby powder product labels/bottles.
Regardless of the company’s motivation to remove the talcum-based powder product from shelves across the globe, it is reassuring to think that because of its decision to do so countless women may be spared from developing ovarian cancer. Johnson & Johnson has yet to outline a timetable for when the new cornstarch-based formula will be made widely available to the public. A visit to Johnson & Johnson’s website simply indicates that the product, in its current state, has been permanently discontinued. It’s worth noting that the company formally stopped selling talcum-based baby powder in 2020 in the United States and Canada prior to its decision to do so globally.
