7 ms·
Johnson and Johnson Has a Baby Powder Problem
- s_q_b 11y agoIt does not surprise me that introduction of small particulates to any orifice on a daily basis would increase cancer risk. Household dust increases cancer risk. The cover up orchestrated by Johnson&Johnson here, however, is the deplorable story.
- djrogers 11y agoFTR, this issue has nothing to do with inhalation - it's about its use in women's undergarments, and the link between that an ovarian cancer.
- kzhahou 11y agoI'm just a simple man, but I don't understand how a fine-grained powder, even entering the vagina, could cause ovarian cancer. This very long article spends only two paragraphs asking that question, with no answer. Sounds like pesudo-statistical lawyering. This woman has cancer and she used talc every day of her life, ergo the talc is to blame.
- toomuchtodo 11y agohttp://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/athome/talcum-powder-and-cancer http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/othercarcinogens/a...
- kzhahou 11y agoThat link says what I'm saying: it's not clear that this is really happening. > Many studies in women have looked at the possible link between talcum powder and cancer of the ovary. Findings have been mixed, with some studies reporting a slightly increased risk and some reporting no increase. Many case-control studies have found a small increase in risk. But these types of studies can be biased because they often rely on a person’s memory of talc use many years earlier. Two prospective cohort studies, which would not have the same type of potential bias, have not found an increased risk.
- gozur88 11y agoI wonder if this is going to end up like the breast implant thing, with lawyers getting rich and companies in bankruptcy before we take a step back and realize the law is way ahead of the science.
- Turing_Machine 11y agoEven if there is a correlation, there might not be a cause and effect relationship. For example, it's known that female reproductive cancers are associated with the levels of various female sex hormones. Female sex hormones also affect the vaginal lining and external genitalia (in particular, moisture levels). It might be that women who are prone to ovarian cancer due to hormone levels also have a vaginal/labial situation that makes them more likely to apply powder to keep the area dry. If that were the case, you'd see a correlation with no cause and effect relation whatsoever. (just an illustration... I'm not claiming this is what's going on, but I'd probably try to argue something like that if I were a lawyer for J&J). However, if the coverup of the correlation is as described in the article, that would be a bad, bad thing.
- mirimir 11y agoOne might ask why asbestos causes mesothelioma. Maybe the mechanisms are similar. Although talc is obviously less effective. But if there's increased risk, the lack of mechanistic understanding doesn't negate the evidence.
- refurb 11y agoWe already know why asbestos causes mesothelioma. Asbestos can form very small particles that go deep into the lung (there is good relationship between particle size and how deep it penetrates into the lung). Asbestos contains iron and the iron can promote free-radical formation, thus DNA damage and thus cancer. Yes, I'm simplifying it, but that's what I remember from my toxicology classes long ago. I don't think it's odd to question the toxicity of talcum powder. Talcum powder used to contain asbestos, but doesn't any longer. We have good evidence that the newer talc doesn't cause lung cancer. So an obvious question is, if talc doesn't cause lung cancer, why would it cause ovarian cancer? Of course, different tissue, different effect, but it raises doubt. Maybe talc does cause ovarian cancer by some as-yet-discovered mechanism, but I wouldn't blame anyone for thinking it either coincidental (lots of people get ovarian cancer who never use talc) or due to something else.
- danieltillett 11y agoI was under the impression that the cause was chronic inflammation resulting from recruitment and activation of macrophages and other immune cells to site of the fibres [1]. Chronic inflammation causes cancer on its own independent of external factors like free radical formation. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesothelioma https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mesothelioma
- refurb 11y agoWell, I should have added details. You are correct that asbestos that doesn't contain iron can still cause cancer through a hypothesized inflammatory mechanism. Honestly, I don't we know the exact mechanism, but have some theories that seem to fit.
- alphonsegaston 11y agoIt's actually in reference to fairly well-established science: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/?term=talc+ovarian http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/?term=talc+ovarian
- scotty79 11y agoYou could probably get lung or throat cancer if you inhale it or swab your nostrils with it on daily basis.
- mschuster91 11y ago> She lost her health insurance because she exceeded the policy limits and had to skip her last chemo treatment. What in fucking hell is this? An insurance exists to protect people from going bankrupt due to health issues, not to screw people over when they're already in no position to fight. How on earth is this legal?
- CydeWeys 11y agoIt's not legal anymore, thanks to Obamacare. This happened the year before that provision went into effect.
- edraferi 11y agoThanks Obama!
- ridgeguy 11y agoI think there's explanatory power in remembering that private, for-profit insurance companies have as their corporate priority maximization of shareholder value. Protecting people from bankruptcy due to medical expenses is not a corporate goal.
- cb18 11y agoIf word gets out that a company's insurance is kinda shitty, they're going to find themselves with fewer customers going forward, which is not good for shareholder value. Nickle and diming on a claim isn't where shareholder value comes from, but rather providing a good product that does what it is meant to do.
- Retra 11y agoThat's not really a factor when your employer is the one choosing your insurance providers.
- darpa_escapee 11y agoProve that to the shareholders and executives.
- aaron695 11y agoAlthough you'd have to be a total idiot to give much attention to such a idiotic, emotive article there does seem to be evidence inhaling mico particles is very very bad. Be it cigarette smoke or a fireplace or smog or perhaps talcum power use = mico particle inhalation. If there's a real story here this is where it might be, or give me a better written article that is about scientists not juries.
- lostlogin 11y agoWhat is in your underwear that allows micro inhalation? The association doesn't appear to be linked to inhalation in any way.
- ars 11y agoI've known for at least a decade that talc was dangerous. I was 100% under the impression it was taken off the market years ago and replaced with corn starch. Reading this article is the first time I realized it was not taken off the market, and I'm very confused. How can I know this is dangerous and the company that makes it not know? I thought it was common knowledge. I'm having a hard time expressing how perplexed and confused I am to hear talc is still on the market. I mean, it says "not to inhale it" - how can you possibly apply it and not inhale some of it? It's impossible. There is no way to use this safely without a gas mask.
- vilhelm_s 11y agoThe risk described in this article does not have to do with inhalation though.
- ars 11y agoI know, but why is it still on the market? It's impossible to use safely.
- raverbashing 11y agoDo you know what else can be deadly when inhaling it? Water Limit is 2mg/m3 for 8h days https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talc#Industrial_grade https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talc#Industrial_grade
- ars 11y agoAnd? It's possible to use water safely, it's not possible to use talc safely without PPE.
- donatj 11y agoAnything that hasn't been shown to cause cancer yet simply hasn't been investigated hard enough.
- 542458 11y agoThat's a bit excessively dismissive of the issue at hand. We've investigated many substances to death that have shown no consistent increase in risk - aspartame, coffee, most vaccines, and aluminum-oxide based antiperspirants for example. Carcinogens are a very real concern, and dismissing that concern by pretending that "everything is a carcinogen, what can you do?" is unhelpful.
- golergka 11y agoDihydrogen monoxide.
- grizzles 11y agoI've known about this molecular similarity to asbestos for 15 years, and have pretty much warned every barber or hairdresser that I've ever been to. They've never listened. I moved to a different city but I heard about a year ago the hairdresser at a place I used to frequent has lung cancer. Was it the cause? Who knows, but it sure is sad to hear. Regular people are just horrible about assessing / understanding risk. Baby Power is like the climate change of the local hairdressing world. That might be a slight overstatement, but gosh they sure use a ton of it here.
- reirob 11y agoQuote: > “People were using something they thought was perfectly safe,” he says. “And it isn’t. At least give people the choice. J&J didn’t give people a choice.” Among the most painful revelations, he says, was that in the 1990s, even as the company acknowledged concerns in the health community, it considered increasing its marketing efforts to black and Hispanic women, who were already buying the product in high numbers. Cynical question: Was increasing marketing efforts to black and Hispanic women out of racism or a cold risk calculation in the hope that these women couldn't afford to defend themselves as good as other groups? Will J&J be persecuted for this discrimination? Disclaimer: I am not from US, but by reading HN I am often surprised how things work in US.
- golergka 11y ago> Cynical question: Was increasing marketing efforts to black and Hispanic women out of racism or a cold risk calculation in the hope that these women couldn't afford to defend themselves as good as other groups? Will J&J be persecuted for this discrimination? Corporations of that size aren't usually coordinated that well, in my experience. Most likely, they were just putting marketing money in the demographics they identified in some surveys, and marketing manager responsible for that decision was from completely different department from PR guys handling the health issue.
- alphonsegaston 11y agoI don't know if this is true for J&J, but the paint industry is quite large and banked on racism allowing them to get away with harmful lead additives. This kind of cold calculus is hardly out of bounds for US corporations: The lead industry even sought to place the blame for lead poisoning epidemic on parents and children, claiming that the problem was not with the lead paint but with the "uneducable Negro and Puerto Rican" parents who "failed" to stop children from placing their fingers and toys in their mouths. Children poisoned by lead, the industry claimed, had a disease that led them to suck on "unnatural objects" and thereby get poisoned. http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/why-it-took-decades-of-blaming-parents-before-we-banned-lead-paint/275169/ http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/04/why-it-too...