13 ms·
FDA bowed to industry for decades as alarms were sounded over talc
- davidhyde 7y agoSo if you are a small cosmetics company the FDA will prevent you from selling your product without thorough testing but if you are a large cosmetic company you can simply tell the FDA that everything is OK. This benefits the larger companies and therefore, monopolies. Strikingly similar to how the FAA seems to operate with Boeing and look how that turned out.
- sjg007 7y agoThe FDA doesn't regulate cosmetics...
- ceejayoz 7y agoSure they do. https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetics-laws-regulations/fda-authority-over-cosmetics-how-cosmetics-are-not-fda-approved-are-fda-regulated https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetics-laws-regulations/fda... https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetics-compliance-enforcement/inspection-cosmetics https://www.fda.gov/cosmetics/cosmetics-compliance-enforceme... > Section 704 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act) authorizes FDA to conduct inspections of cosmetic firms at reasonable times, in a reasonable manner, and without prior notice in order to assure compliance with the applicable laws and regulations, to determine whether cosmetics are safe and properly labeled, and to identify possible health risks and other violations of the law.
- dboreham 7y agoThe thing they don't regulate is vitamins, supplements etc. Interestingly those things can be just as potent as "real drugs", but they aren't regulated simply because the seller opted to not say they are drugs, rather on any theory that they're not actually drugs.
- markdown 7y agoNot to worry, those are regulated by the banks, who won't provide financial services to any business selling anything that they think mimics illegal drugs.
- tehwebguy 7y agoThey are talking about "supplements"
- HeWhoLurksLate 7y ago* who will stop providing financial services (because the make money off those, duh) once cornered by a higher authority. FTFY
- dpau 7y agoJ&J's actions are also very similar to those of the tobacco industry and oil companies- the dangers of their product were well-known within the industry and yet they took steps to obscure the issue and limit regulation rather than address the problem. (In fact I just did a Google search for "hazardous talc" and the first result is an ad: "Johnson & Johnson | Get the Facts About Talc" https://www.factsabouttalc.com https://www.factsabouttalc.com) In the ceramics industry the dangers of talc are well known, in recent years well-known sources of talc have been closed down due to asbestos contamination. In addition talc-silicosis is a very real concern and we never touch raw talc without an OSHA-approved respirator and dust extraction system. Article from 1979 about the R. T. Vanderbilt Company's fight to keep talc mines open despite the presence of tremolite: https://www.nytimes.com/1979/12/03/archives/new-yorks-talc-miners-a-dual-fight-for-survival-nowhere-else-to-go.html https://www.nytimes.com/1979/12/03/archives/new-yorks-talc-m...
- girvo 7y agoIn a different corner of information: pulmonary talcosis is a known danger for intravenous drug users who shoot up pills. We’ve known about that for decades, too
- dzhiurgis 7y agoIs the risk there for people who sniff them as well? I have some friends who like their adder too much
- girvo 7y agoIt’s theorised that yes, there is, but I haven’t seen the same papers/case studies that prove it. But: consider that talc dust inhalation is known to cause talcosis, then consider that snorting crushed up tablets with talc in them goes straight into your mucous membranes and lungs, I personally would not be at all surprised.
- dzhiurgis 7y agoHow does medical industry avoid asbestos contamination in talc then? Or is overlooked just as in cosmetics? Kinda doubt it.
- LanceH 7y agoDon't leave out the step where you hire a bunch of politicians/friends/relatives to your board and send some of your execs to work as regulators.
- chadmeister 7y agoYup, looks like a classic case of regulatory capture.
- dboreham 7y agoSo common that Economists have invented a term for it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulatory_capture
- chcknsammich 7y agoThe real root of the problem is probably that the FDA is also a monopoly.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- asdf21 7y agoAs are all government programs -- agreed, that is the issue.
- vkou 7y agoDo you seriously think that we'd have fewer of these issues if companies could shop around for the cheapest & most lax regulator? If you believe that, please explain to me why the BBB exists, and what positive social purpose it serves. It is the poster child for a toothless opt-in 'regulator', and it is worse than useless at dealing with malfeasance by its members. (But it's pretty good at collecting membership dues.)
- Consultant32452 7y agoImagine if absolutely nothing changed about the BBB except that I forced you to fund them against your will.
- JamisonM 7y agoWhy would you imagine that? All the work involved in capturing the FDA demonstrates that the FDA is not a "mandatory BBB", if they really had no teeth there would be no need to devote all these resources to dupe/intimidate/capture them.
- Consultant32452 7y agoOf course the FDA has teeth. But the teeth are only sharp enough to hurt the little fish. The big fish keep on swimming while the FDA takes out the little fish, just like the big fish like it. The FDA and the big fish are partners. Notice how nobody in this situation is partners with you and me.
- asdf21 7y agoRight, so government cannot be trusted to enforce consumer protections and it needs to be privatized.
- jostmey 7y agoPretty much true given my knowledge. It is probably time to disband the FDA. That's the easy part. But the FDA serves a vital purpose and a new agency would be required to replace it
- taneq 7y ago> So if you are a small cosmetics company the FDA will prevent you from selling your product without thorough testing but if you are a large cosmetic company you can simply tell the FDA that everything is OK. Possibly they're stricter on small companies because if they mess up, you can't fix the issue with a big class-action lawsuit? If Johnson & Johnson mess up, they're big enough to be able to compensate consumers directly. Not saying it's an ideal solution but if I were a budget-constrained federal agency trying to minimize harm with limited resources I could see myself making a similar call.
- nicoburns 7y agoNot everything is about money. And moral lapses don't (or shouldn't) disappear just because you pay for them with money. Regulation should protect people from everyone.
- taneq 7y agoI totally agree. I was just trying to put myself in their place and come up with an interpretation of why they might, in good faith, behave this way.
- guelo 7y agoThe solution to this type of problem is not to weaken or get rid of these cops. We should give them more resources, more power, more independence to resist political pressures, more ethics rules and internal affairs, more respect and leeway to the career professionals to attract the best and the brightest. This is a frustration to me because neither the left or the right seem to fight for better government, more just, more fair. The right have this childish dream that no government will magically work, which happens to dovetail into what criminal corporations want. The left protect the government unions and allow them to become dysfunctional.
- Ericson2314 7y agoI was with you until you blamed the government unions. That is emphatically not where regulatory happens, even though those unions themselves (in comparison to their beleguared private sector counterparts) are arguably an instance of regulatory capture.
- chiefalchemist 7y agoThe list of untested yet still "approved" chemicals / additives is endless. The ability to pin point the guilt of causing a disease on any one of them is nearly impossible.
- Cougher 7y agoVery true. Companies are trusted to perform their own testing which is, at best, only testing for superficial, short-term effects. And substances are tested singly, despite the fact that we know that their effects are often multiplied by orders of magnitude. Look at the "inert ingredients" in pesticides for example.
- mikestew 7y agoIt was over seventy years, after it was decided lead in fuel was a bad idea, before it was banned in road-going vehicles. [0] Keep that in mind when some politician or business owner goes on about "bureaucrats". Because "bureaucrats" to them means "someone who stands between me and more profits". "Bureaucrats" to you should mean "people that make sure this shit gets enforced". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Controversy_and_phase-out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetraethyllead#Controversy_and...
- ceejayoz 7y agoSee also: the two-decade war against airbags in cars. https://www.csmonitor.com/1988/0519/abelt.html https://www.csmonitor.com/1988/0519/abelt.html
- merpnderp 7y agoWhen these regulators stop "retiring" to cushy jobs in the industry, I'll believe it's the politicians and not the regulators openly taking bribes in the form of future "jobs". An easy fix would be for congress to pass a law preventing regulators from working in the industry they regulated, but then the politicians wouldn't also receive those same cushy "jobs".
- armenarmen 7y agoWasn’t there talk earlier this year of putting a 10 year delay on retired government officials taking these lobbying jobs? Did anything come from that?
- ceejayoz 7y agoObama and Trump both instituted five year bans. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13770 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Executive_Order_13770) Unfortunately, they're largely ignored via waivers: https://www.vox.com/2017/6/1/15723994/trump-ethics-waivers https://www.vox.com/2017/6/1/15723994/trump-ethics-waivers
- swiley 7y ago
- loceng 7y agoTo bring a new fight to the attention of more of the public: big pharma is attempting to have the FDA prevent people from using their own stem cells for healing via regenerative medicine - either fat or bone marrow derived. They want to force centralization and also for consumers to buy the stem cell products they're developing. Their arguments are fear mongering and non-sense, however they've so far been doing a good job manipulating the FDA.
- costcopizza 7y agoAny links or ways to push back on this?
- loceng 7y agoThe source is from doctors I've had stem cell treatments from. The state of California also has had a lot of difficulty - spending $4 billion on stem cell research, only to run into problems with FDA who greatly limit treatments that the science of regenerative medicine shows to be greatly effective. There aren't many regenerative medicine doctors at the moment and the public isn't educated enough to push back against the regulatory capture that's currently developing. The doctors themselves are adapting to provide certain treatments outside the jurisdiction of the US, otherwise they will continue to provide treatment - knowing that the centralization efforts of big pharma will increase costs to consumers by 2x; people who are in pain of course are arguably the most desperate and whether a treatment that works costs $5,000 or $10,000 - they will pay it. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21694620 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21694620
- sfkdjf9j3j 7y agoI think people mean citations of the medical research behind these procedures, not that there exist doctors willing to perform them.
- loceng 7y agoFair enough. Here's research from one clinic: https://regenexx.com/results/research/ https://regenexx.com/results/research/
- costcopizza 7y agoAnd we can't vote these regulators out nor boycott them. Stories like this erode my faith in...everything.
- cde-v 7y agoDon't despair citizen, our corporate benefactors still allow us to Peacefully Protest™. Peaceful Protest™ solves everything!
- selimthegrim 7y agoI would link to that Safely Endangered Pooh meme where fighting fascism with violent means makes you a fascist but the difference between HN and reddit is Google and a brain.
- caconym_ 7y agoYou can peacefully protest all you like, in the designated chain-link cage set aside for you 5 blocks away from the thing you're protesting. Oh, and you do have a permit, right?
- ceejayoz 7y agoWe vote for the people who appoint the regulators, and we can boycott the industry responsible for the regulatory capture.
- loudmax 7y agoYou can absolutely vote out the politicians responsible for for giving authority to these regulators. In fact, it's your duty to vote out crooked politicians. Even when both candidates for an office are crooked, they won't be equally crooked. Figure out which will do the least damage and support that candidate despite their flaws. And don't give up hope. Crooked interests are absolutely counting on voters' cynicism to allow them to operate.
- Invictus0 7y agoIt's not so simple as good and crooked. How can you even traceback which politician gave which authority to what regulator, and how can you possibly know that the opposing candidate would do a better job? Fringe issues like this are completely out of scope for voters and will not even show up on the politician's platform. If you care deeply about a fringe issue, you need to either hire a lobbyist or become a politician.
- jaredandrews 7y agoGood interview with a lawyer working on this case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM-4ZoM2rv8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FM-4ZoM2rv8
- EamonnMR 7y agoThere's an entire chapter in An Air That Kills on talc.
- dekalbcountyman 7y agoso stop putting baby powder on my nuts during the summer? :(
- mikestew 7y agoBaby powder is fine, given that I don't know that one can even buy talc powder anymore. It's all made with corn starch now. Go right ahead and bread those nuts (verifying that it's non-talc breading, just to be safe).
- alexis_fr 7y agoThank you, the difference between talc and baby powder wasn’t obvious for me (especially as a non-native). Quoting Google: “Talc is a clay mineral composed of hydrated magnesium silicate with the chemical formula Mg3Si4O10(OH)2.”
- ncmncm 7y agoIt's not all corn starch now. Talc is still big business.
- rootusrootus 7y agoTalc is still very much commonplace. What is actually somewhat hard to find is pure talc with no fragrance at all. Not everyone wants to smell like baby powder.
- mikestew 7y agoThanks for a different POV. Here in Redmond, WA I’m either not looking (which is quite possible), or corn starch dominates the shelves.
- rootusrootus 7y agoI've no doubt it varies considerably by store. Maybe by area, as well, though I'm not all that far from you, so that probably isn't a big factor. To get actual unscented pure talc I had to find it on Amazon.
- ksec 7y agoSo are those Johnson and Johnson Baby powder actually safe? I remember reading J&J said only a batch in some years contains ultra small amount of some substance and less than certain % of it is safe.
- gwern 7y agoOne has to wonder about a lengthy article which refuses to cite any numbers and instead repeats endlessly that 'no level is known to be safe', which is irrelevant.
- refurb 7y agoI'll probably get down voted to hell, but this seems to be quite overblown. The FDA has posted their latest analysis of J&J talcum powder.[1] Of the 3 samples, 1 had "none detected" and 2 had 0.00002% or less by TEM (electron microscope). We're talking close to limit of detection. The bigger issue is the link to ovarian cancer. The data is all over the place. This one paper [1] sums up the data nicely - when looking at talc use there was no correlation with ovarian cancer. Even outside of hygienic use (condoms, gloves), many women had high talc exposure and no ovarian cancer, while others had no talc exposure and ovarian cancer. "It may be argued that the overall null findings associated with talc-dusted diaphragms and condom use is more convincing evidence for a lack of a carcinogenic effect, especially given the lack of an established correlation between perineal dusting frequency and ovarian tissue talc concentrations and the lack of a consistent dose-response relationship with ovarian cancer risk." [1]
- lightedman 7y ago"The FDA has posted their latest analysis of J&J talcum powder.[1] Of the 3 samples, 1 had "none detected" and 2 had 0.00002% or less by TEM (electron microscope). We're talking close to limit of detection." I do a bunch of mining and know the dangers of talc and its contaminants - it only takes ONE PARTICLE of tremolite or actinolite to start you on the road to mesothelioma. You just don't know which specific particle will trigger it.
- chmaynard 7y agoSomeday, scholars will write the long, sordid history of how industrial chemicals have been virtually unregulated for many decades. Thousands of novel compounds have been introduced into the environment in enormous quantities without any serious clinical studies of their long-term effects on human health and the health of the natural world.
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- m463 7y agoThis has been happening for centuries. I think of the mercury used in gold mining in the 1800's as well as this book from the 1960's: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silent_Spring I also read when the USSR came apart the world started to find out the scope of hidden environmental problems. "Heavy metal pollution near Norilsk is so severe that it has now become economically feasible to mine surface soil, as the soil has acquired such high concentrations of platinum and palladium." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norilsk#Pollution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Norilsk#Pollution
- tolstoshev 7y ago"Eleven days later, the company announced that tests by labs it hired had determined that there was no asbestos–other than some contamination it said came from an air conditioner – in samples from the one bottle tested by the FDA and the batch it came from." Why the hell is there an AC system that is spewing out asbestos particles?
- Roboprog 7y ago1970s? Lucky if the ceiling wasn’t coated with the stuff, in fairness. Quantities / concentrations not specified in the article that I saw at a skim. Both sides talking past the other, sadly.
- ppmanik 7y ago"J&J, the world’s largest producer of talc powders, said in a statement that it recalled the 33,000 bottles of Baby Powder out of an “abundance of caution.” Eleven days later, the company announced that tests by labs it hired had determined that there was no asbestos–other than some contamination it said came from an air conditioner – in samples from the one bottle tested by the FDA and the batch it came from. Wow just wow
- ptah 7y agofree market is not always consumer friendly, regulations can save lives