Popular baby powder-maker ‘Johnson & Johnson’ was aware of the presence of harmful asbestos in their product, a report in the Reuters on Friday revealed.
The report said that the company knew for decades that asbestos was sometimes present in their baby powder.
Following the report, the shares of the company fell by over 11 per cent.
The case came to light in 1999 when a 52-year-old Darlene Coker, a massage school owner in Lumberton, Texas, was diagnosed with mesothelioma, a cancer in her lungs and other organs. This cancer is typical to people who inhaled asbestos. Coker, wanting to know how she could have got exposed to asbestos, doubted Johnson’s Baby Powder that she used on her children and herself all her life. Being aware of the fact that mined talc could contain asbestos, she sued Johnson & Johnson.
The company denied the claim, and was able to avoid handing over test results of the powder.
Nearly two decades later in July this year, a jury ordered Johnson & Johnson to pay around 47 Billion USD to women who were exposed to developing ovarian cancer by using the talcum powder.
The World Health Organization and other authorities have no safe level limit for exposure to asbestos. A small quantity of asbestos, which hasn’t been defined, is believed to be enough to cause cancer years later, though many exposed do not get the disease ever at all.
Johnson & Johnson had been facing this asbestos allegation for a long time and there are more than 11,000 cases pending according to some estimates.
