cross-posted from: https://lemm.ee/post/1159654
Johnson & Johnson has sued four doctors who published studies citing links between talc-based personal care products and cancer, escalating an attack on scientific studies that the company alleges are inaccurate.
J&J’s subsidiary LTL Management, which absorbed the company’s talc liability in a controversial 2021 spinoff, last week filed a lawsuit in New Jersey federal court asking it to force three researchers to “retract and/or issue a correction” of a study that said asbestos-contaminated consumer talc products sometimes caused patients to develop mesothelioma.
Asbestos contaminated - realy? What percentage of products?
Sometimes - so not all contamination was found to cause cancer. Again, what percentage?
TL;DNR but from the summary it sounds like alarmist claims without data.
Doing any amount of research on this brings up this study published by the NIH (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4164883/)
To keep it brief for you:
Talc and asbestos are both silicate minerals
Because of this they naturally occur together
The above has been known outside of commercial industry since the early 80’s at least
The NIH tested 50 talc containing products
All 50 of the tested products contained asbestos in concentrations ranging between 5%-20% asbestos
Application of the talc containing products was found to aerosolise the asbestos fibers in a manner that they could be inhaled
Any inhalation of asbestos is considered enough to cause mesothelioma
J&J has known since 1967 that talc products usually contain asbestos as well as the health risks and continued to market it as safe anyways (https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsonandjohnson-cancer/)
Some other studies have found asbestos contamination of talc at lower percentages such as 15% of market products. I don’t know about you but I don’t want to roll the dice for somewhere between a 0%-85% chance that my product isn’t contaminated with asbestos just so my taint will be dry. If there’s 100,000 asbestos containing products, then at least 15,000 of them will contain asbestos.
Do you want to take that risk?
Scientists don’t publish “alarmist claims without data”. They publish scientific research which is reviewed by their peers and then built on or contradicted as needed. Scientists can’t just make stuff up - their papers are reviewed before they’re published and if they write crap, it doesn’t pass review. There have been several studies since the first paper on this so the link seems fairly robust.
Had you read the article and understood how science works, you’d have learnt that the the patients all had a form of cancer caused by asbestos, and their only exposure was via talc. You’d have also learnt that courts had already upheld the findings in previous litigation with expert testimony (this is where courts listen to scientists who provide evidence to support or refute the claims being made). So at this current stage there’s little doubt that the science is right, both in the scientific literature and in law (though of course there may be a missing piece of information that has not yet come to light).
Finally, I’d like to comment on your absurd remark “sometimes… was found to cause cancer”. Asbestos is an extremely dangerous carcinogen (thing that causes cancer), which is why we regulate it nowadays. The cancers are awful and often kill within 12 months of onset. It is frankly inhuman to suggest that any contamination of a product would be acceptable unless you’re the only one volunteering to die a horrible death.
If you’re not going to read the article or show any compassion for fellow humans then maybe don’t comment and let the mature adults discuss the issues instead.
Could be the reason for a law suit.