Despite thousands of women suing Johnson & Johnson (J&J) over a talc-based baby powder they say caused ovarian cancer, the US-based company continues to ship the controversial product to SA. 

J&J told the Sunday Times that the product would be phased out by the end of the first quarter of this year, three years after the company withdrew it in the US and other countries.

According to The New York Times, in 2020 a US appellate court ordered the company and a subsidiary to pay $2.1bn in damages to women who said their cancer was a result of using the company’s talcum products, including its iconic baby powder.

The court noted that J&J internal memoranda from as far back as the 1960s indicated its talcum products – referred to as the ‘golden egg’, ‘company trust-mark’ and ‘sacred cow‘ – contained asbestos, which could be dangerous.

The court said a reasonable inference ‘from all this evidence is that, motivated by profits, the defendants disregarded the safety of consumers despite their knowledge the talc in their products caused ovarian cancer’.

J&J questioned the testing methods and blamed shoddy science for the findings.

First Sunday Times report