Talc about ‘pulling a gun’ on your consumers and reputation

Johnson & Johnson (J&J) is being sued for allegedly marketing baby powder to black women even though it knew the product could cause ovarian cancer.

The US’s National Council of Negro Women filed the case on Tuesday against the world’s largest maker of healthcare products for going after African-American women through “deceptive marketing” that included handing out free samples of its talc-based powders at beauty parlours and running advertising campaigns.

“Internal documents demonstrate J&J targeted those advertisements to black women, knowing that black women were more likely to use the powder products and to use them regularly,” according to the complaint, which seeks a finding of liability, warnings and a medical monitoring programme funded by the company. “We now know what J&J knew long before it pulled its talc-based products from the market — that J&J’s powder products can cause ovarian cancer.”

Women across the country have said J&J’s talc-based powders caused their cancers and the company faces more than 25,000 cases over its products. It pulled its baby powder from US and Canadian markets last year and this year set aside $4bn (about R59.2bn) to deal with talc verdicts and settlements. 

The allegations that J&J targeted minority communities aren’t new. Internal documents surfaced earlier in the litigation, which has spanned more than seven years, showing the company’s marketing plans for black and Hispanic women.

The accusations being made against our company are false, and the idea that we would purposefully and systematically target a community with bad intentions is unreasonable and absurd.

—  Kim Montagnino, Johnson & Johnson

“The accusations being made against our company are false, and the idea that we would purposefully and systematically target a community with bad intentions is unreasonable and absurd,” J&J spokesperson Kim Montagnino said.

Lawyers for the black women’s group said some of its members have developed cancer they link to daily use of baby powder and want to hold J&J accountable. They point to a 1992 company memo recommending J&J look into “ethnic (African American, Hispanic) opportunities” to expand the baby powder franchise. 

More than a decade later, J&J set up a task force devoted to improving sales of Shower to Shower, which featured a mixture of talc and cornstarch. J&J sold that product to Valeant Pharmaceuticals in 2012.

“African American consumers in particular will be a good target with more of an emotional feeling and talk about reunions among friends, etc, team up with Ebony Magazine,” a 2002 memo from the task force concluded. It suggested setting up promotions in churches, beauty salons and barbershops, and hiring a recording star such as Patti LaBelle or Aretha Franklin as a celebrity endorser. Neither became a spokesperson for the brand.

The women’s group is asking a judge to hold J&J liable for misleading talc marketing and force it to warn black women they may be “at higher risk of developing ovarian cancer in the future” through the use of its talc-based powders over the years. They also want the company to pay for a medical monitoring programme focused on ovarian cancer in minority communities. 

— Bloomberg News. More stories like this are available on bloomberg.com