The power is ultimately in the customers hands. It’s what we as buyers are willing to purchase and demand of companies. Yes, companies should be doing the right thing but look at how much they get away with. If a customer questions the source and ingredient integrity and refuses to buy products with anything less, companies will need to meet demand.
The asbestos in your baby powder scandal
In 1997 a woman named Darlene Coker filed a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson alleging their Baby Powder had ‘poisonous talc.’ She claimed exposure to this product caused her diagnoses of mesothelioma–a cancer that is almost exclusively caused by asbestos exposure. J&J avoided handing over their internal testing data and Darlene was forced to drop the suit due to a lack of evidence.
Fast forward to 2009 and a wave of asbestos specific talcum powder lawsuits exploded and this time, litigants were able to force the disclosure of J&J’s corporate archives.
Nine long years later in 2018 and a Reuters investigative report exposed internal corporate documents. The scandal: J&J executives, scientists and lawyers all knew their raw talc and finished powered sometimes tested positive for asbestos. And they had known this since 1971 with some documents suggesting they knew since the 1950s.
Public awareness erupted and the tens of thousands of cases were brought to court.
To date J&J have paid $700 million to resolve 99% of the ovarian cancer claims and investigations by 43 State Attorneys General in the U.S. Individual jury awards have reached staggering amounts including one of $966 million in Los Angeles.
To this day, litigation continues and not just in North America but the U.K. and Australia too.
It wasn’t until 2023 that they ceased selling their talc-based baby powders and switched to corn starch.
26 years after the issue was raised by Darlene.
73 years since they knew.
The baby powder asbestos case was a well-known one and probably carried extra weight because it was associated with a baby product.
How many other big corporations are hiding behind big legal teams and bigger marketing budgets?
Lead toothpaste for kids
What do Unicorn Sparkle, Smiling Shark and Dragon Dazzle all have in common? They are all flavours in Colgate’s child-centric toothpaste line “hello kids,” and they were all included in the independent laboratory testing that found unreasonably high levels of lead contamination.
The products make “natural” claims with health-conscious messaging such as “natural flavour,” no dyes,” “no artificial sweeteners.” All of which give the illusion that the product is safe and toxin-free. It turned out they were anything but toxin-free because when tested, measurable amounts of lead were found in levels ranging from 236 to 658 parts per billion (ppb).
While there is no legal lead limit set specifically for toothpaste, the guidelines set for baby food are 10 to 20 ppb and 100 ppb for confectionary. The lawsuit argues that because young children frequently swallow toothpaste, the high lead level is a safety hazard. Medical experts suggest that there is no safe level of lead exposure for children.
The court cases in America are ongoing and so far, no recall of the products has been issued.
Burt’s Bees not so natural formula
Another case includes class-action lawsuits filed against Burt’s Bees and their parent company Clorox alleging their makeup products contained polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) which plaintiffs argued violated the brand’s “100% natural,” and “consciously crafted” marketing.
What are forever chemicals?
PFAS substances are a group of over 15,000 synthetic chemicals that have been created since the 1950s. They resist oil, heat, stains and grease and can be found in everything from non-stick cookware, grease resistant wrappers and microwavable bags, clothing, cleaning supplies, dental products, skin care and cosmetics. They are referred to as “forever chemicals” because they don’t break down naturally in the human body or the environment due to an exceptionally strong carbon-fluorine bond. For this reason, they are found in drinking water supply, soil, air and human blood. They accumulate over time and exposure to high levels has been linked to a number of health issues including: liver damage, some cancers, elevated cholesterol, reduced fertility and birth weight and hormone disruption.
Setting things straight with Revlon
L’Oreal and Revlon are both involved in thousands of product liability lawsuits alleging that their chemical hair relaxer and straightener products contain toxic chemicals that can cause cancers and reproductive health issues. These lawsuits began in 2022 after the National Institute of Health found that women who frequently used hair relaxer products were more than twice as likely to develop uterine cancer.
Benzoyl Peroxide to Benzene
Many companies faced backlash after an independent study found that the chemical Benzoyl Peroxide, which is popular as an topical acne treatment, degrades into benzene–a known carcinogen–when exposed to heat. CeraVe and its parent company L’Oreal face multiple class-action lawsuits from consumers claiming they would not have purchased the products had they been informed and the brands failed to warn customers of the risks.
Brands turned the onus back onto consumers to keep the product in cool areas, suggesting it was fine if the product isn’t heated. But this neglects all the other times the products could be exposed to heat that is outside of customer control including during transport, delivery and postage.
Why does this matter?
At the end of the day what these lawsuits have in common is testing that eventually exposed the truth and a problem with chemicals that goes beyond just the ingredient itself.
In some cases, chemicals that had been deemed safe, like Benzoyl Peroxide were exposed as not so safe, but actually were they ever safe to begin with? It’s a harsh ingredient that isn’t without side effects. Indeed, a clinical study comparing Tea Tree oil to Benzoyl Peroxide (BP) as effective treatments to acne, found Tea Tree to be just as effective, without the side effects like burning, itching, redness and irritation that BP can cause. So why use BP? Because it’s cheaper and is made in a lab–a controllable environment.
In other cases, such as with hair straightening products, they had known hazards in them like formaldehyde, parabens, phthalates and toxic metals – but companies chose to include them because of functional performance, shelf life and long-term profits. In the case of Burt’s Bees, the company claimed the PFAS were most likely coming from naturally mined substances mica and clay. This just opens the broader conversation around using chemicals in general and how they end up stuck in the ecosystems of our natural environment and our bodies to a point where we can’t escape them.
So even though they thought they were using natural ingredients, the natural ingredients were toxic because of widespread chemical use.
In the J&J case it basically came down to an egregious lack of transparency and honesty from the company. Even though talcum powder is a natural product, in mining it, it is exposed to asbestos. The company failed to change to the alternative cornflour despite knowing its talc was contaminated. If they had owned up to this the minute they knew, the issue and health risks could have been drastically reduced.
Widespread chemical use doesn’t just come down to an ingredient list–it is a full environmental issue. It goes beyond trust, as even companies that think they are doing the right thing, are getting caught out, like Burt’s Bees. But short cuts, cheaper ingredients and shelf life continue to be the leading factors when brands are formulating, not ingredient integrity, known source, independent testing and what is best for the body and the environment.
How do we turn this around?
The power is ultimately in the customers hands. It’s what we as buyers are willing to purchase and demand of companies. Yes, companies should be doing the right thing but look at how much they get away with. If a customer questions the source and ingredient integrity and refuses to buy products with anything less, companies will need to meet demand.
We could also put the onus back onto regulating bodies, but let’s be honest, they have not the resources nor the impetus to get this right every time. Indeed, they approve many chemicals–including Benzoyl Peroxide–the regulation is more around the percentage those ingredients can be in the formula, not banning them all together. This type of regulation completely ignores accumulative behaviour and exposure, as we saw in the study where approved chemicals were showing up in women’s urine.
We need to get to know the brands we use, ask the questions we want answers to, and read the back of packets and become familiar with ingredient lists. This takes our time, but at the end of the day, it’s what we put on our bodies. It’s what we breathe in. It’s what we get exposed to on the side. It’s what ends up in our waterways, soil and the food we eat and the animal meat we consume. This is so much bigger than just skincare, hair care or personal care. It’s the health of our planet and all its living creatures.
