Johnson & Johnson announced Tuesday that it will sell children’s baby powder in the United States and Canada, after years of legal disputes that obligated it to pay billions of dollars in compensation.
The health care product giant said it would halt powder sales, which make up about 0.5 percent of its trade in the United States, in the coming months, with retailers continuing to sell the existing stock.
The company added Johnson & Johnson that this step comes as part of the re - evaluation of its products after a pandemic crisis , " Kovid -19 ".
And she stressed that the demand for talcum powder decreased in North America because of "changing consumer habits and misleading about the safety of the product", which made it face "a constant barrage" of lawyers to sue the company.
The company faces more than 16,000 lawsuits alleging that it sold powders contaminated with asbestos , a known carcinogen, and failed to warn users.
The company also faces a federal criminal investigation regarding the extent of its transparency regarding product safety.
Johnson & Johnson denies that its powder causes cancer, and says many studies and tests conducted by regulators around the world have shown it is safe and asbestos-free.
On December 14, 2018, Reuters published a report that showed Johnson & Johnson failing to disclose the detection of small amounts of asbestos in some decades of powder samples it produced.
After the publication of the report, a rush to sell the company’s shares reduced its market value by more than $ 40 billion.
Johnson & Johnson at the time denied the Reuters report, describing it as a "silly conspiracy theory."
Last February, a New Jersey state jury ordered the company to pay $ 750 million in punitive damages to four plaintiffs alleging that the Baby Powder had caused cancer.
Post a Comment