Women’s health groups are calling on Johnson & Johnson’s largest shareholders to force the company to end all sales of its controversial talc-based baby powder and hire an independent firm to conduct a racial justice audit.
The pressure comes after decades of independent science suggested a link between ovarian cancer and baby powder, and the Food and Drug Administration detected cancer-causing asbestos in one lot of the product. Internal company memos show Johnson & Johnson for years marketed it to African American and overweight women and, the groups charge, knew of the asbestos contamination.
