Black Women’s Organization Suing Johnson & Johnson Over Baby Powder
The National Council of Negro Women has filed a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder.
According to CBS News, the lawsuit was filed in the Superior Court of New Jersey and the organization is being represented by Benjamin Crump.
The complaint states, "Internal documents demonstrate that 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. These talc powder products were not safe, however."
Crump said at a press conference in Washington, D.C., "This lawsuit is about the lives of our grandmothers, our mothers, our wives, sisters and daughters — all of whom were cynically targeted by Johnson & Johnson. All the while, company executives knew the risk of ovarian cancer from talc.”
The company released the following statement in reaction to the lawsuit, "The accusations being made against our company are false, and the idea that our Company would purposefully and systematically target a community with bad intentions is unreasonable and absurd.”
This isn’t the first lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson.
In 2016, the company was ordered to pay the family of Jacqueline Fox $72 million by a Missouri state jury. Fox died at the age of 62 from ovarian cancer, which was allegedly caused by the company’s baby powder and other feminine hygiene products containing talc.
A St. Louis jury awarded the family $10 million in actual damages and $62 million in punitive damages. Following Fox’s diagnosis, she joined dozens of women suing the company claiming that there was a failure to inform its consumers about the dangers of talc.
