Baby powder has for many years been a bathroom staple for many women, however in recent years the risk of ovarian cancer has been linked to baby powder use.

However, Johnson & Johnson internal documents that were unearthed in a recent lawsuit show that that the company has been long aware of the connections between talcum powder and cancer and that they actually targeted black women in marketing campaigns rather than warn them.

Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder

Johnson’s baby powder has been around since 1893 and traditionally been marketed to use on women’s and babies’ skin. As well as use on skin, Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder has also allegedly been marketed as a safe product for use on female genitals to keep the area clean.

However, America’s “Most Trusted Brand” is now associated with possible cancer risk. A recent study published in Cancer Epidemiology out of the University of Virginia indicates that women who consistently use baby powder on their genitals have an 40% increased risk of ovarian cancer.

In 1971, a study found that talc particles may travel from the application area to the ovaries. The study found that 10 out of 13 ovarian tumors had embedded talc particles present, thus increasing a woman’s risk of cancer.

Harvard professor, Dr. Daniel W. Cramer studied 215 women who suffered from ovarian cancer and 215 healthy women in 1982. Compared with those who did not use talcum powder, women who used it were at nearly twice the risk for having ovarian cancer.

Johnson & Johnson has been aware of this link for many years yet has not warned the public, according to talcum powder lawsuits.

African-American Women and Baby Powder

Contributing writer to Time magazine and professor of African Studies at the University of Texas, Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley, writes “Corporations have long taken advantage of the beauty rituals that African American women love. Like pressing our hair and lotioning our legs, douching and deodorizing vaginas is something black women teach our daughters.”

She cites research that states black women use baby powder twice as much as white women. Some research even says that it as much as four times more.

One historian, Michelle Ferranti, points out in an article in Advertising and History Review that these advertising practices have roots in racism and racial stereotypes.

Tinsley adds to Ferranti’s observations, “For decades, companies, including Johnson & Johnson, continued marketing to encourage black women to spend money on talcum power, which could cause cancer in our reproductive organs even as they promise to ‘freshen’ them. Because buyers were women, they were the advertisers’ targets; because they were women, they were vulnerable to side effects the companies never exposed.”

Recently, Johnson & Johnson settled with a family of a deceased woman for $72 million. Discovered in this lawsuit were internal documents that prove that the company has been aware for a long time about the connection between baby powder and possible cancer.

The attorney for the case, speaking to the Atlanta Black Star, states that instead of warning women, Johnson & Johnson target the groups who are most at risk.