National retailers are pulling Johnson & Johnson baby powder products from their stores

In the wake of Johnson & Johnson discovering that a bottle of its baby powder contained asbestos, CVS, Rite Aid, Target, and Walmart have pulled some or all of the 22-ounce bottles of Johnson and Johnson’s baby powder the stores stock on their shelves and online.

The retailers’ actions come on the heels of Johnson & Johnson’s recent announcement that it was recalling around 33,000 22-ounce bottles of baby powder in the United States after a private lab hired by the U.S. Food & Drug Administration found trace amounts of asbestos in samples taken from a 22-ounce bottle of baby powder purchased online.

In a shocking twist, the director of that private lab under contract with the FDA has been paid by Johnson & Johnson since 2017 to serve as an expert witness for the company in its defense against lawsuits claiming that the company’s talc products caused cancer in users of those products. In other words, the person that Johnson & Johnson hired to help convince juries that there was no asbestos in the company’s baby powder just found asbestos in that same baby powder.

In light of Johnson & Johnson’s recall, the Wall Street Journal reported that CVS is removing 22-ounce bottles of the company’s baby powder from store shelves and its online store. The retailer has also set up a system in its stores to prevent the sale of the 22-ounce baby powder bottles if a customer attempts to purchase it at a register or online. CVS has said that any customers who purchased the product from CVS should discontinue using it and can return it for a refund.

Reuters reported that Target has also removed all bottles of the product from its stores and Target.com following the recall. The news agency reported that Rite Aid has followed suit and informed its stores to remove all 22-ounce bottles of the baby powder from its shelves and to store them in a secure location. Walmart, too, has reportedly removed and blocked all potentially impacted baby powder.

The recalled lot number, #22318RB, can be found on the back of baby powder bottles. The FDA has said that consumers who purchased bottles with this lot on it should stop using it and contact Johnson & Johnson for a refund.

The timing of the retailers’ actions and Johnson & Johnson’s recall could not come at a worse time for the company. It is currently fighting thousands of lawsuits across the United States—totaling almost 15,000 claims—alleging that its Johnson’s Baby Powder and other talc products cause cancer.

Eisenberg, Rothweiler, Winkler, Eisenberg & Jeck, P.C. is one of the law firms suing Johnson & Johnson over its alleged cancer-causing baby powder. In fact, our Nancy Winkler and Todd Schoenhaus recently defeated Johnson & Johnson’s efforts to move one of our clients’ Talc-related lawsuits to a federal bankruptcy court in Delaware. In that lawsuit, our client alleges that her ovarian cancer was caused by the talc in Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder.

With the judge ruling in our client’s favor, her case is back in court in Philadelphia and will almost certainly be the first talc-related case to be tried before a Philadelphia jury.

If you used either Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder or Shower to Shower Powder regularly as a feminine hygiene product on your genital area and later received a diagnosis of ovarian cancer, then you may have grounds to file a lawsuit.

Please visit Eisenberg Rothweiler’s Talc information center to learn more information about the connection between the use of talc products and ovarian cancer, and to schedule a free, confidential consultation.

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