“This is not your father’s J&J… they don’t really give a s**t about people.”
“It’s not the talc itself that gives you the cancer, it’s the heavy metals that are in there [baby powder].”
“When I started, actually I started working on the consumer group. Johnson’s was one of my brands. So I managed all the baby products. So actually, when that all happened, I was working on that,” said Joshua Rys, a Regulatory Affairs Scientist who managed the baby product line during the infamous J&J Asbestos-in-Baby-Powder scandal.
He confirmed the source of the contamination, stating, “It wasn’t actually the product itself, it was an impurity. So naturally talc comes from mines, and the mines don’t have, I guess, 100 percent accurate standards. So the heavy metals, it’s not the talc itself that gives you the cancer, it’s the heavy metals that are in there.”
Despite this, Rys said the powder was approved internally. “I talked to a toxicologist that worked on that stuff. I trust him with all that.” When pressed about previous claims the powder was safe, he said, “I didn’t pay that much attention.”
On hidden camera, David Altman, a Senior Clinical Analyst at Johnson & Johnson, also admitted J&J dismissed internal concerns over asbestos contamination in its talcum baby powder. When asked if J&J products caused harm, Altman revealed, “Some obviously think that they do because of the talcum powder lawsuits that we’ve had,” he said. “Not all of them do, but it definitely hurt.”
Altman went on to confirm that J&J denied responsibility for asbestos found in its talc, instead pointing to a third-party supplier: “J&J claims that the asbestos that was found in the talcum powder didn’t come from them. It came from the company that provided them material to make it.” Altman, however, revealed, “Although the judges don’t agree with them.”
When the undercover journalist asked whether the company believed the talcum powder caused harm, specifically ‘ovarian cancer in women’, Altman replied directly: “It has.”
When pressed on how the company responded internally, Altman admitted that Johnson & Johnson chose not to act on the concern because they didn’t see it as a statistically significant threat. “I think they looked into it very closely,” he said, “but they just couldn’t—it wasn’t, I guess in their minds, statistically significant enough where they felt that it was a, you know, like some kind of serious type of an issue.”
Following the release of OMG’s investigation into Johnson & Johnson, which revealed that company officials admitted their baby powder contained cancer-causing heavy metals, Congresswoman Anna Paulina Luna issued a statement thanking O’Keefe Media Group for bringing the issue to light. According to Congresswoman Luna, “I was horrified to learn that Johnson & Johnson openly acknowledged their product—used by so many families on their infants—is known to cause cancer, yet they’ve done nothing to change it. I want to thank O’Keefe Media Group for bringing this to light. I will be calling on Chairman Comer to launch a congressional hearing to ensure the American people are informed and that Johnson & Johnson is held fully accountable.”
OMG has contacted David Altman and Johnson & Johnson regarding Altman’s claims.
