I asked this question in another post and did not get a reply.

The US links sited state no evidence for talc causing cancer. A search of the NHS website also suggests no clear evidence [1]. Cancer Research (a respected UK charity) give a layman's summary (albeit focusing on ovarian cancer), stating no clear evidence and pointing out that there are far more serious risks to worry about [2].

Given the above, what is the hype about? Is this because the US is so insanely litigious?

[1] https://www.evidence.nhs.uk/search?om=[{%22ety%22:[%22Inform...

[2] https://www.cancerresearchuk.org/about-cancer/causes-of-canc...

EDIT: Down votes for asking a genuine question? Shame on you.

J&J knew for decades that they were shipping asbestos to consumers in a powder form that's regularly inhaled -- they ghost-wrote and sponsored studies to deny that asbestos existed in their products and lied to the FDA in their disclosures..

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsona...

It seems that most talc doesn't cause cancer -- but some talc has "rather high" amounts of asbestos in it -- which we know causes cancer.

https://www.theasbestosinstitute.com/2020/05/27/asbestos-in-... https://www.autoserviceworld.com/jobbernews/growing-threat-a...

So, if you happen to still do your own brake work, remember to spray down the parts with a water mister before you handle them to keep the dust from getting into the air. Vacuuming up any brake dust left behind is probably a bad idea too, wetting it down and handling as a liquid is safer.

So no evidence, just suspicion?

I must be blunt and say this has left me more puzzled why the US courts have ruled the way they have.

EDIT: Down votes again for asking a question? Explain yourselves. Are people defending something without evidence?

> A Reuters examination of many of those documents, as well as deposition and trial testimony, shows that from at least 1971 to the early 2000s, the company’s raw talc and finished powders sometimes tested positive for small amounts of asbestos, and that company executives, mine managers, scientists, doctors and lawyers fretted over the problem and how to address it while failing to disclose it to regulators or the public.

I think you're being downvoted for not RTFA, not for asking a question.

And the question I have asked is where is the evidence that such small quantities are a risk? The UK links I have posted suggest otherwise. This is why I am asking.

I'm puzzled... are the US courts are saying "OMG Asbestos" rather than looking at safe levels? What if the same courts said "OMG 5G" ! This is why I am asking a genuine question.

From the above Reuters article "The World Health Organization and other authorities recognize no safe level of exposure to asbestos. While most people exposed never develop cancer, for some, even small amounts of asbestos are enough to trigger the disease years later."

https://www.reuters.com/investigates/special-report/johnsona...

I actually was at a landfill expansion project where a backhoe digging down through the trash hit some bags labeled asbestos. I’m glad it was raining. Also worked in a building with asbestos in the floor tiles. Fine when not disturbed, but anytime they had to remove them it was a production.

https://ehs.oregonstate.edu/asb-when

https://www.fs.fed.us/eng/toolbox/haz/haz07b.htm

I feel like the risk is probably less than you think (the facilities people I worked with thought it was overkill for the tiles with a small % of asbestos). but its not zero. As someone who might have been exposed (was in a vacinity), its hard because you can never really know. Also there might have been other instances where exposure might have happened and you don't know (my high school was rebuilt recently because it wasn't 'up to code" when I was going there.

I think we are getting to the bottom of this :-)

The UK Health and Safety Executive state...

"The control limit for asbestos is 0.1 asbestos fibres per cubic centimetre of air (0.1 f/cm3). The control limit is not a 'safe' level and exposure from work activities involving asbestos must be reduced to as far below the control limit as possible."[1]

Maybe this is where the differences arise. The UK are comfortable with a minimum practical level where risks are very low, whereas the US state none at all.

Thank you for helping answer a question and not mindlessly clicking on down vote. HN is beginning to turn into Reddit rather than seeking inquisitive technical/scientific conversation.

[1] https://www.hse.gov.uk/asbestos/regulations.htm

The UK took its time but they did fully ban Asbestos in 1999.

That said, it is very much known that there are no safe levels of exposure. We know this from case data, but also pretty horrifically from workers who inadvertently gave their family members terminal illnesses later in life because they carried what would have at the time been considered fairly trivial amounts of loose dust home on their shoes/overalls/hair.

I've never heard of claimed talc-cancer links in the UK.

The UK links I have cited say the low levels are not an issue. I've genuinely asked what evidence the US courts are using and I appear to have come up against group think. I did not expect this on HN.

I'd genuinely appreciate it if somebody can provide evidence citing the risk is other than negligible.

If you phrased it the way you phased this response, I think you would have gotten a better response.

You didn't phrase it as "I have reason to believe certain levels are not a problem, and I am unaware of the levels recorded in the lawsuit. Where they high enough to be a problem?"

You instead phrased it far more absolute terms that stated that 'merely' finding a dangerous substance in a product was not evidence of it being dangerous. It absolutely is evidence. It may not be sufficient evidence on it's own, but each piece of evidence does not need to be sufficient to prove the case entirely on it's own. Your statements have also carried the extremely strong implication - and that's being generous - that the US courts were definitely wrong. I don't think anybody read your posts and thought you were requesting information and not stating a strong position in defense of J&J.

People have limited time and effort. You made it as difficult as possible to get the information you wished. I wouldn't blame this one on HN groupthink.

Safe amount = 0.

Alcohol -> Cancer.

Safe amount = 0.

Alcohol content of fresh bread > 0

> I'm not sure how you could believe

Though this is unnecessarily insulting.

> the people who unknowingly inhaled asbestos and rubbed it all over their babies do not have standing.

If the concentration was so low as to be negligible (as the links I have posted state) then why the successful litigation? This is the question I am asking!

> The evidence is that there was enough asbestos in the talc to cause cancer,

This is the evidence I am asking for. The NHS and other respected UK bodies state differently. This seams to be a purely US issue and I am asking why.

Part of it is the weird setup of jury trials for civil cases, especially impactful in cases revolving around fairly technical, detail-oriented stuff like malpractice.

Twelve randomly selected lay people may not be the best determiners of scientific evidence and in-depth statistical analysis.

Full article here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/business/talc-asbestos-po...

It's benzine. It's a known carcinogen, no need for empiricism here.

There's a reason the "this product contains a chemical known to the State of California to cause cancer" warning labels are a bit of a joke, after all.

From the original article: "The toxicity of benzene in humans has been well established for over 120 years. The hematotoxicity of benzene has been described as early as 1897. A study from 1939 on benzene stated that “exposure over a long period of time to any concentration of benzene greater than zero is not safe,” which is a comment reiterated in a 2010 review of benzene research specifically stating “There is probably no safe level of exposure to benzene, and all exposures constitute some risk in a linear, if not supralinear, and additive fashion.”

If you want to adopt a zero tolerance policy for benzene then you’d need to ban petrol. Or stop breathing.

Quote from the article:

“Oh, they’ve already reserved for that stuff,” one of them told me during a coffee break. He meant that in Johnson & Johnson’s financials, there had been money taken from earnings and put into a column vaguely called “accrued liabilities,” in order to account for the expected billions that might still have to be paid out in verdicts or settlements.

--------

I wonder how their accrued liabilities column looks like for the sunscreen products.

Evil comes from them knowing issues and shipping anyways (see the opioid crisis). Being prepared for adverse outcomes is just common sense.

Engineers are asked all the time on ways to save money. Did they skip a processing step? is their process control not optimized? Of course they are pressured to improve. Lower costs drive down consumer prices and increase profits (thanks 401k).

https://www.medpagetoday.com/special-reports/exclusives/9279...

The root cause isn’t the supply chain or transparency or QA or whatever. It’s the attractiveness of too-good-to-be-true deals.

Evil comes in many ways. This can be argued is just massive negligence and ignorance, or even arrogance. As a father, when all this topic is paired with babies, I don't mind calling it evil and treat it as such.

Malice or stupidity, they both should be held accountable. They are prepared to be held accountable using this fund.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hanlon%27s_razor

If the 1000 lives were not in imminent danger or else could have been saved by other means, it's not trivially true that only killing 1 in 1000 should be neglected. How does that compare to the alternative methods? Could it have been avoided with small or reasonable changes to the product? Were people properly informed of the risks? There's a bunch of stuff to unpack here. It's not trivially and obviously true that it's A Bad Thing to get sued if you save 1000 lives and kill 1.

On the other hand, if you are in the situation where those 1000 people are absolutely going to die imminently, your product has the only possible chance of saving them, and in the end 1 person dies sooner than they would have without treatment... you're not going to see a major and massive lawsuit out of this. You can be sued, but your annoying neighbor can also sue you for being annoying if they want. Doesn't mean it'll go anywhere, or that you'll lose your pants from it.

Another example is nuclear power.

https://corporatefinanceinstitute.com/resources/knowledge/ac...

How do you know that other product lines are not affected by one raw supplier. Maybe there was some pollutant in a supply of product A that lots of companies use and put in their own products. They would also be affected.

Without adjusting for the number of products a vendor makes, and how closely they're related (e.g. 70SPF vs. 50SPF versions of the same thing), you're going to get the wrong idea of who the "bad guys" are. For example, "Fruit of the Earth" has only one product on either list, and it's on the bad one. Would you buy their product over a Neutrogena gel or lotion?

The EPA recommends avoiding aerosols if possible.

One of the down sides of moving away from CFCs is that some of the other chemicals used have their own problems.

The table begins on page 12.

And much like the GM street car conspiracy it's just that, a conspiracy theory: https://la.curbed.com/2017/9/20/16340038/los-angeles-streetc...

From my previous research the benzene is confused with sodium benzene which is safe and widespread. Perhaps manufacture of it leave some trace.

I'd be surprised if their detector confused sodium benzoate for benzene, because sodium benzoate is so common that that would make it a pretty useless detector!