The declassified email shows how Johnson & Johnson shaped a report on the relationship between talc and cancer

An anonymous reader cited a Bloomberg report. The declassified email revealed the role played by baby powder maker Johnson & Johnson in a report submitted to U.S. regulators by an industry group that decided whether to keep warnings about talc products related to cancer. The emails were declassified in a Mississippi lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson for refusing to add a safety warning, showing that Johnson & Johnson and its talc suppliers chose its industry association, the Personal Care Products Council, a scientist hired to write a 2009 report assessing the health risks of talc.

The report also shows that the researchers changed the final version of the report at the request of these companies. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration said it relied in part on the report when it decided to waive warnings about the product.

Emails between executives from Johnson & Johnson and then-supplier Rio Tinto Mining provided behind-the-scenes footage of the deal between the company and their industry group, which successfully resisted cancer warnings about talc for nearly 40 years. Now, nearly 39,000 users and their families are suing Johnson & Johnson, with most claiming that the onset of ovarian cancer in them and their loved ones is linked to asbestos, a potent carcinogen in products removed from shelves in the U.S. and Canada in May 2020. Reliance on industry data has created a mature situation in which lobbyists are putting pressure on the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The unblocked email uncovers how this effort was initiated, who paid for it, and who was involved in delivering the final product to regulators.

While the company's practice of having a say in reports submitted to the FDA by industry groups is not new or illegal, the emails reveal the extent of Johnson & Johnson's involvement in a report designed to assess product safety — even including selecting individual scientists to write the report and having them write an executive summary. Johnson & Johnson denied any misconduct in its decision not to acknowledge its input into reports submitted to the FDA by the PCPC lobby. FDA officials acknowledged that they weighed the PCPC's response to a citizen petition, asking for a warning about talc and then finding "inconclusive evidence" that the mineral causes the ovaries and other forms of cancer. "The Food and Drug Administration reviewed and considered all the information submitted to us in both petitions, the responses received to the petitions, and additional scientific information," said Tara Rabin, a spokeswoman for Johnson & Johnson.