Talc, Asbestos, & Cancer Risk
- The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has a new proposed rule to put standardized testing methods in place for the detection of asbestos, a known carcinogen, in talc-containing cosmetic products.
- It’s very difficult to get accurate expert perspective on these issues as it’s challenging to prove that a substance is definitely linked to cancer. Even though we’ve found it important to share information about talc and the potential link to cancer, more data and research is needed to understand the true risk.
- Talc is a naturally occurring mineral, and when it’s ground up, it absorbs moisture and reduces friction, making it an ideal ingredient in deodorants, baby powder, and other personal care/cosmetic products. However, research indicates some talc may be contaminated with asbestos.
- If the proposed rule goes into effect, consumers using talc-containing cosmetics will be protected from dangerous exposure to asbestos, a carcinogen popularly used in commercial products in the U.S. until the 1970s, when research linked it to cancers like mesothelioma.
- “Depending on where its mined from, there is some talc that is contaminated by certain forms of asbestos,” Dr. Thomas Sporn, pathologist at Duke University Hospital, told SurvivorNet. “Not every talc mine is contaminated by asbestos.”
This news comes as Johnson & Johnson has been under fire for its talc-containing products. A federal judge will decide next month on Johnson & Johnson’s $8.2 billion settlement offer after thousands of claims state that J&J’s talc products contained asbestos that allegedly led to cancer. However, J&J maintains the talc used in its products does not contain asbestos.
Read MoreTalc is a naturally occurring mineral, and when it’s ground up, it absorbs moisture and reduces friction, making it an ideal ingredient in deodorants, baby powder, and other personal care/cosmetic products.
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Dr. Thomas Sporn, pathologist at Duke University Hospital, previously told SurvivorNet, “In order for [asbestos] to be dangerous, you have to be able to breathe it in — not just any kind of asbestos, but certain forms of long skinny fibrous asbestos.
“With cosmetic products, they contain talc, and talc is a naturally occurring silicate product. It’s just magnesium silicate, and it itself is not fibrous. For any of these to be dangerous, they have to fibrous, which means long skinny needles. Talc itself is more plate-like. It’s used for industrial material, but it’s also used for some cosmetic products.”
But talc, though not dangerous itself, can be contaminated with asbestos, depending on how and where it was mined, according to Dr. Sporn.
The FDA rule proposal explains, “We are issuing this proposed rule pursuant to the Modernization of Cosmetics Regulation Act of 2022 (MoCRA), which requires the promulgation of proposed and final regulations to establish and require standardized testing methods for detecting and identifying asbestos in talc-containing cosmetic products.
“This proposed rule, if finalized, will help protect users of talc-containing cosmetic products from harmful exposure to asbestos given the potential for asbestos contamination of these products.”
Remember, it’s very difficult to get accurate expert perspective on these issues as more studies are needed to back up the science. And even though we’ve found it important to share this information, these decisions, of course, always need to be backed up by more data, researchers, and doctors.
The FDA’s Office of Cosmetics and Colors Director Dr. Linda Katz, M.D., M.P.H., told the FDA, “For many years the FDA has been sampling and testing talc-containing cosmetics for asbestos as well as working with our federal partners on efforts to reduce consumers’ risk of exposure to asbestos, a known human carcinogen, from contaminated talc-containing cosmetic products.
“We have carefully considered the scientific evidence and complex policy issues related to detecting and identifying asbestos in talc and talc-containing cosmetic products.”
She added, “We believe that the proposed testing techniques are appropriate methods to detect asbestos to help ensure the safety of talc-containing cosmetic products.”
The FDA also explains how talc is “a naturally occurring mineral that has many uses in cosmetics and other personal care products, such as absorbing moisture, preventing the appearance of caking, making facial makeup opaque, or improving the feel of a product,” and asbestos is “found in the same rock types as talc deposits and may be inseparable from talc in the mining process.”
Due to the potential of asbestos contaminating talc, the FDA wants to keep cosmetic consumers safe from exposure by enforcing required testing.
The FDA adds, “The proposed rule would require manufacturers of talc-containing cosmetic products to test for asbestos using an analytical approach that includes both Polarized Light Microscopy (PLM) (with dispersion staining) and Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM)/Energy Dispersive Spectroscopy (EDS)/Selected Area Electron Diffraction (SAED) to detect and identify the presence of asbestos.
“Manufacturers may alternatively rely on a certificate of analysis from the talc supplier. The proposed rule contains provisions that would require manufacturers to keep records to demonstrate compliance with the rule.”
In the case that the FDA gets this proposed rule finalized, cosmetic products with asbestos will be labeled as contaminated under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FD&C Act).
Public comment is now welcomed by the FDA for 90 days, before the FDA completes it’s final ruling on the matter.
Asbestos in Cosmetic Products
“Depending on where its mined from, there is some talc that is contaminated by certain forms of asbestos,” Dr. Sporn explains. “Not every talc mine is contaminated by asbestos. There is at least a theoretical possibility that talc could be contaminated with asbestos.”
There have been dozens of litigation ads about talcum based baby powder
Still, even if talc-base cosmetic products are contaminated with asbestos, there isn’t a lot of evidence to suggest it can get into the body and cause disease through the skin, according to Dr. Sporn.
Helping You Understand How Your Environment Impacts Your Health
“The way that asbestos gets into the body is not topically. It’s all through airborne inhalation. I don’t know of any literature to say, other than in animal models, that asbestos can get into the body percutaneously (through the skin) to cause disease,” he says.
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“Years ago, when they were finally figuring out that asbestos was dangerous, they would dump raw asbestos into the body cavities of rats. That would cause disease, yes.”
In a lot of countries, asbestos is banned altogether.
“It’s banned in the European Union, in Australia, and in Japan, but we still mine certain types in the United States and Canada,” says Dr. Sporn.
The Truth about Ovarian Cancer and Baby Powder
Although talc-based lawsuits have claimed talc itself had led to mesothelioma diagnoses or, in some cases, ovarian cancer, they have now transitioned to claims specifically about asbestos in talc-based products.
There are numerous, and a growing number of lawsuits, claiming that Johnson & Johnson‘s talcum-based products have led to the development of ovarian cancer and mesothelioma.
A class action lawsuit was also filed in New Jersey federal court in June 2024, which was the “first to seek medical monitoring, or regular testing meant to catch cancer early, on behalf of talc users,” according to Reuters. “The proposed class could include thousands of women, but would not include the more than 61,000 people who have already filed personal injury lawsuits over J&J’s talc, claiming it contains cancer-causing asbestos.”
A judge is set to decide on J&J’s $8.2 billion settlement offer in January 2025.
However, despite numerous lawsuits, Johnson & Johnson continues to say the talc used is safe, asbestos-free, and does not cause cancer.
It’s important to note that experts say there’s no real reason why people should believe these products are linked to cancer diagnoses.
“No study can ever say definitively what the cause of cancer is, but in this case [studies] show there’s not a substantial increase in ovarian cancer risk,” Dr. Dana Gossett, a gynecologic oncologist at the University of California, San Francisco, told SurvivorNet in an earlier interview.
But in the case of asbestos-contaminated talc in cosmetic products, the government is proposing the new rule to prevent future cancer cases.
Is Talc Related to Cancer Risk?
After decades and thousands of lawsuits alleging Johnson & Johnson’s talc-based baby powder caused cancer, the product was removed from shelves in the U.S. in May 2020 and the company instead sold the product as cornstarch-based baby powder. Although the company is still maintaining that there’s no proof that their baby powder is linked to any form of cancer, their products with talcum powder were discontinued across the globe in 2023.
However, due to claims, there have been many studies conducted to try and answer whether talc-based products actually cause cancer, or are linked to risk. A study from NIH’s National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences and the National Cancer Institute notes that while there have been studies that found using talc based baby powder leads to a slight increase in ovarian cancer risk, the limitation of these studies is that they rely on a woman’s memory to detail how much of the products she was actually using and these results can be biased.
One study found that those who had used the powder had an 8% increased risk of ovarian cancer compared to those who never used it. However, epidemiologist Katie O’Brien, one of the researchers of the study, says the 8% increase is not statistically significant.
Since results are mixed, there might be a chance that talc can be linked to cancer, but once again, it’s not proven. As Dr. Sporn noted, there is some talc that is contaminated by certain forms of asbestos, but it doesn’t account for all talc.
“When you shake out the powder, it becomes airborne. I don’t know if you’ve ever dusted a baby’s bottom it creates a little cloud and there’s a potential that you could breathe in the dust from that, which may or may not contain asbestos,” says Dr. Sporn.
Overall, the science linking the talc-based powder to cancer is not fleshed out enough for experts to warn consumers about the product.
Detecting ovarian cancer
Understanding the Environment’s Role in Cancer Risk — Diet, Exposure & Genetics
Stories about a new food, drink, or substance being linked to cancer risk seem to arise every day. We’ve been told we should avoid red meat, alcohol, processed foods, and so many others. However, removing these suspected triggers doesn’t always stop cancer from developing — and indulging in them doesn’t necessarily mean a person will get cancer. There’s a bit more to understanding cancer risk than that.
SurvivorNet previously spoke to Dr. Robert Wright, chair of the Department of Environmental Medicine and Public Health at Mount Sinai, about which environmental risks people should be aware of — and why some triggers may be dangerous to some people and completely safe for others.
When it comes to dietary advice that applies to everyone, Dr. Wright’s was pretty straightforward — eat more vegetables and stay active.
“What we haven’t figured out for cancer is, what is the combination of risk factors that end up leading to a particular person getting cancer,” Dr. Wright said. “The goal [in the future] is to identify those people who are more susceptible to cancer and to give them counseling and foods that they can eat and other habits like exercise that can reduce their risk. Right now, we’re not really good at predicting that.”
While some cancers do develop from inherited genes, most don’t, so researchers are working on ways to understand how lifestyle factors like diet, exercise, and chemical exposures put people at risk. With that in mind, Dr. Wright stressed that eating well and staying active are still important — for all of us.
“In the end, prevention is actually kind of simple,” he said. “It’s what we always know. It’s exercise and eat well. That means eating more vegetables and less meats, particularly red meats.”
How Do Environmental Triggers Cause Cancer?
Throughout our lives, we are continuously exposed to carcinogens, or substances that can can lead to cancer, however, many people will not go on to develop the disease.
“We create carcinogens all the time in our foods when we cook them, and very few of us get cancer because our bodies can handle them,” Dr. Wright explained. “But some people have susceptibilities to these environmental carcinogens, which might be genetic or might be caused by combinations of carcinogens.”
Remember, no one trigger is going to definitively cause cancer, Dr. Wright said, but it could be a combination of triggers in the environment.
“Cancer isn’t caused by one event, typically, it’s usually a series or combination of events,” he added. “So, it may be that you ate a lot of charred food, it may be that you’re also a smoker, it may be that you’ve inherited a genetic susceptibility to be a little bit more sensitive to those chemicals.”
Contributing: SurvivorNet Staff
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