Did Johnson & Johnson Market Their Talc Products Specifically to Minority Women?

By April 6, 2016, Johnson & Johnson had lost its first lawsuit over talc, and was ordered to pay $72 million to the family of Jacqueline Fox, a woman who faithfully used J&J talc products every day, and then contracted ovarian cancer. More than 1000 women have filed suits against the pharmaceutical giant, claiming the company knew that talc products were dangerous – and yet continued to market them anyway.

April 6, 2016 is also the day Time Magazine published an article by Omise’eke Natasha Tinsley titled “Profiting From the Myths About Black Women’s Bodies,” a shaming missive on the treatment of African-American women by corporate entities who “have long taken advantage of the beauty rituals that African American women love.” Ms. Tinsley, as an associate professor of African and African Diaspora Studies at the University of Texas at Austin is, by all rights, an expert in her field, and what she posits may show J&J in a more insidious light.

Dangerous marketing for a dangerous product

Ms. Tinsley cites research that says “Black women spend about four times as much as white women on hair, and twice as many black women douche and deodorize compared with our white counterparts.” She also claims, “For decades, companies, including Johnson & Johnson, continued marketing to encourage black women to spend money on talcum powder, which could cause cancer in our reproductive organs even as they promise to ‘freshen’ them. Because buyers were women, they were the advertisers’ targets; because they were women, they were vulnerable to side effects the companies never exposed.”

She is not the only writer making this claim, however. Susan Berfield, Jef Feeley, and Margaret Cronin Fisk’s joint article on Bloomberg.com points out that there were internal memos at Johnson & Johnson saying, “in the 1990s, even as the company acknowledged concerns in the health community, it considered increasing its marketing efforts to black and Hispanic women, who were already buying the product in high numbers.” J&J spokesperson Carol Goodrich claims this is a misunderstanding – that by targeting their products to Black or Latina women, they were simply addressing the needs of their target community, the way your local grocery store sends you coupons if you have a loyalty or perks card. The problem, of course, is that all of this marketing was for a product that contained carcinogens.

Tenesha Farrar, one of the plaintiffs, reacted to the memo like this: “My grandmother and mother used [Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower], and I learned from them…. I can’t believe they singled us out.”

As a result of these marketing techniques, Black women, who generally face a lesser chance of developing ovarian cancer than White women, have seen a disproportionate rise in their chances of developing the disease after they have been exposed to talc products.

McGowan, Hood, Felder & Phillips, LLC, fights on behalf of those who have been systematically lied to by large corporations looking to turn a profit. We will not allow Johnson & Johnson to avoid accountability for their dangerous products. We are currently accepting cases in South Carolina and throughout the country. To speak with an experienced mass tort attorney from our firm, please call 803-327-7800 or fill out our contact form.

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