Health

CVS, Rite Aid pull all 22-ounce J&J baby powder from stores


(Reuters) – CVS Health Corp and Rite Aid Corp are removing all 22-ounce bottles of Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder from their stores, following the healthcare conglomerate’s recall last week of some bottles due to possible asbestos contamination.

FILE PHOTO: A bottle of Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder is seen in a photo illustration taken in New York, February 24, 2016. REUTERS/Shannon Stapleton/File Photo

CVS said on Thursday it would remove the bottles from its online store as well, out of caution and to prevent customer confusion. It added all other sizes of the talc would remain on its shelves.

“Rite Aid informed all stores to pull all 22-ounce bottles of Johnson & Johnson baby powder from shelves on Oct. 18 and store them in a secure location,” Rite Aid spokesman Chris Savarese said. “Additionally, we’ve applied a point of sale system block for this product to prevent it from being sold.”

J&J, which is facing thousands of lawsuits over a variety of products, said last week it was recalling around 33,000 bottles of baby powder in the United States after U.S. health regulators found trace amounts of asbestos in samples taken from a bottle purchased online.

The move marked the first time J&J recalled its iconic baby powder for possible asbestos contamination, and the first time U.S. regulators announced a finding of asbestos in the product.

Asbestos is a known carcinogen that has been linked to deadly mesothelioma.

The voluntary recall was limited to one lot of Johnson’s Baby Powder produced and shipped in the United States in 2018, J&J had said. The company added that testing by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration as recently as a month ago found no asbestos in their talc.

“It’s not important at all in terms of the dollar figure to either CVS or J&J. What it tells you is that retailers are being extra cautious with how they are dealing with J&J’s voluntary recall,” Jefferies healthcare analyst Jared Holz said.

Commenting on CVS’s move, J&J spokesman Ernie Knewitz said, “It’s temporary … They are doing it storewide because they don’t have the resources to go through at the store level and check all the SKUs (stock keeping units), check all the lot numbers.”

Customers who purchased the product from CVS Pharmacy should discontinue use, and can return it for a refund, the pharmacy chain said.

J&J has known for decades that asbestos lurked in its talc, Reuters reported last year. Internal company records, trial testimony and other evidence show 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.

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, Reuters found.

J&J has repeatedly said that its talc products are safe, and that decades of studies have shown them to be asbestos-free and that they do not cause cancer.

Reporting by Nivedita Balu and Manojna Maddipatla in Bengaluru, Richa Naidu in Chicago; Editing by Maju Samuel and Saumyadeb Chakrabarty



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