A Chemical or Compound Needs Only to Substantially Contribute to Developing Cancer
All that is necessary to file a claim against a product's manufacturer is to be able to show that the product played a "substantial contributing role in causing the disease
Monday, March 25, 2019 - Cancer-causing chemicals and compounds can be found anywhere in our environment and isolating one exact incidence of exposure as the sole cause of cancer is next to impossible. Studies have shown that a person does not have to smoke cigarettes to claim that cigarettes gave them cancer if they can prove they lived with a smoker and regularly breathed second-hand smoke. Other times a person, especially a government worker, may have worked for decades in an old building where the walls and ceilings were covered in asbestos insulation. In other words, people are exposed to numerous environments where the chemicals or compounds around them are considered cancer-causing.
In order to be considered carcinogenic, a chemical or compound only needs to play a substantial role in the development of cancer, in some people, not everyone. The majority of people that have smoked cigarettes, sprayed weedkiller or used talcum powder that contains asbestos will never get cancer yet those products contain substances that are now considered cancer-causing. In fact, people may be surprised to learn that only around 10% of all tobacco smokers die from lung cancer. The cocktail of chemicals found in tobacco products, however, has been classified a carcinogen. The same holds true for glyphosate and asbestos. All that is necessary to prove in a court of law that the compound or chemical is carcinogenic is that the substance plays a "substantial contributing factor" to the development of a person's ovarian cancer, mesothelioma, or non-Hodgkin's lymphoma. Last week a California jury came to that conclusion when they determined that Johnson's Baby Powder may contain asbestos and that inhaling baby powder dust regularly for a period of decades can be a "substantial contributing factor" leading to the plaintiff's mesothelioma. National talcum powder attorneys have helped families and individuals with their baby powder cancer claims and offer a free consultation.
Lawyers for Johnson & Johnson say they plan to appeal the verdict on evidentiary ground that the "Plaintiffs' attorneys have fundamentally failed to show that Johnson's Baby Powder contains asbestos, and their own experts concede that they are not recognizing the accepted definition of asbestos and are ignoring crucial distinctions between minerals that are asbestos and minerals that are not," according to a Time magazine article about the trial. The American Cancer Society has also weighed in on the possible presence of asbestos in talc when they were quoted in the article as saying that "naturally occurring minerals also turn up in the pure form of talc, which is the basis for talcum powder like that used in Johnson & Johnson's products." It is improbable that talc could be mined and not contain traces of asbestos, an organic mineral found adjacent to talc mines around the world.
Johnson & Johnson adamantly denies that their talc is contaminated with asbestos and has repeatedly pointed to studies that support their claim. The problem in accepting the validity of the studies is that as a cosmetic and not a food or drug, talcum powder has been able to escape FDA scrutiny and testing. The FDA decided over 50 years ago to leave the cosmetics industry alone relying on the industry to "self-police." The presence of asbestos in talc has been largely ignored by the cosmetics industry as that the amount of talc deemed acceptable by them is ten times as great as that proposed at one time by the FDA.
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