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The Lancet Retracts 1977 Talc Safety Paper Over Hidden J&J Ties
The 1977 commentary was retracted after revealing the author’s undisclosed consultancy with Johnson & Johnson, whose talc products face over 67,000 U.S. lawsuits, including multimillion-dollar verdicts.
- On Thursday, March 26, 2026, The Lancet retracted a 1977 commentary on cosmetic talc safety after historians revealed author Francis J.C. Roe was a paid Johnson & Johnson consultant, breaching publishing ethics.
- Public health historians David Rosner and Gerald Markowitz uncovered archival documents confirming Roe shared an advance draft with Johnson & Johnson, incorporating the company's input before publication of the unsigned piece.
- Defense attorneys long cited this 1977 commentary as scientific proof the medical field considered cosmetic talc safe, a strategy Rosner says aimed to "basically say that the medical field did not consider asbestos in talc dangerous."
- The retraction shifts legal terrain in ongoing talc litigation, potentially strengthening plaintiffs' arguments; Johnson & Johnson disputes the move, calling it part of "underhanded litigation tactics."
- Facing over 90,000 talc lawsuits currently pending nationwide, Johnson & Johnson now defends each case individually after three failed bankruptcy attempts, making the commentary's retraction potentially consequential for thousands of plaintiffs.
10 Articles
10 Articles
Lancet Retracts 1977 Commentary; Predicting Liver Cancer; Genetic Testing Fraud
(MedPage Today) -- A 49-year-old unsigned commentary in The Lancet that's been used in litigation to prop up the safety of talc products has been retracted after it was revealed the author was a paid consultant to Johnson & Johnson at the time...
Historians unearth a conflict of interest regarding talcum powder, prompting a retraction by The Lancet
On March 25, The Lancet, one of the oldest academic journals, issued a rare retraction based on research by Columbia Mailman School public health historians Gerald Markowitz and David Rosner. The journal retracted—in essence, disavowed—an unsigned 1977 commentary claiming that talcum powder poses no serious health risks, despite robust contemporaneous scientific evidence to the contrary.
Decades-Old Paper Hailing Baby Powder Safety Retracted by Lancet
The Lancet, one of the world’s leading medical journals, retracted a nearly five-decade-old paper extolling the safety of talc, the main ingredient in Johnson & Johnson’s iconic baby powder that fueled tens of thousands of lawsuits against the company after it was linked to cancer.
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