Washington, D.C. -Today, Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, the Chairman of the Subcommittee on Economic and Consumer Policy, sent a letter to Johnson & Johnson’s Chairman and CEO Alex Gorsky, demanding information after he refused multiple invitations to publicly testify before the Subcommittee at today’s hearing.
“The Subcommittee is writing to request documents and information concerning recent public statements made by Johnson & Johnson casting doubt and sowing consumer confusion about the detection of asbestos by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in talc-based Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder," wrote Chairman Krishnamoorthi.
On Oct. 18, 2019, FDA announced that it had detected asbestos in one lot of Johnson & Johnson’s baby powder and that the company would voluntarily recall the product. FDA’s announcement resulted in Johnson & Johnson recalling nearly 33,000 bottles of baby powder in the United States.
RJ Lee Group (RJ Lee), an independent contracting lab hired by Johnson & Johnson to test additional samples from the same lot used in FDA’s independent lab test, also detected asbestos in samples of talc-based Johnson & Johnson Baby Powder. The company retracted this positive finding, attributing the asbestos to environmental contamination of an air-conditioning unit.
On Nov. 25, 2019, during a briefing with Subcommittee staff, FDA disclosed that in its normal course of testing confirmation, it utilized laboratories at the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to confirm AMA’s test results. FDA also stated that it is currently in possession of OSHA’s test results.
Chairman Krishnamoorthi demanded the documents by Dec. 24, 2019.
