Health care giant Johnson & Johnson has recalled 33,000 bottles of baby powder in the US, after health regulators found trace amounts of asbestos in a bottle purchased online, BBC News report. Government officials said customers should stop using powder from the affected batch "immediately".
J&J said it had launched a review and prior tests have not found asbestos.
The report says the firm is facing thousands of lawsuits from people who claim its talc products caused cancer. Johnson & Johnson has strongly denied those accusations. The firm said it had initiated the voluntary recall of one lot of baby powder, produced and shipped in the US in 2018, out of "an abundance of caution".
It said it was working with the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to determine the integrity of the test and the validity of the results finding asbestos, including whether the product was counterfeit and if the bottle's seal had been broken.
The report says the recall is the latest bad news for Johnson & Johnson, which is facing billions of dollars in legal claims over other products, including opioids and vaginal mesh implants. A jury this month awarded $8bn to a man over claims he was not warned that an anti-psychotic drug could lead to breast growth.
As of February, the firm faced more than 13,000 lawsuits over contamination of its talc-based products, including baby powder, with cancer-causing asbestos.
[link url="https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50101758"]BBC News report[/link]