Retailers Face Legal Pressure to Pull All Talc Products from Store Shelves
People are suing big stores for still selling talc-based baby powder even when scientists warned them and the product was taken off the market
Sunday, July 13, 2025 - Retailers all around the US are now being sued for still selling talc-based baby powder, even though there is more and more scientific evidence against it and high-profile product recalls. Legal concerns say that big shop chains didn't do enough to protect consumers by keeping talcum powder products on shelves long after manufacturers stopped selling them. Plaintiffs argue that stores knew about the risks, including the possible relationship between talc and ovarian cancer, yet they still chose to put profits ahead of safety. In court, lawyers for people with talcum powder cancer are saying that these companies directly exposed customers to harmful products and should be held responsible along with the producers. The actions are part of a larger legal approach that holds not only producers but also the entire supply chain, including distributors and sellers, responsible. Lawyers believe that as more and more talcum powder cancer claims are filed, stores can no longer say they didn't know about health problems and product safety cautions that have been made public. Plaintiffs say that store brands and name-brand talc powders were being sold and marketed without the right warnings, even after international organizations said that talc with asbestos was likely to cause talcum powder cancer.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) said that between 2019 and 2023, a number of talc-based items were recalled after routine testing found amounts of asbestos, which is known to cause cancer. Even though these results were known, legal documents show that certain big stores kept selling the dangerous products for months, and in some cases years, after the first warnings. The FDA has said that it doesn't have the power to order cosmetics recalls right now, so it's mostly up to manufacturers and retailers to decide what to do. Consumer safety groups are now asking the federal government to do more to keep products that are known to be dangerous from being sold to the public. People in California, Illinois, and New Jersey have filed lawsuits saying that stores ignored these warning flags and kept selling products that should have been taken off the shelves or had health dangers on the labels. In response, some retailers have secretly stopped selling talc-based powders and switched to cornstarch-based ones instead. Critics, on the other hand, say that these moves were made too late and only after a lot of public and legal attention. Legal experts say that these lawsuits could result in big fines and set a precedent for making retailers responsible for selling harmful items to consumers.
As legal and public pressure grow, stores will probably have to deal with more questions about how they manage safety information for their products. It may soon be over for blaming only producers, especially when retailers had plenty of access to public health warnings but nevertheless sold the products anyhow. Talcum powder cancer lawyers expect more cases to emerge, especially as more people learn about the issue and more documents about internal business choices come to light.
OnderLaw, LLC -