Studies Favor a Link Between Talcum Powder and Ovarian Cancer

For every study that refutes that there is a link between talc and ovarian cancer, ten more show claim otherwise

Monday, January 20, 2020 - A recent study funded by the US Government found no connection between the use of Johnson's Baby Powder made from talc and instances of ovarian cancer in over 250,000 women. Other studies, however, claim that there is indeed a link between women who use Johnson's Baby Powder every day on their genitals and developing ovarian cancer.

For example, Diana Zuckerman, Ph.D., and Danielle Shapiro, MD, MPH, writing for National Center for Health Research claim that evidence is mounting that indicates a connection between women who use baby powder talc daily for feminine hygiene and those that develop cancer and more specifically, the more years that a woman uses the powder, the more statistically likely she is to develop the deadly disease. The two researchers point out that a woman is much less likely to get ovarian cancer than breast cancer and because of that a woman is less likely to get an early and critical ovarian cancer diagnosis before it has spread and while it is still treatable. Ovarian cancer is curable 95% of the time if it is detected early however this is rarely the case. Also, the early symptoms of ovarian cancer can mask themselves as a woman's routine pain from menstruation or even as endometriosis. Talcum powder cancer attorneys offer a no obligation free consultation and work on a contingency basis.

Doctors Zuckerman and Shapiro conclude, "Based on dozens of research studies involving thousands of women, women who have used talcum powder are about 30% more likely to be diagnosed with ovarian cancer than women who have not. This means that over her lifetime, a woman who uses talcum powder increases her chances of developing ovarian cancer from 1.3% to 1.7%. That is still a low risk for any woman, but if that if one million women use talcum powder, 4,000 more of those women will develop ovarian cancer, compared to the number that would have developed ovarian cancer if they hadn’t used talcum powder."

The National Center for Health Research has compiled a comprehensive list of studies that point to the link between ovarian cancer and using talc. The doctors found one of the more interesting efforts was the African American Cancer Epidemiology Study (AACES) that looked at 584 African American women with ovarian cancer in the U.S and compared them to 745 women in the same geographic location, of the same age, and who did not use talcum powder. The study found that: "The women who reported using talc in the genital area, whether or not they used it anywhere else, were about 44% more likely to have been diagnosed with ovarian cancer," nearly doubling their risk from 1.3% to around 2% of all women. The increase in ovarian cancer for African American women may be due to Johnson & Johnson deliberately targeting this demographic with decades of Johnson's Baby Powder and Shower to Shower advertising. The State of New Mexico has filed a lawsuit to that effect against the company.