A Laboratory expert, Andreas Saldivar who was hired by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has discovered asbestos in Johnson & Johnson Baby powder.
Saldivar works with a private laboratory in Maryland, United States. The research was concluded under a contract with the FDA.
According to reports gathered by Vanguard, Saldivar had testified for J&J on several occasions since 2017, in cases where the company needed to defend itself against law suits concerning the presence of asbestos in their products that supposedly cause cancer.
Saldivar in a May 2018 case testified the testing he did in 2010 for the FDA showed there was no evidence of asbestos in Johnson’s Baby powder.
Saldivar carried out tests on the powder and realized that asbestos was present in the powder. The company responded to the allegations, saying that they have hired 15 other laboratory to examine the Baby powder and no asbestos was found.
Disputing Saldivar report will mean J&J does not trust the judgement of an expert it trusted enough to allow sit in the box to testify in cases, some years back.
Richard Ausness, a University of Kentucky law professor who specializes in product liability told Reuters he is nothing but surprised at the dual roles played by Saldivar.
Ausness said, ‘“I have never heard of anything like this,” Ausness said. “This is bad news for J&J. The plaintiffs are clearly going to say this lab director worked for J&J for years, and he found asbestos so there must be asbestos there,”
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The FDA said it will be standing by the report of Saldivar’s lab. Commenting on the otherwise report of J&J, FDA officials were reported by Reuters to have said they are not surprised by J&J’s findings. FDA claimed contaminants are not uniformly dispersed throughout talc and different testing methods can yield varying results.