SPECIAL | Did Johnson & Johnson put profit over safety?
The Excerpt
USA TODAY
4.4 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 21 May 2025
⏱️ 15 minutes
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Summary
For generations of Americans, the Johnson & Johnson brand has been a beloved one, as quintessentially American as baseball and apple pie. Its baby shampoo “no more tears” has been a fixture in bathrooms for decades, as has its iconic band aids and talcum power. But it’s this last item, the talcum powder, that may prove to be a tipping point in destroying its hard-won 139-year-old reputation with consumers. Author and freelance investigative journalist Gardiner Harris joins us on The Excerpt to discuss his new book “no more tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson,” which is on bookshelves now.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Ladies, it's your time to shine. Right now at Matalan, we've got 20% off all women's wear. We're talking dresses, blouses, beach, bits, shorts, you know, all the good stuff. Shop in store, via the app or online at Matalan.com. E.K. Teas and C supply. Third-party brand offers may vary. |
| 0:23.8 | Hello and welcome to The Excerpt. I'm Dana Taylor. Today is Wednesday, May 21st, 2025, and this is a special episode of the excerpt. |
| 0:46.9 | For generations of Americans, the Johnson and Johnson brand has been a beloved one as quintessentially American as baseball and apple pie. |
| 0:55.0 | Its baby shampoo, no more tears, has been a fixture in bathrooms, as has its iconic band-aids and talcum powder. |
| 0:59.7 | But it's that last item, the talcum powder, that may prove to be a tipping point in destroying its hard-won 139-year-old reputation with consumers to find out why. |
| 1:06.9 | We're now joined by author and freelance investigative journalist, Gardner Harris. |
| 1:11.5 | His new book, No More Tears, The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson, is on bookshelves now. |
| 1:17.6 | Gardner, thanks for joining me. |
| 1:18.6 | Thanks for having me, Dana. |
| 1:20.6 | There are two products that immediately come to mind when I think of Johnson and Johnson. |
| 1:25.6 | One inspired the title of your book, Johnson and Johnson's |
| 1:28.6 | baby shampoo, No More Tears. The other, the topic of your investigation is J&J's Baby Powder. |
| 1:37.0 | What are the risks associated with Talcum Powder? And can you share some of the evidence you |
| 1:42.4 | uncovered that the company knew about those risks? |
| 1:45.0 | About talcum powder, the risks are clearly about its chronic contamination with asbestos. |
| 1:53.0 | But I also want to make clear, Dana, that my book is not just about baby powder. |
| 1:59.0 | It is about nine separate products. You know, the products that I go |
| 2:03.7 | through include Tylenol, that that is the most widely used drug on the planet and is far more |
| 2:11.1 | dangerous than most people know. I also talk about EPO or ProCrit that most people know because Lance Armstrong used it to win |
| 2:19.6 | seven tours to France, but actually ended up killing more than 500,000 Americans in the worst |
| 2:25.9 | cancer drug disaster in American history. Also, Risperdol, an antipsychotic that is part of a disaster |
| 2:33.3 | that's killed more than a million Americans. |
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