Talc & talcum powder propertiesm asbestos contamination, cancer risk questions and answers.

This article series providesd a description of talc used in baby powder & body powder and discusses asbestos contamination that can occur (but does not always occur) in talcum powder. We provide a summary of asbestos-contaminated-talc cancer research and include key excerpts from many of those studies. We include photographs of talc particles in transmitted & polarized light - talc under the microscope.

Page top photograph: talc particles at 100x in polarized light, photographed by the author [DF] at McCrone Research in Chicago.

FAQs on Talc & its Asbestos Content

These questions and answers about asbestos hazards and cancer hazards associated with asbestos-contaminated talc or talcum powder were posted originally

at ASBESTOS in TALCUM POWDER - be sure to review the discussion and research cited there.

On 2018-12-18 by (mod) - Wouldn’t there also be more peritoneal, vaginal, uterine, and fallopian tube cancer occurrences?

Joe,

The cancer risk for an individual who used J&J talc is not something for which I can find a single simple answer, but is a question you should discuss with your doctor.

She and you know your personal risk factors besides age, such as family history of cancer, exposures to other environmental hazards etc.

The actual presence of asbestos in talc sold by J&J appears to have varied from none detected to extremely low (some researchers chose not to report it at all, claiming the level was too low to be meaningful), to possibly significant - according to conflicting research reports.

Watch out: don't let anxiety about this become its own health risk for you, and more urgently, don't let worry about a statistically unlikely (though I agree horrible) cancer illness to so distract you that you fail to attend far more-likely hazards to life and health.

If there is a risk of ovarian cancer from heavy regular and prolonged use of asbestos-containing talc that risk is likely to be small.

Statistically you're FAR more likely to die in an automobile accident or to suffer serious illness by falling down stairs, perhaps exacerbated by driving an unsafe car or using unsafe stairs missing handrailings and stair guards.

According to the ACS American Cancer Society

Most concerns about a possible link between talcum powder and cancer have been focused on:

Whether people who have long-term exposure to talc particles at work, such as talc miners, are at higher risk of lung cancer from breathing them in.

Whether women who apply talcum powder regularly in the genital area have an increased risk of ovarian cancer.

... Talc that has asbestos is generally accepted as being able to cause cancer if it is inhaled.

Many studies in women have looked at the possible link between talcum powder and cancer of the ovary. Findings have been mixed, with some studies reporting a slightly increased risk and some reporting no increase.

Many case-control studies have found a small increase in risk. But these types of studies can be biased because they often rely on a person’s memory of talc use many years earlier. One prospective cohort study, which would not have the same type of potential bias, has not found an increased risk.

A second found a modest increase in risk of one type of ovarian cancer.

For any individual woman, if there is an increased risk, the overall increase is likely to very be small.Many studies in women have looked at the possible link between talcum powder and cancer of the ovary.

Findings have been mixed, with some studies reporting a slightly increased risk and some reporting no increase. Many case-control studies have found a small increase in risk. But these types of studies can be biased because they often rely on a person’s memory of talc use many years earlier.

One prospective cohort study, which would not have the same type of potential bias, has not found an increased risk. A second found a modest increase in risk of one type of ovarian cancer.

For any individual woman, if there is an increased risk, the overall increase is likely to very be small. - retrieved again 2018/12/18, original source: https://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancer-causes/talcum-powder-and-cancer.html

Recent reports updating the status of asbestos, talc litigation involving Johnson & Johnson:

• Rabin, Roni Caryn& Tiffany Hsu, "Baby Powder’s Possible Asbestos Link Worried Johnson & Johnson for Years Johnson & Johnson says its product is safe. But asbestos, a carcinogen that can exist underground near talc, was a concern inside the company for decades.", The New York Times, 14 December 2018, original source: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/14/business/baby-powder-asbestos-johnson-johnson.html
  Excerpt:
  
  But Aviam Elkies, who was a doctoral candidate and testified that Johnson & Johnson had funded him to work in Mr. Lewin’s lab in 1972 analyzing samples from talc mines supplying the company, said he and Mr. Lewin had detected asbestos in at least half the samples they tested.
  
  “It appeared randomly in samples taken from the same mines,” Mr. Elkies said in an interview in Israel, where he lives. “It appeared in different concentrations. There was no pattern, no way to predict.”
  
• Reuters, "Special Report: J&J Knew for Decades That Asbestos Lurked in Its Baby Powder", in The New York Times, 14 December 2018, original source: https://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2018/12/14/us/14reuters-johnson-johnson-cancer-special-report.html
  
  

On 2018-12-18 15:50:16.608140 by manninoj0seph@yahoo.com

I have used baby powder since i was baby what are the chances of getting mesothelioma i used until i was 45 years old and i am really worried.

I am really really worried about the recent j& j baby powder asbestos warning.please help. Thank you joe

On 2018-12-18 by (mod) - Wouldn’t there also be more peritoneal, vaginal, uterine, and fallopian tube cancer occurrences?

Shelli

you are certainly touching on a topic which you probably knew received a lot of media attention recently including in the New York Times.

Confusing and disturbing were reports conflicting comments and statements about whether or not asbestos was present in talcum powder sold by J&J.

Some of the article quoted very disturbing reports and conflicting interests when it came to funding some of the studies.

separate from those concerns your question is one that's been touched on before. Neither of us is the medical expert on the topic and should not trust her intuition. It's entirely possible that different body tissues respond differently to fibers are other contaminants.

The argument you raise is similar to one that has been made by some of the manufacturers.

On 2018-12-16 by ShelliG

In order for post-shower talcum powder use to have been the cause of ovarian cancer: think about it, even with daily use, there was a small quantity of asbestos fibers in the powder, applied in small quantities, then the asbestos fibers have to travel up the reproductive tract to the ovaries and accumulate in enough quantity to cause inflammation and cellular damage over years.

Wouldn’t there also be more peritoneal, vaginal, uterine, and fallopian tube cancer occurrences?

As well as the typical inhalation resultant issues?

On 2018-07-19 by (mod) - Asbestos Hazards from Talc Used in Olive Oil Production

Re-Posting:

The following comment and reply were received by private email, contributor ID is kept anonymous.

Asbestos Hazards from Talc Used in Olive Oil Production

I was browsing your website and found that talc is used in olive oil production.

I have since discovered that it is used in quantities at around 1% in the extraction process.

I have used olive oil on my face for a number of years and this has alarmed me a little, so I did some basic maths:

---------------------------------------------------------------

1% talc in a 500ml bottle = 5ml of talc.

Assuming asbestos contamination of 1% of the total talc, this would mean 0.05 ml of asbestos in a 500 ml bottle.

So to get the contamination level for each ml, I would divide by 500:

0.05 / 500 = 0.001 f/ml which is almost background level? - CL 2018/07/19

Would you advise stopping the use of olive oil both for both dietary and cosmetic purposes?

Reply: No.

Thank you for an interesting question and speculation that tries to assess the actual health hazard of asbestos-contaminated talc in olive oil.

That talc is (at least sometimes) used in olive oil production is well-established. (Cert 1996).

However a Google Scholar search for health effects of the asbestos content in olive oil produced no confirmation that there is a health hazard associated with topical use of olive oil - on your skin for example - nor asbestos fibers that might be present in such oil.

Rice (1989) discussed possible health effects on mice when they were injected with olive oil - a test more extreme IMO than putting some oil on one's skin. The study found that all of the mice, including the control group who didn't get olive oil, developed illnesses that the researchers opined were due to the trauma of the injection itself, not the olive oil.

There are also reports of "fake" olive oil products sometimes sold (at least in Spain) that might have undesirable or bad health effects.

There is a mountain of evidence of the health benefits of consuming olive oil as part of the human diet, for which the other citations below offer examples.

I appreciated your calculation of a theoretical dose of asbestos contamination of talc used in olive oil.

The amount of talc used ranges from 0.3% to 1% of the weight of the olives being milled, ideally in very fine grades using ultra-small particles (under 2u). - Use of Talc, The Olive Oil Source, retrieved 2018/07/19 https://www.oliveoilsource.com/page/use-talc

Talc is not always used in the production of olive oil, and is principally added when the olives to be processed are over-ripe or are high in water content, since the purpose of the talc in that case is to remove excess water (and perhaps to improve clarification by minimizing the formation of emlusions (of water) in the olive oil). - Why Talc in Olive Oil, Amanda Bailey, retrieved 2018/07/19, original source: https://amandabaileyonolives.blog/2017/02/21/talc-why-talc-in-olive-oil-production/

So one might dilute your calculation by researching the frequency of use of talc in olive oil production - as it's not 100%, possibly also by season, region, olive oil company, and of course their talc source and the specific properties of the talc obtained.

One might further dilute your calculation to a still smaller number by recognizing that your assumption of 1% (tremolite ?) asbestos in talc (by what, weight, volume?) would have to be divided by the probability that a specific talc actually was asbestos-contaminated.

While asbestos is a natural contaminant in talc, by no means is it present in all talc. One would need to know, at the very least, the talc mine source used by olive oil producers and then whether or not that specific mine's talc contains any asbestos contaminants.

According to Johnson & Johnson and other sources, the cosmetics industry has available (and many perhaps most follow) a voluntary standard that includes testing for and avoiding asbestos-contaminated talc in their products.

I am not a medical researcher nor health expert, so it's merely my OPINION that the potential exposure to harmful asbestos for the case you cite is indeed so far below the limits of detection to be in essence irrelevant, and worse, a possible distraction for more-immediate and much greater risks, starting with stair-fall injuries and automobile accidents, or greater voluntarily-assumed risks such as smoking or even sky-diving.

Cert, Arturo, José Alba, Manuel León-Camacho, Wenceslao Moreda, and M. Carmen Pérez-Camino. "Effects of talc addition and operating mode on the quality and oxidative stability of virgin olive oils obtained by centrifugation." Journal of Agricultural and Food Chemistry 44, no. 12 (1996): 3930-3934.

Abstract:
Continuous centrifugation, a widely used procedure for extraction of virgin olive oil, involves crushing olives, mixing the olive paste, and centrifugation with or without water addition (“three phase” or “two phase” modes, respectively). Virgin olive oils were obtained following both procedures, with and without talc addition.

Acidity value, peroxide index, UV absorption at 270 and 232 nm, glyceridic polar compounds, oxidized triglycerides, diglycerides, iron, copper, tocopherols, phenolic compounds, and oxidative stability were determined and the results statistically analyzed.

The talc addition gave rise to a small increase in the oil stability and a slight decrease in oxidized triglyceride levels. The oils obtained by the “two phase” mode showed a greater concentration of phenolic compounds than the homologous oils obtained by the “three phase” mode.

Oils processed by the “three phase” mode showed a significant correlation between their stability and their phenolic concentration.
Keywords: Virgin olive oil; talc addition; centrifugation mode; quality; stability

Fitó, Montserrat, M. Farré-Albaladejo, Olha Khymenetz, Jaime Marrugat, and María-Isabel Covas. "Bioavailability and antioxidant effects of olive oil phenolic compounds in humans: a review." Annali dell'Istituto superiore di sanita 43, no. 4 (2007): 375-381.

Horrocks, Lloyd A., and Young K. Yeo. "Health benefits of docosahexaenoic acid (DHA)." Pharmacological research 40, no. 3 (1999): 211-225.

Rice, Jerry M., Robert M. Kovatch, and Lucy M. Anderson. "Intraperitoneal mesotheliomas induced in mice by a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon." Journal of Toxicology and Environmental Health, Part A Current Issues 27, no. 1 (1989): 153-160.
Abstract:

Female mice of 6 strains (C3H/HeN, BALB/c, C57BL/6N, DBA/2, NIH Swiss, and AKR/N) were given the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon carcinogen 3‐methylcholanthrene (MC) intragastrically in olive oil at a dose of 20 mg/kg, weekly for 12 wk. Half were pretreated 24 h before each MC administration with intraperitoneal β‐naphthoflavone (β‐NF, 150 mg/kg in olive oil), a noncarcinogenic inducer of certain cytochrome P‐450 isozymes.

Remaining mice were given olive oil prior to MC in the same fashion, or β‐NF in olive oil or olive oil alone without subsequent exposure to MC. All mice were killed when moribund or 13 mo after the start of treatment.

Most of the mice, irrespective of treatment, exhibited signs of peritoneal injury, including inflammation, necrosis, granuloma formation, and mineralization. Mice of some of the strains also presented peritoneal mesotheliomas, in addition to a variety of other tumors.

The incidence of unequivocal mesothelioma‐bearing mice was 12/31 C3H/He and 9/32 BALB/c mice given only MC. Incidence was low in C57BL/6 (1/31) and DBA/2 (1/26), and no definite mesotheliomas were found in Swiss or AKR mice.

There were in addition a number of cases of sarcoma (nine total in all strains) and of peritonitis (four total) that resembled mesothelioma to some degree and were initially diagnosed as much. β‐NF pretreatment reduced the frequency of mesotheliomas: there was only one definite mesothelioma in any of the β‐NF‐MC groups, in a C3H/He mouse.

Most of the mesotheliomas were mixed fibro‐mesothelial type, sometimes with papillary epithelial excrescences. They typically grew in a botryoid pattern within

On 2018-07-19 by (mod) - finding or not-finding asbestos or other particles depends on study methods, technical skill, etc.

Anon:

Agreed, that testing procedures and results will surely vary by not just the lab but the specific products and their materials and talc content and talc source.

I claim that particularly when we are looking for very small particles at or under 1u, (that will include very fine grades of talc that includes particles in that size range), if the lab's procedures do not include steps to find such very small particles then they won't be looked-for so won't be found, regardless of their level of occurrence.

Using ordinary PLM is likely to be inadequate - you'd want to know if the lab used SEM or TEM procedures specifically intended to find such particulates.

On 2018-07-18 by Anonymous

thanks for the clarification. Interesting how the FDA found no contamination while a German lab found minor contamination just a few years earlier. Thanks for your work.

On 2018-07-18 by (mod) -

Revising my prior remark:

It's worth noting that while there may be health hazards from inhaling very small particles of talc (or its contaminants) even for talc that is asbestos-free, the US FDA study (cited in the article above) did not detect asbestos in the J&J powder that was tested. (Baan 2007)

At ASBESTOS UNDER the MICROSCOPE

we note that using polarized light microscopy and procedures developed by Walter McCrone remains an established standard for asbestos fiber and particle identification.

PLM (Polarized Light Microscopy) remains the most-commonly or widely used method for identifying asbestos: with proper training, equipment, a polarized light microscope, (ideally sporting central stop dispersion lenses) and the proper immersion oil in the right range of refractive index, this is quick, efficient, easy.

IMO as the most-widely used it's an industry standard for identifying asbestos fibers in common situations. There is not a single "The" industry standard as might be suggested by how you phrased your question.

HOWEVER I argue in the article above and in some others such as my series on fiberglass hazards that some very small particles, PM 2.5 and smaller, particularly at 1u and smaller, may be un-detetected in bulk, air, or dust samples and so may go un-reported. In my OPINION this risks a failure to detect what might be important environmental exposures for some conditions.

In sum PLM is fine for identifying asbestos in most samples in most conditions. But for products that used asbestos "dust" as a bulk filler, such as some asphalt or vinyl asbestos floor tiles, dust created by demolishing or grinding such materials might be incompletely-assessed if researchers only look for and only report on or only use methods that can detect relatively large particles and fibers.

In my OPINION above I have suggested that there could be similar hazards associated with ultra-small talc particles (regardless of whether or not asbestos contaminants are in the talc sample) that may go un-detected simply because researchers didn't look for them.

This is not a new worry, even if it's been ignored by many test labs and environmental test experts. (Rohl 1974)

On 2018-07-18 16:47:23.260889 by John Bell

is PLM the industry standard/most accurate test for asbestos?

On 2018-07-18 14:43:01.669562 by (mod) -

At page top are the corresponding product rear labels

On 2018-07-18 14:42:36.597710 by (mod) -

John

The J&J baby powder I examined by PLM was the 1990's version. J&J as well as other companies (e.g. Gold Bond) continue to sell body powders using talc as well as selling versions that do not contain talc - typically based on corn starch. You can get a crude estimate of product container age by some differences in the labeling as I show in two photos close to the top of this page.

On 2018-07-18 08:51:18.563390 by John Bell

Very interesting. It is nice to hear a truly independent voice on the matter. Due to the high level of talc in blusher and bronzer (and the proximity to the inhalation zone), it would be interesting to test these products too.

Was the talc you tested recent or from the 1990's bottle you bought?

...

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