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THREAD: Today @Reuters published our story showing how Johnson & Johnson marketed its signature Baby Powder to minority and overweight women, at a time of rising health concerns surrounding the product reut.rs/2U8FBsG Here’s what @lisagirion and I found - (1/12)
In 2006, an arm of @WHO began classifying cosmetic talc such as Baby Powder as “possibly carcinogenic” when women used it as a genital antiperspirant and deodorant, as many had been doing for years (2/12) 
That same year, a J&J internal marketing presentation said the “right place” to focus Baby Powder sales was “underdeveloped geographical areas with hot weather, and higher (African-American) population.” It said: “This could be an opportunity.” (3/12)
In the next years, J&J partnered with a marketing firm that specialized in targeting “ethnic consumers,” signing a contract to distribute 100,000 gift bags with Baby Powder to African-American & Hispanic churches/beauty salons in Chicago. (4/12)
J&J also targeted overweight adults. It advertised Baby Powder with Weight Watchers, Lane Bryant & fitness franchise Curves to reach women in “hot climates/overweight states.” A 2010 J&J radio ad campaign was aimed at: “Curvy Southern Women 18-49 skewing African American” (5/12)
In 2014, Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood filed suit against J&J in Mississippi state court, accusing it of implementing a “racially targeted strategy” for selling Baby Powder after becoming aware of health concerns (6/12)
These later J&J campaigns came off the back of a marketing strategy change in the 1970s. The company saw that by the mid-70s, 60% of Baby Powder users were adults, after pediatricians beginning in the 1950s started warning of the danger to infants of inhaling talc powder. (7/12)
Teen-focused advertisements in magazines like Seventeen and others in the 1970s and 1980s touted Baby Powder’s “fresh and natural” qualities to young women (8/12)
Now, women who fit the profile of those onetime teenagers and minorities make up some of the 13,000 plaintiffs alleging that J&J’s Baby Powder and Shower to Shower, a powder brand the company sold off in 2012, caused their ovarian cancer or mesothelioma (9/12)
Krystal Kim, a 53 y/o African American woman who sued J&J after an ovarian cancer diagnosis, used Baby Powder since childhood: “I put it on my panties, on my clothes, everywhere.” (10/12)
J&J said its Baby Powder is safe and asbestos-free, adding “we’re proud pioneers of the practice of multicultural marketing.” J&J said any suggestion it “targeted a particular group with a potentially harmful product is incredibly offensive and patently false.” (11/12)
Our story today builds on @lisagirion’s investigation that revealed J&J knew for decades that small amounts of asbestos, a known carcinogen, lurked in its Baby Powder--info it did not disclose to regulators or the public. Read the @Reuters report: reut.rs/2Gh88KO (12/12)
