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Johnson & Johnson Pulls Talc-Based Baby Powder From US, Canada As Cancer Claims Kill Demand

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Neer Varshney
·2 min read
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Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) on Tuesday announced it is discontinuing its talc-based baby powder line in the United States and Canada.

What Happened

The New Jersey-based company said the decision came as part of its portfolio assessment related to novel coronavirus (COVID-19), with another 99 products also being permanently discontinued.

It noted that the demand for its talc-based baby powder reduced in the face of thousands of lawsuits claiming the product can cause cancer.

"Demand for talc-based Johnson's Baby Powder in North America has been declining due in large part to changes in consumer habits and fueled by misinformation around the safety of the product and a constant barrage of litigation advertising," Johnson & Johnson said in a statement.

According to the company, the talc-based powder contributed to about 0.5% of its total U.S. Consumer Health business.

It said its cornstarch-based baby powder would continue to be available in the two countries, and the existing inventory of the talc-based powder will also be cleared.

Why It Matters

The talc-based powder will remain available in other countries beside the U.S. and Canada, where demand for the product remains high, the statement read.

Johnson & Johnson recalled a batch of the baby powder in October last year after the Food and Drug Administration found traces of Asbestos, a known carcinogen, in samples from a bottle sold through an online retailer.

Later in December, the company said third-party scientific tests found no trace of Asbestos in the baby powder.

Johnson & Johnson noted it would continue to "vigorously defend" the product in court, even if it has pulled it from North American markets.

Price Action

The company's shares closed 1% lower at $149.02 on Tuesday. The shares traded another 0.3% lower at $148.51.

Image Credit: Wikimedia.

See more from Benzinga

© 2020 Benzinga.com. Benzinga does not provide investment advice. All rights reserved.

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    (Bloomberg) -- Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co. warned that a global shortage of semiconductors across industries from automaking to consumer electronics may extend into 2022, prompting the linchpin chipmaker to lift targets on spending and growth for this year.The world’s largest contract chipmaker said Thursday that its auto industry clients can expect chip shortages to begin easing next quarter, alleviating some of the supply disruptions that have forced the likes of General Motors Co. and Ford Motor Co. to curtail production. But overall deficits of critical semiconductors will last throughout 2021 and potentially into next year, Chief Executive Officer C.C. Wei told analysts on a conference call.TSMC now expects investments of about $30 billion on capacity expansions and upgrades this year, after spending $8.8 billion in the first three months, Chief Financial Officer Wendell Huang said. The company had previously forecast spending of as much as $28 billion. Sales in the June quarter may be between $12.9 billion and $13.2 billion, beating the average $12.8 billion seen by analysts, though its target for gross margin came in below expectations at 49.5% to 51.5%. Full-year revenue may climb 20% in dollar terms, ahead of the “mid-teens” growth predicted in January.“We see the demand continue to be high,” Wei said. “In 2023, I hope we can offer more capacity to support our customers. At that time, we’ll start to see the supply chain tightness release a little bit.”TSMC joins a growing number of industry giants from Continental AG to Renesas Electronics Corp. and Foxconn Technology Group that warned of longer-than-anticipated deficits thanks to unprecedented demand for everything from cars to game consoles and mobile devices. While Taiwan’s largest chipmaker has kept its fabs running at “over 100% utilization,” the firm doesn’t have enough capacity to satisfy all its customers and it has pledged to invest $100 billion over the next three years to expand.Read more: See How a Chip Shortage Snarled Everything From Phones to CarsSemiconductor shortages are cascading through the global economy. Automakers like Ford, Nissan Motor Co.and Volkswagen AG have already scaled back production, leading to estimates for more than $60 billion in lost revenue for the industry this year. The situation is likely get worse before it gets better: a rare winter storm in Texas knocked out swaths of U.S. production, while a fire at a key Japan factory will shut the facility for a month. Rival chipmaker Samsung Electronics Co. warned of a “serious imbalance” in the industry.With major American carmakers and other gadget suppliers facing a prolonged shortage of chips, U.S. President Joe Biden has proposed $50 billion to bolster semiconductor research and manufacturing at home. The initiative could aid TSMC’s plan to build a cutting-edge fab in Arizona this year that could cost $12 billion.TSMC is “happy” to support chip manufacturing in the U.S., though research and development and the majority of production will continue to remain in Taiwan, executives said on Thursday. They reiterated that construction of their plant in Arizona will begin this year.Read more: Why Shortages of a $1 Chip Sparked Crisis in Global EconomyNet income for the January-March period climbed 19% to NT$139.7 billion ($4.9 billion), beating the average analyst estimate of NT$136.2 billion, buoyed by demand for high-performance computing (HPC) equipment and a milder seasonal effect on smartphone demand. Gross margin for the quarter eased to 52.4% from 54% in the three months prior, due in part to relatively lower levels of utilization and exchange-rate fluctuations. First-quarter revenue rose 17% to NT$362.4 billion, according to a company statement last week.The company said Thursday it now expects to be able to achieve the higher end of its compound annual growth rate target of 10% to 15% for the five years to 2025, citing its investment spending plans.“TSMC’s statement that the chip crunch may spill into 2022 will smooth over concerns that chip demand may fall on overbooking later this year and further boost investors’ confidence in the overall semiconductor demand in the long run,” said Elsa Cheng, an analyst at GF Securities.Shares of TSMC have more than doubled over the past year. The stock advanced 1.1% on Thursday, before the company reported earnings.TSMC’s most-advanced technologies continued to account for nearly half of revenue in the March quarter, with 5-nanometer and 7-nanometer processes contributing 14% and 35% of sales, respectively. By business segment, its smartphone business amounted for about 45% of revenue, while HPC increased to more than a third, reflecting sustained demand for devices and internet servers even as economies start to emerge from the pandemic.“We are seeing stronger engagement with more customers on 5-nm and 3-nm, in fact the engagement is so strong that we have to really prepare the capacity for it,” Wei said. Smartphones and HPC will be the main drivers for demand of 5-nm, which will contribute around 20% of wafer revenue this year.TSMC Is On Fire. Just Beware of the Flames: Tim Culpan(Updates with company comments throughout)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • Pigs Are Seen as Next Big Thing in Xinjiang as Cotton Dims

    (Bloomberg) -- China should build more pig farms in Xinjiang as its cotton industry is under threat from declining soil fertility, according to a government researcher, commenting after some international companies avoided fiber produced in the region over allegations of forced labor.Hog farming could become a pillar industry in the region and supply 10% of the nation’s output, up from 1% now, wrote Mei Xinyu, a think-tank researcher at the commerce ministry. Xinjiang already grows more than 80% of the country’s cotton, and some of those pig farms would replace fields sown to the fiber that have been degraded.The suggestion comes after the U.S. banned imports of textile products containing cotton from Xinjiang in protest over alleged ill-treatment of its ethnic Uighur Muslim minority, and several western countries slapped sanctions on China over the same issue.Cotton is the most profitable crop in the region, and rotation to other crops is not in the interests of growers and hard to achieve on a large scale, Mei said on the WeChat account of Beijing News, a government-run newspaper. The only feasible option is to build more hog farms, he said, and they can use local grain to feed the pigs or import supplies from neighboring countries.Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps, a military-affiliated entity, and other groups have already started building several large-scale pig farms, which will increase output significantly in the next two years. In the meantime, animal waste from the farms could be used to boost soil fertility, which has been exhausted by extensive use of chemical fertilizer, said Mei.“The most desirable way to solve this problem is to raise pigs and grow cotton simultaneously, and return a large amount of manure from pig farms to the fields after treatment to enhance soil fertility and increase profits,” Mei said.China should expand hog farms in areas like Xinjiang and Heilongjiang, which are less population-intensive than the inland provinces like Sichuan, Hunan and Henan which dominate the country’s pork production, Mei said. Outbreaks of African swine fever that started in 2018 slashed hog herds by as much as half and sent meat imports spiraling to a record.(Updates with details from the report throughout)For more articles like this, please visit us at bloomberg.comSubscribe now to stay ahead with the most trusted business news source.©2021 Bloomberg L.P.

  • When are taxes due? Despite income federal deadline extension, April 15 remains key deadline for some taxpayers.

    Federal tax returns are due May 17, but many people still need to pay their first quarter 2021 estimated tax payments April 15. Plus more tax tips.