Johnson & Johnson maintained as late as Tuesday that a government test that had turned up asbestos in its Baby Powder was invalid, as other labs the company had hired found no traces of the carcinogen in the same bottle and subsequently recalled batch the Food and Drug Administration had tested. Unfortunately for Johnson & Johnson, Reuters reported Wednesday, in challenging the FDA, "the health-care giant is casting doubt on one of its own experts," Andreas Saldivar.
Saldivar, a key paid expert witness for Johnson & Johnson in its asbestos litigation since 2017, is laboratory director at the private Maryland lab AMA Analytical Services Inc. He testified in a May 2018 deposition that testing he did for the FDA in 2010 showed no signs of asbestos in Johnson's Baby Powder, Reuters reports. "Saldivar's lab began testing cosmetic talc products for the FDA again this year, and in September it found asbestos in an unmarked sample that the FDA later identified as Johnson's Baby Powder."
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