Johnson & Johnson's own paid expert found asbestos in unmarked Baby Powder sample for the FDA

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."

More than 16,000 people are suing Johnson & Johnson, claiming the company's Baby Powder caused their cancer. Previous cases have produced mixed results for the company: Some juries have sided with the plaintiffs, some with Johnson & Johnson, and some cases were settled, including a case in Indianapolis where the plaintiffs' lawyer won the right to share the FDA's positive asbestos test with the jury.

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"This is bad news for J&J," University of Kentucky law professor Richard Ausness told Reuters. "The plaintiffs are clearly going to say this lab director worked for J&J for years, and he found asbestos so there must be asbestos there." Stanford law professor Nora Freeman Engstrom concurred. "This positive test turns up the heat on J&J," she said. "And their expert lit the match." Read more at Reuters.