Johnson & Johnson to discontinue talc-based baby powder in 2023

Yahoo Finance's Anjalee Khemlani discusses J&J's decision to discontinue talc-based baby powder products.

Video transcript

BRIAN CHEUNG: I want to shift to another story that we're watching. Johnson & Johnson dropping talcum powder globally. What's happening there?

ANJALEE KHEMLANI: That's correct. Of course, we know that Johnson & Johnson has faced thousands of lawsuits based on concerns-- health and safety concerns related to its talc-based powder in the last few years. More than $3.5 billion in settlements going out there.

So what the company has announced is that it will no longer sell this talc-based powder globally. They already did stop selling it in the US and Canada a couple of years ago. And now, they're taking it away from the global market and pivoting to the cornstarch-based powder.

That is something that has really taken off in the last few years. In 2020 alone, corn-- or alternate, or nontalc-based powder accounted for 75% of sales in the market. So really an interesting shift there.

Johnson & Johnson did already ask shareholders whether or not it should remove the product. And the answer was no, back in April. But they still went ahead with this move anyway. They do maintain that the product is not unsafe. But are still removing it anyway so that's where things stand right now.