Johnson & Johnson Plans To Remove Carcinogens From Products
Last week the New York Times reported that Johnson & Johnson has announced plans to remove a host of questionable ingredients and contaminants from their products—notably formaldehyde and 1,4-dioxane—by 2015.
According to the article they also intend to phase out parabens, phthlates, triclosan and other chemicals we’ve long had on our X list, though it was a little bit unclear from the piece whether this was all going to be on the same timeline.
This is notable progress, and even Kenneth Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, told the Times as much:
“We’ve never really seen a major personal care product company take the kind of move that they’re taking with this,” said Kenneth A. Cook, president of the Environmental Working Group, one of the organizations that has been negotiating with company officials to change their practices. “Not really even anything in the ballpark.”
Of course, for this crowd, us included, it’s easy to be a bit cynical about the timeline (and if you are, our friend Kathryn Borel’s comedic piece about it in the Globe and Mail might give you a laugh). But if J&J is really going to eliminate all of these ingredients—and we have no reason to assume they won’t—then that’s applaudable, to say the least!
On this new site they’re cleverly explaining the changes as “moving beyond safety.”
For us the big question remains: What will they replace the current chemicals with? Only then will we know if this is atrue move toward changing the market. Any guesses?
This made me giddy with happiness and excitement–which just goes to show I still have so much optimism in my pessimistic little body that I need to try accessing more. I hope they don’t let us down!
I am 5% cautiously hopeful, but 95% cynically realistic. Let’s face it – their bottom line is profit, no? They are ultimately responsible to their shareholders, who demand nothing less than top return on their investments. And this will not be anything but costly to achieve, to move to a safer ingredient list. And those costs will not disappear once the move is made – sourcing clean ingredients is costly, and how much is already produced / mid-production that will have to disappear from the shelves? Not to mention that, in the interest of shareholder protection, these expenses will be transferred on to the consumer, so the entire consumer demographic changes because I imagine their current client base is largely targeted by price point and that is likely to shift dramatically.
So given that J&J is a business and their business is about profit, I am not expecting radical or swift change. That said, it is a step in the right direction to admit they need to make changes, and to commit to a plan that will start to make a difference. And given the fact that it is a company of that size I would give a cheer for the impact their statement will make in the industry. Let’s see what happens next!
“moving beyond safety” is some clever phrasing! I have to give some props for the changes to come, and will remain hopeful that it will really be so. That new J&J website still sounds like the standard justifications for using certain things that I do not accept in my products, though. As far as the time frame, with a huge company I can see why it would take a while to implement changes. They must have already been working on new formulations to even get it done within a couple of years, and I find their recognition that change is desirable very positive.
Too little too late. Still would not let it within a 12 mile radius of my baby, the fact they had these chemicals in there in the 1st place makes me lose all trust in them as a brand.