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Thursday, July 10, 2025

The problems with powder

by

Dr Rajen Rampaul
2231 days ago
20180601

Pow­der can have many mean­ings, ask Machel, ask Gary, but for this ar­ti­cle, we re­fer to tal­cum pow­der. Tal­cum pow­der is made from talc - a min­er­al com­pris­ing main­ly of the el­e­ment mag­ne­sium, sil­i­con, and oxy­gen. In pow­der form this mix­ture ab­sorbs mois­ture well and helps cut down fric­tion and its prop­er­ties are help­ful in keep­ing skin dry and pre­vent­ing rash­es. It can be found in most ba­by and cos­met­ic prod­ucts. The prob­lem with talc is not that when you put it up to your neck when go­ing out you look like you are a white tur­tle neck, the is­sue is that it may con­tain as­bestos, a sub­stance known to cause can­cer in and around the lungs when you breathe it in.

To the best of my rec­ol­lec­tion not many men in T&T wear tal­cum pow­der but I do see it of­ten on women, ap­plied to their necks, un­der­arms, and breasts. As a breast spe­cial­ist I am not fa­mil­iar with its use in the fe­male gen­i­tal ar­eas but it would be use­ful to hear form my gy­nae­col­o­gist col­leagues on this.

Ob­ser­va­tion in the UK and re­gion of ap­pli­ca­tion of talc pow­der is not ran­dom. It has been linked to lung can­cer via the res­pi­ra­to­ry sys­tem, and so you should think twice about ap­pli­ca­tion of such prod­ucts on your chest and neck. There has al­so been a con­nec­tion to ovar­i­an can­cer, more so if the pow­der is ap­plied to san­i­tary nap­kins, di­aphragms, and con­doms.

What do the ex­perts say? The ARC (An­tibi­ot­ic Re­sis­tance Coali­tion) part of the World Health Or­ga­ni­za­tion clas­si­fies talc that con­tains as­bestos and the use of talc-based body pow­der as “pos­si­bly car­cino­genic to hu­mans”.

What do the courts say? Re­cent­ly in the US a St Louis ju­ry award­ed 70 mil­lion in dam­ages to an Amer­i­can woman who de­vel­oped ovar­i­an can­cer from us­ing J&J, a pop­u­lar brand of talc pow­der. Sim­i­lar judg­ments were award­ed sup­port­ing the link with talc use and can­cer (to­talling over 120 mil­lion in dam­ages).

If you are con­cerned about us­ing tal­cum pow­der or prod­ucts that con­tain talc, the best op­tion is to ei­ther lim­it your ex­po­sure or avoid its use all to­geth­er. An al­ter­na­tive and safe choice is to look for corn-starch based cos­met­ic prod­ucts. There is no ev­i­dence at this time of links to can­cer with this sub­stance.

Dr Ra­jen Ram­paul is a health and lifestyle con­trib­u­tor


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