IS PICK N PAY DOING THE RIGHT THING BY CONTINUING TO STOCK BABY POWDER LINKED TO CANCER?

Dear Readers,

Pieter Boone
Pick n Pay's new CEO

          In spite of the appalling history of Johnson & Johnson’s (J&J) baby powder Pick n Pay the South African 1945 store grocery chain has no intention of discontinuing to stock this giant US pharmaceutical company’s product.

          “We assure you that the talcum powder has been approved by the relevant authorities in South Africa,” Mary-Anne Hattingh Pick n Pay’s National Customer Service Manager told me. I wonder what sort of endorsement that is.

          For something like 50 years J&J was endangering  the lives of it’s customers by selling talc, including baby powder of all things that contained asbestos that has been shown to cause women ovarian cancer.

          As far back as 1973 the firm rejected the advice of its own scientists to replace the asbestos containing talc it was using with cornstarch. Like most big companies profit came before saving people’s lives as the talc was cheaper than the alternative.

          Now the Supreme Court in America has told J&J to pay heavily for its greed. It rejected the company’s appeal against an award of $2.1 billion in damages because its powder products caused women ovarian cancer.

          Ken Starr, a former prosecutor representing the women with cancer, urged the justices not to review the case saying that the firm had known “for decades that its talc powders contained asbestos, a highly carcinogenic substance with no known safe exposure level.”

          After I tried to contact Pick n Pay’s new CEO Pieter Boone I got Mary-Anne Hattingh instead and then quite unsolicited I received an email from somebody named only as Joy from J&J’s Consumer Services. This is what she told me:

          “We empathize with anyone suffering from cancer and understand that people are looking for answers. We believe these can be better understood through science – and decades of independent scientific studies by medical experts around the world shows that our talc is safe, does not contain asbestos and does not cause cancer.

          “We understand that lawsuits in the United States and media headlines have caused confusion about our products and we are committed to ensuring the facts are understood. The science supporting the safety of our product is central to why our Company continued to defend itself in court.”

           She admitted that J&J had discontinued the sale of its talc-based baby powder in the US and Canada, but claimed this had nothing to do with its safety. “It was rather to address declining demand in North America due in large part to changes in consumer habits fuelled by misinformation around the safety of the product through a constant barrage of litigation advertising”, she went on. Presumably this was to trace the people who claimed to have got cancer. She added that they do not offer a cornstarch-based product in South Africa, but its talc based baby powder is available and continues to be sold in other markets around the world.

          In a follow-up email she described the headlines I had been reading as “concerning” and again emphasised that their powder was “safe”.

          I replied: “This is very strange. How did various women manage to get a compensation judgement for billions against J&J because they claimed to have got ovarian cancer from its powder and when this went to appeal it was dismissed? That’s what I read on Google. If this is total fiction it must be one of the biggest fabricated stories of the century. What you keep telling me to read appears to be all about what J&J is claiming for its powder, not an independent assessment. And for you to describe the headlines I have been reading as ‘concerning’ must be the understatement of the decade considering you represent J&J. What really stands out is that at no stage have you told me that there is absolutely no truth in the ‘concerning headlines’ that I have been reading.”

          J&J’s already tarnished reputation over the cancer claims took another serious knock when it was among the drug companies that a group of US attorneys general obtained a $26bn settlement with for fuelling the deadly nationwide opioid epidemic. They were accused of lax controls that allowed a massive amount of addictive painkiller to be diverted into illegal channels, thus devastating communities. J&J was said to have down played the addiction risk in its marketing.

          All the companies denied the allegations. Attorneys general from 15 states were involved in negotiating the deals and the money will be used for addiction treatment, family support and efforts to eradicate the scourge of drug addiction.

          The bulk of the money will be paid by the three largest US distributors over 18 years with J&J paying $5-bn over nine years $3.7-bn of which has to be settled in the first three.

          “There’s not enough money in the world frankly to address the pain and suffering caused,” said the Connecticut attorney general William Tong.

With its history of serious unethical behaviour how can J&J be trusted to provide safe Covid vaccines to South Africa and the world? Will it be cutting corners to save money once again or will it have learnt its lesson.

Unfortunately we will only find out the answer after millions of people will have received the J&J one dose jab.

          Barron’s the American financial magazine listed J&J among its World’s Most Admired Companies and Fortune Magazine has included it in its list of World’s Most Respected Companies. I wonder where it will come now after these scandals.

          Alex Gorsky J&J’s Chairman and CEO was named one of the 100 most Inspired Leaders by Pharma Voice. He joined J&J, this 131 year old firm in 1988 and has headed it since 2012 so he deserves a great deal of the blame for what happened under his nose to a baby powder that has been in shops around the world. And the same goes for his firm’s dubious painkiller marketing.

Regards,

Jon, a Consumer Watchdog who is always sniffing out funny business that needs exposing.

P.S. It’s absolutely deplorable the way huge companies that are often leaders in their field think about nothing else other than making a profit, even if it means devastating the lives of their customers. As this case proved BIG BUSINESS, far too often, doesn’t have the morals of an alley cat.

P.P.S. A few weeks ago, before I became aware of the background, I tried to buy some J&J baby powder in Pick n Pay and I was told there was no stock. I was mystified as to why they would not have such a well known brand. But as it turned out there was no question of Pick n Pay no longer stocking it because when I was there a couple of days ago the shelves were full of it.

 

           

  

Lance Armstrong - so evil he gave cancer a bad name

A convincing liar

Dear Cyclists,

          Armstrong and Marion Jones were two US cheating Greats with a difference.

          Was it because Jones was Black and Armstrong was White with a much bigger sporting profile that she got crucified at the same time that he was clocking up win after win in the Tour de France regardless of the mounting evidence that he was a crook?

          No, that couldn’t be. Not in the good old US of A where everybody is treated equally.

          There is no question of course that they were both cheats. 

          Jones, a huge track and field star at the age of 25, who won five medals at the Summer Olympics in Sydney in 2000 including gold in the 100 and 200m, has already paid her dues.

          So now that our peddling Lance has finally been exposed for what he was - the Mafia-like boss of the biggest doping scandal in sporting history - it will be interesting to see if he gets anything like an appropriate punishment.

On the face of it she was a naïve girl who was provided with undetectable designer steroids by her coach and it didn’t help that her shot putter husband at the time was also into performance enhancing drugs.

In 2007 Marion’s conscience got the better of her. She admitted to taking steroids before the Sydney Games and that she had previously lied when she denied this to the press, various sports agencies and most significantly to two grand juries.

She forfeited all her medals; accepted a two year suspension from athletics before announcing her retirement. Then she was jailed for six months for lying under oath to American federal agents.

Unlike our cycling Great she was unbelievably contrite and broke down in tears when she spoke openly on TV about her shame.

Me take drugs- never

But so far 41 year old Lance has admitted nothing. He seems to think that he can go on with his life as a crusader for the cancer cause and all his millions of admirers around the world will continue to worship the Armstrong name.

There was no chance of granite faced Lance bursting into tears when the US Anti Doping Agency announced that the evidence was overwhelming that he was at the heart of the most sophisticated, professionalised and successful doping programme that sport has ever seen.

He was stripped of his record seven Tour de France titles after members of his US Postal Services team ratted on him.

His only reaction to USADA’s announcement was typical of the man who had been lying under oath for years and swindling his way to one yellow jersey after another. He Tweeted: What am I doing tonight. Hanging with my family unaffected.

US Federal agents investigated Lance for 18 months before closing their probe without filing charges. At the time was he, unlike Black Marion, White and too big a fish to fry?

Will anything at last be done after USADA’s damning report?

Not only had Lance cheated his way to all those cycling titles he has also defrauded his sponsors like Nike, Trek bikes, 24-Hour Fitness Clubs, brewer Anheuser-Busch and Honey Stinger products who paid millions to use his name.

The gall of the man, who will always be going down hill from now on, was such that at an inquiry, where he denied doping, he said, If you have a doping offence or you test positive, it goes without saying that you’re fired from all your contracts.

So surely the millions he got from sponsors over the years was money obtained by false pretences, a crime that has put many people behind bars.

And what about lying under oath? If Marion got six months for this how many times has Lance sat there with his fingers crossed telling a pack of lies. But is he still too big to be jailed for this?

Only for medical purpose perhaps

Now that Lance has been exposed as a champion of just about everything that is bad can we believe that he ever had cancer? If his ingenuity was such that he could con his way passed 500 dope tests, couldn’t he have also staged his testicular cancer as a smoke screen for what was to follow.

He was diagnosed and supposedly cured of this life threatening disease before any of his Tour de France wins. Being the man who had conquered cancer and then gone on to win the greatest race in cycling just added to his cult, hero status.

Nobody would possible believe that he could be a cheat especially as Livestrong; the charity he founded had raised millions for cancer research.

Two witnesses who were present when he was diagnosed with cancer at the Indiana University Hospital gave evidence to investigators that he told the doctor about all the drugs he had been taking such as growth hormones, steroids and blood boosting EPO’s, which were undetectable at the time. Lance subsequently denied ever saying this.

Bye-bye Lance

But two days after the witnesses gave sworn statements $1.5-million was given to the University by the Lance Armstrong Foundation for a chair in oncology in honour of the doctor who treated Armstrong.

He was adept at giving donations at strategic times. He and his company even gave $1.25-million to the International Cycling Union, whose job it is to police cycling, to fund the fight against doping. Hush money perhaps?

Everything smells about the life of the man who took every one for a ride. And while he wasn’t the first person to give cycling a bad name we now know one thing for sure: he was the only man in history who was so evil he GAVE CANCER A BAD NAME.

Yours faithfully,

Jon, who has always thought that it’s hard enough to remain upright on two wheels, without being bombed up to the eyeballs on a cocktail of drugs.

Plague of the Killer C

Dear Leader of the Patient's Union,

          Going to hospital is a sure cure for modesty, especially when the medical boffins decide that the only way they can tell what’s going on inside you is to have a close look. And it’s also a place where in most instances they actively encourage worry.

          To give me a bit more to worry about my specialist physician happily told me that he was increasingly finding the Big C in younger and younger people. He was referring to it romping around in the tubes and crannies that run from your mouth to your other end. 

        So, if anything unusual was happening in this rather vital area of the anatomy he always advocated that it was best to let him have a look. Just to be on the safe side you understand.

          I surmised my medic was probably a frustrated speleologist, who had decided on this line of work because he could look down dark and windy passages without the risk of getting stuck, crushed by a rock fall or drowned in some inaccessible crevice.

          My life could have been gradually ebbing away but I got no sympathy from my wife. Just because you’re doing what every man does with such glee it’s hardly an excuse to rush off and have an expensive medical examination when we haven’t even got a medical aid, she said.

          Most of the time you’re forcing it anyway. I’m sure there’s nothing wrong with you. You men go to hospital for the slightest thing.

          It’s my life that’s at stake, I told her. So if you don’t mind I’ll play it safe. It’s no good having money if you’re dead.

          My doctor certainly believed in leaving nothing to chance so he decided on a complete top and bottom. For the technically minded it’s a gastroscopy and a colonoscopy.

          It was a kind of 100 000 km service, even though I had only done 40 000 at the time. Well specialists have got to live too and are they all that different from the guy who fixes your car?

          To do these delightful procedures they put you under. That way you can’t criticise their work. They then push a camera on a scenic trip round your insides

          The pictures show up on a screen. And if they see anything interesting like precious stones or other lumps and bumps they snip bits off and take them as souvenirs to the lab.

          To make sure that the specialist got no unpleasant surprises and that the view was absolutely clear I had to starve for two days. And that was not all. I also had to drink litres of clean prep that goes through you almost as fast as you can drink it.

          On the morning of the big day I arrived at the clinic on schedule at 8.00 am thinking of nothing but food. But nobody was a bit concerned about the mental state of  us starving patients all coming for the same procedure, because laid out on a table in front of the reception desk were all kinds of goodies, muffins, yogurt, scones etc.

          And doctors and other members of staff kept coming through and stuffing their faces right in front of us. For me this Who cares about the patient approach did not end there. 

          When I gave my name to the receptionist she looked down her list and told me I was not on it. I protested that I was not going to starve myself for another two days because my doctor was so disorganised and she casually replied, He often forgets to put people down.  

          How often does he forget to take his knives and forks out when he’s done an operation, I was about to ask. Unperturbed she smiled sweetly and said I could be fitted in at around 1.00 pm. That’s lunch time, I thought. If a patient has survived two days of starvation a couple more hours won’t kill him or will it?

          I was put in a mixed ward to await my fate and to allow me and everybody else to talk up our fears. I got chatting to a woman who didn’t seem to be aware of what was happening because when she asked what my problem was I said, In-growing toe nails. With a mystified look she asked, Surely you don’t have to take clean prep for that do you?

          The patient torture took a further twist when I was wheeled through to another siding in the operating area. The doctor and the anaesthetist were not going to delay lunch just because the assembly line was still running.

          Not a chance; dressed in their greens they were stuffing themselves with hamburgers in a nearby cubicle leaving me to suffer surrounded by the delicious smell.

          Did I say that doctors are no different from the mechanics who fix your car?  I was half expecting to see semi-naked pinups stuck to the wall when I was finally pushed into theatre.

          After all that my doc was so disappointed, not at the way his bank balance had increased, but because I was not a candidate for further expensive, scientific exploration.

       The moral to the story is listen to your wife. You don’t need X-rays, scans, video cameras or anything else looking into your insides because she can see through you in an instant.

          Your sincerely,

          Jon, a concerned Patient.

PS. Seven out of 12 of the people on my wife's Church’s latest prayer list have cancer. It makes you think doesn’t it?

Buy my book 'Where have all the children gone?' on Amazon Kindle  It's thriller with an underlying love story that defied generations of prejudice.