Mother's Health News, Brought to You by Carcinogenic Baby Shampoo
01/24/2012 by Jim NaureckasArianna Huffington had an announcement (1/19/12) about a new section in her Huffington Post:
I'm delighted to announce the launch of Global Motherhood, a new section within HuffPost Impact dedicated to the health and well being of mothers and babies around the world, and sponsored by Johnson & Johnson.
It goes without saying that it's a bad idea in general to have a corporation in the health industry sponsoring health coverage; the potential for conflict of interest is obvious. But given that these kinds of special sections are typically created to meet an advertiser's need--an impression strengthened by the fact that the second paragraph of Huffington's announcement focuses on Johnson & Johnson's efforts to "use technology to improve the lives of mothers and babies"--one has to ask, why this section for this advertiser?
You don't have to dig very far back into the Huffington Post archives to get a clue. On November 1, HuffPost Parents posted this AP report:
The piece described a boycott launched against the Johnson & Johnson by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, which "has unsuccessfully been urging the world's largest healthcare company for 2 1/2 years to remove the trace amounts of potentially cancer-causing chemicals--dioxane and a substance called quaternium-15 that releases formaldehyde--from Johnson's Baby Shampoo, one of its signature products."
After Johnson & Johnson reached an agreement with the campaign to phase out the chemicals in the U.S. market, HuffPost Healthy Living (12/28/11) ran this post by Samuel Epstein, an expert on cancer at the University of Illinois School of Public Health:
Epstein's post pointed out the geographically limited nature of the company's agreement and the fact that its shampoo contains a third chemical, nitrosamine, that is also a potential cancer risk.
To be sure, as Jezebel (1/20/12) pointed out, there are numerous health concerns with Johnson & Johnson products--from birth control patches to insulin pumps, from the anti-psychotic drug Risperdal to Tylenol and Motrin. But if your news outlet reveals that a product might be giving kids' cancer and then the makers of that product offer you a sponsorship deal, it's a good bet that they aren't doing so because they're grateful to you for keeping them on their toes.
Tags: Arianna Huffington, Huffington Post, Johnson & Johnson
Diggit
del.icio.us
reddit
Yahoo
Facebook
StumbleUpon
January 24th, 2012 at 11:37 am
All the shampoo in the world won't wash the smell out of this sellout, will it?
The only valid currency any news source has is its integrity, and this deal washes that right down the bathtub drain.
Similar should be said for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. As is so often the case, the desire to trumpet a "victory" – and generate contributions – takes precedence over proclaimed principles.
I guess folks abroad will just have to exercise a bit more caution when they rinse and repeat.
January 27th, 2012 at 5:55 pm
"Similar should be said for the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics. As is so often the case, the desire to trumpet a "victory" – and generate contributions – takes precedence over proclaimed principles."
… unfortunate but true … we all need to get paid somewhere , somehow. ANY 'do-good' organization has to show complete transparency in it's founding sources, for me to be interested in what they do. After all, the internet has FAR more power than anything on the planet right now, in terms of information transmission… and it's free… as is FB, and much more importantly (to my mind) the new FB, Diaspora … https://joindiaspora.com/ … completely free of corporate control (so far, anyway… and that IS indeed their stated goal.. to REMAIN free of such… ) I encourage all and any to check it out, and support it. I look forward to the day that can replace the incredible sourcing/distribution that FB avails me now.
January 27th, 2012 at 6:29 pm
There are some things that just have to be left up to government to handle. It is too bad that these same cancer causers have just as easy a time corupting these government agencies as they do news outlets under our congress.
January 27th, 2012 at 7:27 pm
No wonder Americans are so fed up… This is a level of cynicism that is hard to imagine. Even from the perspective of a corporate capitalist, wouldn't you want to make sure you had a safe product on the shelves instead of whitewashing the presence of trace carcinogens with such sponsorship? This is exactly why we need fewer corporate media sources and more independent ones.
January 27th, 2012 at 11:01 pm
I think I'll throw out the Johnson's Baby Shampoo in my bathroom that I haven't been able to throw away because it's what my boyfriend used all his life….until he died this year from pancreatic cancer. The shampoo just lost its sentimental attachment for me..and I don't want to even think about the possible link to his disease.
January 28th, 2012 at 6:03 am
J & J simple fix- Amend the "rinse and repeat" instructions to read "rinse and repeat; then KEEP RINSING!"
January 28th, 2012 at 10:34 am
Get the message out! Don't forget….."Power of the People"!! We don't have to buy these products. And I would truly like to know how long did J & J know about all this.
January 30th, 2012 at 10:50 am
Interesting consumer info/update.I wonder if all the other shampoos are using this?
January 30th, 2012 at 10:05 pm
[...] Huffington Post has a special section on health news, sponsored by a drug company. [...]
January 31st, 2012 at 10:51 am
Unfortunately the issue of J&J Baby Shampoo has been known for many years. There is a reason why shampoo in our eyes HURTS; it doesn't belong in the eyes. Adding a numbing agent so that children don't cry with shampoo in their eyes may make the mother feel better, but she needs to know that she's harming her child. J&J has known about this issue from the time they started producing it.
February 17th, 2012 at 11:37 pm
Why can't they just leave the NITROSAMINES IN THE BACON, where it belongs? ^..^