WIMINGTON, Del.– CVS Health Corp. is pulling some bottles of Johnson & Johnson’s Baby Powder off pharmacy shelves after government regulators found tiny amounts of asbestos in one lot of the talc-based product.
Officials of Rhode Island-based CVS, the largest U.S. pharmacy chain by locations, said Thursday they are removing all 22-ounce-sized Baby Powder bottles from its stores and off its website. J&J issued a limited recall last week.
“We took this step as a matter of precaution and to prevent customer confusion,” Mike DeAngelis, a CVS spokesman, said in an interview.
On Oct. 18, J&J said U.S. Food and Drug Administration tests found one lot of 33,000 bottles of powder had trace levels of asbestos, a carcinogen. The company issued a recall for that lot only.
J&J officials said they are looking into whether cross-contamination of the sample caused a false positive, whether the product was appropriately sealed and maintained in a controlled environment, and whether the product was a counterfeit.
Jef Feeley is a reporter for Bloomberg News.
