Pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson is being sued on allegations of marketing talc-based baby powder to Black women knowing that the product could potentially cause ovarian cancer, the Los Angeles Times reports.

On Tuesday, The National Council of Negro Women and their legal advisors, which include prominent civil rights lawyer Ben Crump, filed their complaint in the Superior Court of New Jersey. The lawsuit states that the company specifically targeted Black women through “deceptive marketing,” including running advertising spots and passing out free samples of its talc-based powders at salons.

“Internal documents demonstrate J&J targeted those advertisements to Black women, knowing that Black women were more likely to use the powder products and to use them regularly,” the complaint read. “We now know what J&J knew long before it pulled its talc-based products from the market — that J&J’s powder products can cause ovarian cancer.”

Janice Mathis, the group’s executive director, said the goal of the lawsuit is to bring awareness about the risks that talc-based baby powder products pose, and to encourage Black women to get cancer screenings.

“We’re going to mount a campaign to make sure every Black woman and her family understands that you may have a lurking illness that you may have to get treatment and care for,” she told KVIA.. “[J&J] knew early on that it was almost impossible to mine talc without contaminating it with asbestos. We know they knew it because they’ve taken it off the market. You can’t buy it now.”

Johnson & Johnson said on Tuesday that its 2020 decision to halt the sale of talc-based baby powder in the U.S. and Canada “had nothing to do with the safety of the product.”

“Demand for talc-based Johnson’s Baby Powder in North America has been declining due in large part to changes in consumer habits fueled by misinformation around the safety of the product and a constant barrage of litigation advertising,” the company said in an email obtained by CNN Business.

In response to the plethora of lawsuits levied at the company, Johnson & Johnson allocated $4 billion for potential verdicts and settlements.

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