Johnson and Johnson sues researchers who linked talc to cancer

I dislike fiddles to laws, about as much as I dislike legal reductionism, although I am attracted to simpler laws but really, weaponising lawsuit against peer review science feels like something we want legislative guardrails on.

If this suit has standing, then pretty much any corporate can take down academic research and journals in a field which negatively impacts their domain of profit.

Seriously: basic research on lung cancer, AGW, heavy metal pollution, lead in petrol, aspartame, where does it end, if "you broke my product profit chain" is viable?

Not that bad science wouldn't be very destructive weaponised the other way: Helen Caldecott's relentless (in my view) a-scientific anti nuke stuff comes to mind. "No safe limit" has been widely abused.

What about climbing chalk and mesothelioma?

Is asbestos is in talc naturally, or is it contaminated during extraction, separation, and processing?

I used talc as a child and on my older children. Corn starch does not seem to have the smoother, less sticky feeling as talc does IMHO. I used corn starch on my youngest children.

I love Woody Allen's 'Sleeper' when in the future bacon and cigarettes are found to be healthy. Nutrition and cancer-causing compounds are very fast moving targets to follow in life!