Stephen Schultz and his wife Kimberly have filed a lawsuit at Delaware Superior Court claiming that he has contracted a deadly cancer called mesothelioma after being exposed to talcum powder containing asbestos as a child.
The complaint goes on further to state that the talcum powder companies knowingly included asbestos into their products, regardless of the hazard it poses to human health.
Schultz is said to have been exposed from 1967 through his mother using the talcum powder on a daily basis and has listed Cashmere Bouquet Talcum Powder from Colgate Palmolive and Coty Airspun Face Powder as two defendants on the file, alongside Cypress Amax Minerals Company, Pfizer and Whittaker Clark & Daniels, Inc.
It is not the first time a case of this kind has been bought against talcum powder manufactuers. Indeed, in 2015 a jury awarded a plaintiff a large sum of $13million after she proved her case of mesothelioma cancer was directly linked to the asbestos found in the Cashmere Bouquet talcum powder.
Mesothelioma affects the thin lining that covers most of the internal organs of the body, most commonly the lining of the lungs, heart, abdomen and testicles. It’s a severe form of cancer with a poor prognosis.
The link between this type of cancer and the use of asbestos-ridden talcum powder has come to light in recent years, with researchers discovering that a talcum powder product used by a woman that died of mesothelioma contained trace amounts of asbestos, reporting their findings in a 2014 article from the Center for Effective Government.
Meanwhile questions were raised last year in an article published on the Fair Warning website on whether companies could assure their customers that their products are free of asbestos.