03/27/2009   Source: China.org.cn

About 80 families are to file a lawsuit against Johnson & Johnson claiming the company’s products have harmed their children. Their lawyers say they will submit cases to grass-root courts in Beijing at the beginning of April.

“We are considering class action lawsuits because of the huge number of victims involved,” said Cui Baoyu, a member of the legal support group. The group said it plans to start proceedings in Beijing because most of its clients come from the city. The group will ask people to provide products, purchase receipts and children’s medical records.

Cui said the group will also send lawyers to other cities, or ask local professionals to provide guidance. “We have more than 50 lawyers in the group,” said Cui, “and the group continues expanding as more lawyers from all over the country ask to join every day.”

China’s inspection departments released contradictory results following tests carried out on Johnson & Johnson products last week.

The General Administration of Quality Supervision, Inspection and Quarantine (AQSIQ) said on March 20 that all 26 Johnson & Johnson baby bath products it tested met the country’s regulations on cosmetic formaldehyde.

But one batch number (B081210A/20111209) was found to contain a small amount of 1,4-dioxane, an as yet unregulated substance used in cosmetics both in China and the United States, according to AQSIQ.

The following day, the State Food and Drug Administration said it had failed to find contamination by either formaldehyde or 1,4-dioxane in checks it carried out on 14 Johnson & Johnson baby bath products sold under the company’s Shanghai brand.

FDA spokeswoman Yan Jiangying said on Thursday that AQSIQ examined a batch of the finished products of the company, while the FDA’s result was based on the formula of the products. “The results are not contradictory,” said Yan. But she admitted FDA could not be sure chemicals were not added during production. FDA is conducting “further investigations” on harmful materials, according to Yan.

Since both departments have ruled the company’s products safe, the parents’ group plans to ask medical institutions to conduct allergy tests to try to find a correlation between their children’s allergic symptoms and the products.

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