Nationally renowned civil rights and personal injury attorney Ben Crump has partnered with Attorney R. Allen Smith and Janice L. Mathis, Esq., executive director of National Council of Negro Women (NCNW), to warn women of color about evidence of a direct link between ovarian cancer and the use of Johnson & Johnson baby powder. Attorneys Crump and Smith are joining forces nationally to represent women harmed by their unsuspecting use of the powder and urge those that believe they may have been harmed by the common product to contact them immediately.

BUSINESS INSIDER reported in January that Johnson & Johnson is currently under investigation by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission following concerns about the safety of the brand’s baby powder. A Reuters report in December said the company had been aware of traces of asbestos in talc, which is often mined near the carcinogen asbestos.

Crump and Smith said the clear exploitation of minority women is both a public health and civil rights outrage. Litigation activities by Smith’s team uncovered a Johnson & Johnson memo showing a clear strategy to market the baby powder to African-American and other minority women.

“We have to protect women of color,” Crump said. “Documents from as far back as 1990 show that Johnson & Johnson preyed on women of color by knowingly marketing this deadly powder to African-American women, all the while possessing scientific reports that showed a linkage between talcum powder and ovarian cancer.”

Smith, who is based in Ridgeland, Mississippi, is the nation’s pre-eminent plaintiffs’ attorney in talc cases. He recently was retained to represent his home state in seeking civil fines against Johnson & Johnson.

“It turns out that Johnson & Johnson baby powder is no better than cigarettes, delivering multiple cancer-causing substances to innocent users,” Smith said. “Behind the mask of a harmless baby product, they were marketing a product whose carcinogenic ingredients include forms of talc, heavy metals, and asbestos.”