Can Baby Foot really make your feet smoother? Episode 152

SPEAKER_1 (0:00)

You're listening to The Beauty Brains Show, where real scientists answer your beauty questions. And now, here's Randy and Perry.

Perry Romanowski (0:19)

Hello, everybody, and welcome to episode 152

And on this show, for the first time ever, we're going to have an all-audio question program.

Yeah, we're going to respond to listeners who've asked about foot exfoliators, makeup settings, sprays, and sunscreen pills.

Randy Schueller (0:38)

But first, does it cost extra for the all-audio question version?

Perry Romanowski (0:43)

No, no, there's no extra charge. In fact, there's no charge for this show at all.

Randy Schueller (0:48)

I think that's been a problem.

Perry Romanowski (0:50)

I know, that might explain the quality of the show.

Randy Schueller (0:54)

You get what you pay for, ladies and gentlemen.

Perry Romanowski (0:56)

Indeed, indeedy. Well, we also have some beauty science news today, but do we have any of that lovely banal banter we're so famous for?

Randy Schueller (1:04)

That's kind of your baliwick.

Perry Romanowski (1:07)

You know what? I do have something.

So I'm training for the Chicago Marathon, right?

Randy Schueller (1:13)

Oh, you're going to run your first marathon. Congratulations.

Perry Romanowski (1:16)

This will actually be my 39th marathon.

Randy Schueller (1:18)

I could have mentioned it sooner, but all right.

Perry Romanowski (1:21)

But yesterday, I was running a 20-mile training run, and I tripped over a plastic strip and landed very hard on the concrete, and I believe that I've broken a rib.

Randy Schueller (1:35)

Are you serious?

Perry Romanowski (1:36)

I am serious. It hurts like hell.

Randy Schueller (1:39)

And so rather than go to the emergency room, you've decided to podcast today.

Perry Romanowski (1:44)

Well, it was in mile two of a 20-mile run, and I figured I didn't want to skip the run.

Randy Schueller (1:51)

Oh, so you finished running with a potentially broken rib. Great.

Perry Romanowski (1:56)

It's just a sore rib. It's probably just bruised, right?

Randy Schueller (1:59)

Probably.

Perry Romanowski (2:01)

Probably. Well, this is the kind of trooper I am, because instead of going to that emergency room, I wanted to make sure we recorded this show.

Randy Schueller (2:08)

You are indeed a trooper.

Perry Romanowski (2:11)

So, why don't we get to that beauty science news?

Hey, Randy, remember that a few shows back, we brought news about beauty maker J&J losing a court case related to talc in baby powder? They were claimed to have caused some woman's cancer.

Randy Schueller (2:33)

Yeah, the legal system overrides science. Yes, I remember that.

Perry Romanowski (2:37)

Well, J&J was ordered to pay $72 million to the family of a woman in St. Louis last February, and in May, a different jury awarded $55 million to a woman from South Dakota for her cancer. Yeah, and I thought this was going to doom the beauty industry, I mean, if these judgments stood, right? But it seems that J&J has a few lawyerly tricks up their sleeve, because they just convinced a judge in New Jersey to throw out two lawsuits brought by women claiming that baby powder was responsible for their ovarian cancer. They convinced the judge that there's no science behind it, and science is sort of on their side on this, right? So this ruling is going to help J&J in more than a thousand suits that were brought up against them in federal and state courts.

It's going to directly affect another 200 lawsuits that were brought in New Jersey, so all of those will be directly thrown out. But it's only going to indirectly help those in other states.

Now, the reason the cases were thrown out is because the judge said that the women couldn't produce sufficient medical evidence that showed that the J&J baby powder caused their cancer.

Randy Schueller (3:47)

Well, is that really the onus on the women to produce that data? That seems a little strange.

Perry Romanowski (3:53)

Well, I think so. If you claim that a product caused your cancer, wouldn't you have to demonstrate that it was that product that caused the cancer?

Randy Schueller (4:00)

Well, wouldn't the scientific community have a say in that?

Perry Romanowski (4:04)

Well, I mean, yeah, you're supposed to go to the scientific community, right? If you're the defense attorney or the prosecuting side, right?

So, anyway, it does seem strange to me that not enough scientific evidence gets thrown out while others are just allowed to go through. These cases are supposed to be based on science, right? And so St. Louis, South Dakota, those cases go through. New Jersey, so why isn't there just one thing to go through? I don't know.