UK and EU split on cosmetic talc cancer risk as contamination clouds evidence

The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has stopped short of classifying talc as a carcinogen, disagreeing with EU scientific bodies on the controversial cosmetic ingredient’s safety.

The HSE and the European Chemicals Agency’s (ECHA) Risk Assessment Committee (RAC) reviewed the same evidence, which found lung tumors in female rats exposed to talc via inhalation. The evidence also found links between cosmetic talc usage in the genital area, such as baby powder, and ovarian cancer in human trials.

While the RAC considers the evidence sufficient to warrant a category 1B carcinogenic classification, the HSE says the available data does not meet the required strength of evidence under Great Britain’s Classification, Labeling, and Packaging rules.

The UK agency attributes its lack of classification to confounding factors — one of which is the mineral’s long-running purity and testing complications, which the agency says may have limited the validity of the epidemiological studies reviewed.

“Historically, commercial talc has been contaminated with asbestos, and talc contaminated

with even very small amounts of asbestos is considered to be carcinogenic,” HSE’s technical report on talc reads.

The report on “talc not containing asbestos or asbestiform fibers” confirms the mineral can cause severe lung toxicity after repeated inhalation, but did not escalate the classification further.

“The agency technical report disagrees with the classification proposed by RAC for the following hazards: RAC proposed a classification of Carc. 1B; H350 for talc. The agency does not consider the available data sufficient to support classification for carcinogenicity,” the report continues.

Breath of concern

The UK agency agrees with RAC that breathing in talc dust repeatedly over time can severely harm the lungs, based on animal inhalation studies and occupational documentation.

RAC found consistent evidence of serious lung outcomes among millers and miners, including non-malignant respiratory disease (NMRD) and pneumoconiosis — an incurable lung disease caused by inhaling harmful dust.

“A common cause of death was pneumoconiosis… RAC considers that the increased mortality risks due to NMRD in miners and millers were consistently found across multiple studies and cohorts,” the UK report reads.

Because effects like inflammation, fibrosis, and impaired lung function are considered severe and irreversible, the report agrees with talc’s classification as a specific target organ toxicity from repeated exposure (STOT RE 1b). 

Additionally, RAC described a biological mechanism where talc exposure triggers inflammatory lung responses, including cytokine release, oxidative stress, and cytotoxicity, which may lead to lesions over time.

However, the EU committee holds that human occupational studies do not show a consistent link between talc exposure and lung cancer, and that the data needed to confirm this link has major limitations.

Asbestos contamination concerns continue to shape the cosmetic talc debate.In animals, lung tumors occurred mainly in female rats exposed to the highest talc level, but not in male rats or mice, so the HSE considers this limited evidence and insufficient for cancer classification.

Agree to disagree?

While the HSE and RAC agree on talc’s lung toxicity, the two scientific bodies reached different conclusions on cosmetic concerns and the evidence of ovarian cancer.

RAC concluded that human evidence strongly suggested a positive association between talc use and ovarian cancer, based mainly on studies of genital talc exposure across several decades. Specifically, it found a 20–30% increased risk of ovarian cancer associated with genital use of talc-based products, such as baby powder, compared to “never-users.”

Based on this, RAC concluded that the human data available showed a positive association between talc use and ovarian cancer. 

However, the UK agency says the evidence was too uncertain for classification. “The strength of the evidence is not enough to warrant classification in category 2,” the report reads. 

One major reason for the UK’s position was the confounding effect of asbestos. “The agency considers that the known contamination of talc products with asbestos presents a considerable confounding factor when trying to determine whether there is a link between perineal talc use and ovarian cancer,” it states. 

According to the report, asbestos contamination is a prevalent issue in cosmetics supply chains. While scientific methods for detecting asbestos contamination in talc have improved, and technology can now detect contamination at very low levels, the UK agency says the risk has not been completely averted.

“Despite various attempts to regulate the purity of talc products, some talc products were found to be contaminated with asbestos fibres as recently as 2019,” the report notes. 

“The potential presence of asbestos within talc products as late as 2019 makes it difficult to draw any meaningful conclusions on the carcinogenic potential of talc from the available epidemiological studies.”

The report also cites concerns about talc testing standards in cosmetics. HSE explains that talc-containing personal care products “have been described as poorly regulated within the industry,” especially in testing, which could result in potentially contaminated products.

For cosmetics companies, the HSE’s position shifts the focus away from hazard evidence alone to whether “asbestos-free” status can be achieved and consistently demonstrated.

While the HSE emphasizes its scientific opinions apply only to talc that does not contain asbestos, it cites a 2021 review that concluded “cosmetic talc is not and never was asbestos-free.”