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 In an announcement, the House of Representatives Subcommittee on
Economic and Consumer Policy said that its efforts to persuade
Gorsky to testify included "repeated attempts to accommodate the
company" over nearly a month.
Democrat Raja Krishnamoorthi, chairman of the House panel
investigating concerns about cancer-causing asbestos in cosmetic
talc and powders, said he was disappointed Gorsky turned down the
invitation.
"Mr. Gorsky refuses to speak to the Subcommittee under oath, yet he
has not refrained from making multiple public comments on the
topic," Krishnamoorthi said in a statement.
J&J spokesman Ernie Knewitz said that the subcommittee had rejected
the company's offers to send a talc testing expert or a J&J
executive in charge of consumer products.
Gorsky "is not, as we have repeatedly told the Subcommittee, an
expert in the stated subject of the hearing," Knewitz said. "We have
respectfully declined the invitation for our CEO to testify."
Knewitz said that the composition of the hearing, which includes two
experts who have testified for plaintiffs against J&J, also factored
into the company's decision.
Gorsky has played a lead role in J&J's efforts to reassure consumers
and investors that its talc powders are safe and asbestos free. Last
year, he issued a statement vouching for the safety of the products
after a jury issued a $4.69 billion verdict in favor of 22 women who
sued over allegations their ovarian cancers were caused by J&J
powders.
Gorsky appeared on CNBC's "Mad Money with Jim Cramer" and in a video
posted on J&J's website to rebut a December 2018 Reuters report
https://www.reuters.com/
investigates/special-report/johnsonandjohnson-cancer that the
company knew for decades about the presence of small amounts of
asbestos in its talc and powders.
"Since tests for asbestos in talc were first developed, J&J's Baby
Powder has never contained asbestos," Gorsky said in the video.
In October, Gorsky testified in a deposition
https://www.reuters.com
/article/us-johnson-johnson-talc-ceo-insight/johnson-johnson-
ceo-testified-baby-powder-
was-safe-13-days-before-fda-
bombshell-idUSKBN1X12GF in a lawsuit filed by an Indiana man,
saying, "We unequivocally believe that our talc and our baby powder
does not contain asbestos." J&J faces more than 16,000 similar
lawsuits.
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Concerns over asbestos in talc cosmetics have grown in recent months
as the U.S. Food and Drug Administration announced that the
carcinogen had been found in several products, including a bottle of
Baby Powder.
J&J said it recalled 33,000 bottles of Baby Powder "out of an
abundance of caution." Later, J&J said labs it hired found no
asbestos - other than some contamination it blamed on an air
conditioner - in samples from the same Baby Powder bottle and its
production lot.
The FDA has said it stands by its finding.
Chief executives of companies embroiled in controversies routinely
comply with lawmakers' invitations to testify.
In recent months, the CEOs of Boeing <BA.N> and Facebook <FB.O> have
appeared before congressional committees to answer questions about
how their companies were safeguarding consumers.
Charles M. Elson, director of the John L. Weinberg Center for
Corporate Governance at the University of Delaware, said CEOs have a
responsibility to go to Washington when Congress calls, just like
other citizens.
But Elson said Gorsky's pass was understandable. He said the CEO and
his advisers probably figured that the downside was greater to
testifying than not.
"It's being invited in for a punch in the nose," Elson said. For
Gorsky, "nothing good will come out of it."
(Reporting by Lisa Girion in Los Angeles and Carl O'Donnell in New
York; additional reporting by Chad Terhune; editing by Grant McCool
and Rosalba O'Brien)
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