Two chemicals considered harmful to children are still in bottles of Johnson & Johnson's baby shampoo sold in the U.S., according to a coalition of health and environmental groups.
This is despite the shampoo being sold without the additives in other countries such as the UK. Now the campaigners are urging consumers to boycott the company until it agrees to remove the chemicals from the baby products still being sold in some countries, including the U.S., Canada and Australia.
The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics has been urging the world's largest healthcare company to remove the trace amounts of potentially cancer-causing chemicals from the signature product for more than two years.
The campaign is a coalition of health and environmental groups including the Breast Cancer Fund, American Nurses Association and Friends of the Earth.
The disputed ingredients are dioxane and a substance called quaternium-15 that releases formaldehyde. Formaldehyde was declared a known human carcinogen in June by the U.S. National Toxicology Program. It is also a skin, eye and respiratory irritant.
Johnson & Johnson has said it is reducing or gradually phasing out the chemicals.
