Chinese parents backed calls for a boycott of Johnson & Johnson's (J&J) baby products following a report by a US organization that said the healthcare giant was selling baby shampoo with cancer-risk elements in a number of countries.

The boycott call was made by the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics (CSC), which said in its report Monday that J&J continues to sell its baby shampoo in countries including Australia, Canada, China, Indonesia and the US, in spite of the group's warning to the company in 2009 that the shampoo contains two harmful chemicals.

Adding to the outrage is the fact that J&J has already marketed upgraded products that are free of the two chemicals in Britain, Japan, the Netherlands, South Africa and other countries, the report revealed.

"All babies deserve safer products. J&J clearly can make safer baby shampoo in all the markets around the world, but it's not doing it," Lisa Archer, director of the CSC, told the AP.

The group urged buyers to boycott J&J's baby products until the company agrees to remove the chemicals from its products sold around the world.
The two chemicals are quaternium-15 and 1,4-dioxane.

Quaternium-15 is a preservative added to many cosmetic products to prevent spoiling and contamination, and works by releasing formaldehyde to kill bacteria.

According to the AP, 1,4-dioxane also releases formaldehyde, and is a byproduct of a process for making chemicals more soluble and gentler on the skin.

The US Department of Health said formaldehyde is known to cause cancer, although exposure to it is difficult to avoid and traces of it are found in the air, particularly inside the home.

Tracey J. Woodruff, an associate professor and director of the Program on Reproductive Health and the Environment at University of California,San Francisco, told the AP that an infant's scalp is more permeable than an adult's, so exposure to the chemicals could cause more harm for babies than adults.

"You're exposing a child during a very vulnerable period of development, when the effect may be worse," Woodruff noted.

The report triggered outrage from many Chinese buyers.

"It truly makes me feel angry that we have been kept in the dark about the harmful chemicals," Li Yuan, a pregnant woman from Nanjing, Jiangsu Province, told the Global Times. "J&J must give an answer on their different formula strategy."

Zhang Lijuan, a 27-year-old mother in Beijing whose 1-year-old son has used J&J's shampoo since birth, told the Global Times that she hoped the relevant departments would take stern action against J&J.

According to a poll by ifeng.com Wednesday, 94 percent of 15,395 Internet users said they will support the boycott until J&J removes the harmful ingredients from all its products.

In response to the criticism, J&J said on its website Monday that "different formulations of similar products around the world may contain different ingredients," but "all of our products meet or exceed the regulatory standards of the countries in which they are sold."

The company said it is no longer introducing new baby products that contain these types of preservatives and has reduced its use of the chemical by over 60 percent in the US and 33 percent globally over the past few years.

Wang Xunbiao with J&J China's publicity department echoed the view.

"The preservatives used in the cosmetics release very small amounts of formaldehyde," Wang said in a statement sent to the Global Times Wednesday.

"We understand some consumers' concerns over the formaldehyde, therefore we are developing different types of preservatives for baby products that will not release the substance," Wang said.

According to New York Daily News, the shampoos containing those two chemicals cost about half as much as the upgraded ones.

Zhu Shanshan and agencies contributed to this story