Talcum powder thought to have caused death of woman

A 49-year-old woman died as a result of suspected exposure to talcum powder, an inquest has heard.

Therese Lawlor of Bloomville, Church Road, Malahide, Co Dublin died on April 16th, 2015. She had suffered ill health since a workplace accident in 1993, but died due to deposits of foreign materials in her lungs, Dublin Coroner's Court heard.

Ruling out other workplace environmental hazards such as farm or mining materials, the inquest heard that the mostly likely cause was exposure to talcum powder earlier in her life.

Consultant pathologist Dr Munah Sabah found needle shaped silicate deposits in the woman’s spleen, liver and bone marrow during a postmortem examination.

She noted that foreign material circulating in the woman’s system, predominantly in her lungs, created pulmonary hypertension.

Workplace accident

Ms Lawlor, who had worked as a sales representative in a commercial shopping environment, had surgery twice and multiple hospital stays following a workplace accident in 1993. She fell off a stool used for packing shelves in a supermarket and never went back to work, said her sister

Catherine Lawlor

.

Her inquest heard she had never lived on a farm or near a mine and had only worked abroad, with a J-1 visa, when she was employed in a solicitor’s office in New York.

Respiratory failure

Ms Lawlor developed breathing problems in 2010. She had experienced chronic back pain since her accident and had trouble moving around the house. On the night before she died she called her sister and asked her to come over to feed her dogs as she was feeling unwell. Catherine Lawlor stayed with her that night and found her dead in bed at about 11am the following day.

The cause of death was cardio-respiratory failure due to extensive pulmonary fibroids and hypertension due to deposition of foreign material in the lungs.

Coroner Dr Myra Cullinane returned an open verdict as the identity of the external agent could not specifically be determined. The coroner noted a growing body of evidence regarding the dangers of exposure to talcum powder. "The exposure would have been 30 years ago or so – it takes a long time for it to establish," she said.

Talc is a type of silicate, the court heard. It is too late to treat the effects of exposure once it develops into fibrosis, Dr Sabah said. “Once you develop this there is no going back,” she said.