Can Johnson and Johnson Live Up to Its Storied Credo?

Image by woodleywonderworks via Flickr

Last week in The New York Times, Natasha Singer reported:

“…McNeil Consumer Healthcare, a division of Johnson & Johnson, announced the recall of several hundred batches of popular over-the-counter medicines, including Benadryl, Motrin, Rolaids, Simply Sleep, St. Joseph Aspirin and Tylenol.

“According to a federal inspection report, the response was anything but swift. The recall came 20 months after McNeil first began receiving consumer complaints about moldy-smelling bottles of Tylenol Arthritis Relief caplets, according to a warning letter sent by the Food and Drug Administrtion to the company on Friday. Since then, a few people have also reported temporary digestive problems like nausea, vomiting, and stomach pain, the agency said.”

Singer went on to write that the news flies in the face of Johnson & Johnson’s now legendary response to the Tylenol tampering in 1982 when it pulled all of its Tylenol product off of the shelf after several deaths had been reported as a result of product tampering.

Singer writes:

“…Johnson & Johnson appeared to abandon its own template, stunning a few business school professors. Its conduct also drew harsh criticism from federal officials.”

It’s not the first time one of Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiaries has behaved in way that casts a pall on the rest of the company and its reputation. In 2001, I reported on an incident involving LifeScan, a unit of Johnson & Johnson that had failed to notify the FDA of a flaw in the software of its LifeScan diagnostic diabetes measurement device.

You can read my column on that incident here.

I ended that column with this observation:

“Precisely because the Tylenol response stands in such contrast, the LifeScan incident raises doubts among Johnson & Johnson’s customers and its employees who expect more of the company — as they should. It also raises expectations that the company will respond swiftly and strongly to ensure that such an event does not happen again. The test lies ahead.”

How Johnson & Johnson responds to this most recent incident further tests the company’s ability to maintain its reputation.