Late last week, Johnson & Johnson ceo Bill Weldon issued a statement in the form of aJNJBTW blog post in which he offers a mea culpa, of sorts, for the most recent product recall. The latest episode involved quality-control problems that affected about 40 over-the-counter meds for infants and children, including Tylenol (here's the FDA report), and followed an equally embarassing gaffe in which J&J failed to vigorously and properly follow up complaints that certain batches of its Tylenol Arthritis Relief Caplets had a musty smell ( FDA report here). Congress is now launching a probe ( see here).
In his remarks, Weldon writes that "the recent recalls of some over-the-counter medicines from our McNeil Consumer Healthcare operating company are a matter of great concern. They are a disappointment to me...I have been assured that the chance of a serious medical event from the recalled products is remote. Even so, this does not give us comfort; one of our companies has let you down." He is referring to McNeil Consumer Healthcare.
The first round of negative publicity over a J&J recall seems to have left the company unscathed. In fact, J&J claimed the top spot for the second consecutive year as the most reputable US company on Reputation Institute’s 2010 U.S Reputation Pulse, which was conducted in January and February (see this). Perhaps this is because J&J is a big company, the pharmaceutical industry is a big industry and manufacturing blunders will happen (as do government investigations - see the list). Or perhaps the Toyota news simply overshadowed everything else concerning product recalls.
Now, though, the Toyota headlines have receded and J&J's latest screw up is gaining more attention, especially since J&J was once held up as the corporate model for dealing with a crisis after the 1982 Tylenol scare. Weldon must think so or he wouldn't have signed his name to the post, which is, essentially, an attempt to shore up the credibility of the famed J&J credo that touts corporate responsibility to customers, employees and investors. And the recent 25 percent sales drop in over-the-counter products in the US may also weigh on his mind (see here). But how worried should Weldon be? What do you think?
Will these problems hurt J&J's reputation?
- Yes (70%, 66 Votes)
- No (30%, 28 Votes)
Total Voters: 94
7 Comments
I agree a little help here with public perception could not hurt. Something positive would definitely be on the agenda. Not only J and J but other drug and device companies need to spur something positive here and I have had a campaign with using cell phones to scan devices and drugs which I have posted about many times, sent the suggestion to the FDA and some of the companies in the news lately with recalls.
Again, not having a positive and working solution to get to the public is becoming a real issue right now with consumers having little confidence, thus if recalls are going to happen, and they will, then we need a quick and better way to alert the public. Taking on a project as such would be seen as a real positive effort right now. Here's the link to one of the posts. You be the judge, be able to scan with your phone or go dig around the web, print pages and look at the small print on the medications?
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2010/05/johnson-and-johnson-mcneil-healthcare.html
Here's another post that explains a bit more of the detail on how this works, easy as downloading an app once the process is in place.
http://ducknetweb.blogspot.com/2010/04/fda-publishes-information-on-how-to.html
PS General Mills uses them on food products and TV guide started putting them in their magazine this week too, so something like this in view of what is happening could be seen as a real plus in taking action in a positive direction. People have also died because they were implanted with a device that had been recalled and it was missed being pulled from the shelves - before surgery - scan that stent package as these can be updated for use in real time.
These investigations by Congress are clearly initiated for show and they should quit wasting our time and money in pretending otherwise.
I wish I had a thousand bucks for every investigation of the pharmaceutical industry that I covered over the past 6 years that ended up with nothing happening to the culprits.
Congress is full of plenty of blowhards that are simply making it appear to the people that they are actually doing something...
Hm. This story sounds like someone in my travels that got the axe for pointing these problems out and at least sufficient for the safety of the product.
Changes in Residual Solvents testing, etc.
Hm. I think it may have been a contract manufacturing firm....,,,
Hm...
M. Black
A contract manufacturing firm hired by J&J / McNeil.
Hm...
M. Black
goes to prove that in the latest round of layoffs at JnJ the folks with experience and sinority were let go and a bunch of yes-people were left at the helm.
Good job Bill. you are doing great in bringing down a great legacy company
It appears that there are tow choices: investigate or not. Regardless of whether it's "a show" of the outcome, can we say that not investigating is the better choice?