Tylenol weathers scandal by committing to values
- By Francisco Szekely and Zahir Dossa
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, October 13, 2015
Many organizations spend a significant amount of time and resources developing their mission statements, often hiring public relations and marketing firms. But how important is such a mission and how impactful can it actually be?
On September 29, 1982, several people in the vicinity of Chicago, Illinois, died from deliberate poisoning after taking headache and pain relief capsules that had been tampered with.
It began when a twelve-year-old girl named Mary Kellerman passed away, shortly followed by the deaths of Adam Janus, and later his mourning brother and sister-in-law, who had taken pills from the same bottle.
More deaths soon followed: Mary McFarland, Paula Prince, and Mary Reiner who had all exhibited similar symptoms.
An FBI investigation revealed that each of the victims had unknowingly ingested acetaminophen capsules (branded Tylenol) laced with potassium cyanide, after the culprit had contaminated them with the poison and put the pills back on the shelf. In addition to the warnings announced over all major television and radio stations, police vehicles drove through Chicago's neighborhoods to broadcast the warning over their loudspeakers.
As a subsidiary of Johnson & Johnson (J&J), Tylenol accounted for 17 percent of the pharmaceutical company's income in 1982.
First ever product recall
In addition to halting all production and advertising, on October 6, 1982 — a week after the first death — J&J issued the largest and arguably first ever product recall.
It had already begun recalling 93,000 bottles of pills a day since Mary Kellerman's death, but recalling 31 million bottles across all of America's shelves was a move that no one anticipated or expected.
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