Johnson & Johnson’s handling of product recall stumbles from PR playbook

January 20, 2010

Last week, Johnson & Johnson appeared to abandon its long-lauded crisis-management template, drawing harsh criticism from federal officials when 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.

As The New York Times reports, 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 the Food and Drug Administration sent to the company. A few consumers have also reported temporary digestive problems like nausea, vomiting and stomach pain, the Times writes. McNeil did not conduct a timely, comprehensive investigation, did not quickly identify the source of the problem, and did not notify authorities in a timely fashion, prolonging consumer exposure to the products, the paper quotes the FDA warning letter as saying.

McNeil said the moldy smell in some products resulted from the breakdown of a chemical used to treat wood pallets that transport and store product packaging. But “When something smells bad literally or figuratively,” Deborah M. Autor, director of the Office of Compliance at the FDA’s Center for Drug Evaluation and Research is quoted as saying, “companies must aggressively investigate and take all necessary actions to solve the problem.”

(Consumers can search for the recalled batches, also known as lots, at McNeilProductRecall.com. For information about refunds or replacements of recalled products, call 888-222-6036.) — Greg Beaubien

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