Homework answers / question archive / The Chicago Tylenol Murders in the fall of 1982, Johnson & Johnson faced a public relations   nightmare when customers in Cook County, Illinois, began dying—eventually, a total of seven people died—after taking over-the-counter, Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules

The Chicago Tylenol Murders in the fall of 1982, Johnson & Johnson faced a public relations   nightmare when customers in Cook County, Illinois, began dying—eventually, a total of seven people died—after taking over-the-counter, Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules

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The Chicago Tylenol Murders in the fall of 1982, Johnson & Johnson faced a public relations

 

nightmare when customers in Cook County, Illinois, began dying—eventually, a total of

seven people died—after taking over-the-counter, Tylenol-branded acetaminophen capsules.

Analysis showed the presence of potassium cyanide, a fatal poison in no way connected with

the production of the pill. Johnson & Johnson voluntarily removed all Tylenol products from

the U.S. marketplace and offered to pay full retail price for any pills returned to the company.

This represented about thirty million bottles of capsules worth more than $100 million.

(Significantly, too, Johnson & Johnson decided on this wide-ranging action despite the fact

that it and law enforcement realized the cyanide poisoning was limited to Cook County,

Illinois.) Because Tylenol was a flagship product bringing in significant revenue, this was an

extreme action but one based on the company's ethics, rooted in its corporate credo.

Investigation showed that someone had tinkered with the bottles and injected cyanide into the

product in stores. Although no one was ever apprehended, the entire drug industry responded,

following Johnson & Johnson's lead, by introducing tamper-proof containers that warned

consumers not to use the product if the packaging appeared in any way compromised.

The strong ethical stance taken by Johnson & Johnson executives resulted in immediate

action that reassured the public. When the company eventually returned Tylenol to the

market, it introduced it first to clinics, hospitals, and physicians' offices, promoting

medicine's professional trust in the product. The strategy was successful. Before the

poisonings, Tylenol had 37 percent of the market of over-the-counter analgesics. That

plunged to 7 percent in fall 1982 but was resurrected to 30 percent by fall 1983.

 

Critical Thinking Questions

 

1) In its corporate credo, Johnson & Johnson identifies multiple stakeholders: users of its

products (output), employees (input), employees' families (diffused linkage), and the

government (enabling linkage). Applying Grunig and Hunt's theory, do you believe Johnson & Johnson acted as an

enlightened company that includes and communicates with a variety of publics?

2) U.S. business leaders are often accused of acting on a short-term obsession with

profitability at the expense of the long-term interests of their corporation. Which aspects

of the Tylenol crisis demonstrate a short-term perspective? Which show the value of a

longer-term perspective?