It seems as though everything Johnson & Johnson touches lately, it contaminates. Including its own drugs!
In fact, in March 2105, a Johnson & Johnson subsidiary pleaded guilty in federal court to a criminal charge of selling Infant’s and Children’s Tylenol (acetaminophen) and Children’s Motrin (ibuprofen) contaminated with metal particles, including the heavy metals chromium and nickel.
What’s worse, the company admitted that it failed to take immediate corrective action after discovering the contaminated bottles.
And worst of all — the company only paid $25 million for this horrendous and outright criminal activity. Which, for an enormous conglomerate like J&J amounts to less than a slap on the wrist for potentially poisoning infants and children. And nobody’s going to jail.
Of course, the great irony here is that Tylenol doesn’t need to be contaminated by heavy metal poisons in order to be toxic. It’s perfectly toxic as a metabolic poison all by itself. But that’s just business as usual for big pharma.
J&J’s Band-Aid fixes don’t stick
The acting assistant attorney general on the case said the company’s failure to comply with good manufacturing practices was seriously troubling. But it’s far from the company’s only recent manufacturing problem.
Between 2008 and 2010, the company issued many recalls for packaging and labeling problems with other common J & J products, including Benadryl and Rolaids. The company agreed to put more “Band-Aids” on their manufacturing processes.
But obviously, those Band-Aids didn’t stick.
Recently, Donald Trump actually played on the recent J&J scandals. He mentioned the prominent heir of the J & J company fortune, “Woody” Johnson. (Speaking of the Johnson family fortune… during the summer of 1987, my family was fortunate enough to be invited to stay in a large beach house loaned to my in-laws by business associates. It was located on Nantucket Island, across from the Johnson home. They had the view of the ocean, and we had a view of the dirt street. It was very quiet across the street, however, and we appreciated the opportunity to breathe that ocean air.)
Donald Trump pointed out that Woody Johnson had a major role helping to raise money for Jeb Bush’s failed presidential campaign. I suppose no amount of big pharma’s money could have saved Jeb’s sinking ship.
But Trump’s comment raised a bigger question…
Mainstream politicians likely to bring more of the same big pharma corruption
He asked whether we can expect any real changes in the abusive practices of big pharma if any of the “mainstream” candidates from either party makes it into the White House.
Of course, Hillary never had a great history of supporting consumer choice and natural approaches to good health. In fact, she led the charge for the Clinton-Gore backed healthcare “reform” fiasco 20 years ago. We attempted to meet with her about including natural approaches to health and healing for true healthcare reform. She and her supporters did not have the slightest interest.
Instead, she locked out consumers and health care providers. And invited the insurance industry to decide what health care would look like. Twenty years later, that’s exactly what we got anyway. With no hope for real change in a healthcare system dictated by the insurance industry with more giveaways for big pharma.
Not surprisingly, Hillary also tops the field of presidential candidates for big pharma donations to her campaign. That’s not the kind of hope for change we can believe in.