Welcome to the Deep Dive. Today, we're really plunging into a stack of sources about a company, well, woven into the fabric of so many lives, Johnson & Johnson. You know them, Band-Aids, baby shampoo, Tylenol, often called one of the most admired companies globally. Right, that admired image. But the sources you share with us, they paint a really stark, unsettling contrast between that image and some...
pretty disturbing things unearthed over years of digging. Yeah, that contrast. That's absolutely the core of it here. We're going to explore how this company built on trust basically from birth, you know, with phrases like no more tears. So iconic. Repeatedly ended up in these major controversies. We're talking dangerous products, hidden data, and what looks like a real pattern of
prioritizing profits over people's safety. The sources really build this picture of kind of corporate conversion away from their own stated values. And the big question hanging over all this material is,
when does that pattern actually have an ending? Exactly. That's the mission for this deep dive. We've got sources digging into, well, everything. Potential asbestos in baby powder, their role in the opioid prices, dangerous medical devices, really questionable drug marketing. It's like pulling a thread, isn't it? Starts with a familiar product and just unravels this huge, complex, sometimes dark story about a massive player in American health care. It does. And it forces you, really,
to look at the gap between that polished corporate image and the tough realities in the documents. So let's unpack this for you, our listener, who brought these sources to us. Okay. So let's jump right into that gap. The sources highlight the J&J image versus some of the documented realities. There's a story right near the start of the material, 2004, I think, an encounter at O'Hare Airport.
Yeah. Yeah. The author mentions talking to a J&J pharmaceutical rep and she just casually says her 10 year old nephew, he was put on Risperdal. One of their big antipsychotics. Exactly. Not for like a diagnosed illness, but because he got into a fight on the playground. That's a playground fight. Wow. And this kid, total normal kid apparently, ends up gaining 25 pounds on the drug. And the irony, it's just...
It's right there, isn't it? This J&J insider seeing the harm, the maybe inappropriate prescribing driven by her own company's tactic. And she couldn't even convince her own sister to take him off it. Yeah. And the sources point out the timing is crucial. While she's telling the story, J&J was actively misleading doctors about the diabetes risks of that exact drug. OK. Just three weeks later, the FDA actually called the police.
calls them out on it. But despite this and you know lots of other stuff we're going to get into J&J keeps ranking as this most admired company.
quintessentially American even. It's really a testament to the power of that brand image built on that famous credo, right? Patients first. Supposedly. But that image, it clashes so hard with other details in these sources. Oh, absolutely. Like the fact that J&J was the only major HIV drug maker refusing to share patents, you know, to help get lifesaving meds to Africa during the AIDS crisis. I didn't know that. Or
There's this quote, pretty stunning, from a former executive comparing J&J's role in the opioid crisis to the Sacklers.
So the Sacklers were pikers compared to J&J. Pikers. Wow. Okay, that definitely challenges the image. Yeah. These details really chip away at that patient-first, admired company narrative. And so much of that trust, that deep image, it starts with the consumer stuff, right? The things we grew up with. The sources really dig into no more tears. Oh, it's marketing genius. Pure.
Pure genius. No More Tears isn't just about the shampoo. It's the experience. Right. It captures that whole modern idea of user experience, you know, making something painless, gentle, easy, comfortable, especially for babies. And that simple phrase, it became so powerful. It sort of spread metaphorically across the whole J&J brand, setting this expectation of like safety and gentleness. Total trick. But the sources, they just keep highlighting this bitter, bitter irony. Right.
associating no more tears with products that, well, according to this documentation, caused incredible harm and distress. Which leads us straight into one of the biggest, most painful examples.
Johnson's baby powder. Oh, yeah. The nostalgia there is huge for so many people. That smell. The smell of childhood, they call it. Totally. Hospitals gave out samples. It was marketed as pure, gentle. And internally, the sources say J&J called it the golden egg. Right. Not for the revenue, but for that emotional bond, mother and child. Priceless connection. That scent hitting the limbic system, hardwiring comfort right from the start.
It's incredibly powerful branding. But then the material uncovers the dark side.
Johnson's baby powder, center of tens of thousands of lawsuits, product liability cases. And it centers on the talc and asbestos link, right? How do the sources explain that? They call them mineral twins. Basically, they form together in the earth. Asbestos is the dangerous one, these microscopic fibers that can, like, spear your DNA. Spear your DNA. Yeah. Causes cancer decades later, even from tiny exposures.
And the talc particles themselves aren't great either. They linger. Infants inhale them. Known risks since the 1920s, according to poison control calls mentioned in the sources. So this wasn't some bolt from the blue for the company? Not according to these documents. What's really damning is the evidence of corporate knowledge and what looks very much like a cover-up. Like what? Well...
Where?
Later, when their own tests confirmed asbestos in the baby powder, the sources say they basically manipulated the FDA. Oh. Blacking out reports, asking the FDA to promise not to tell anyone. They apparently ignored warnings, too, even from New York's environmental chief. And they kept selling the talc powder for decades, even though someone inside suggested switching to cornstarch way back in 1973. Exactly. That internal memo exists.
But they stuck with talc. The sources show the dam only really broke when the legal pressure became just overwhelming. Lawsuits started getting through. Yeah, like the Donna Paduano case 2009. A researcher, Hemstock, testified, confirming his earlier findings of asbestos in their talc. Then came the damming trial evidence.
Internal emails, documents showing they knew the risk like A plus BC, asbestos plus talc equals cancer risk. Wow. Historical bottles tested positive, even one from J&J's own museum. Oh, way. Yeah. And the personal stories. Tony Roberts battling cancer, the expert whose own mother died of ovarian cancer after using the powder her whole life. That stuff just dismantles the defense. And the damages were huge initially, billions. Then the Reuters expose hit. Right. 2018 caused a
Big stock drop, really raised public awareness, over 60,000 lawsuits now by one count. J&J tried that controversial Texas two-step bankruptcy thing. Which the courts rejected. Right. They spent something like $25 billion just on talc litigation between 2010 and 2021. The pattern, you know, fighting accountability, prioritizing the product. It just kept going until massive...
Legal and public pressure forced a kind of ending. A partial ending. A partial ending. They took talc powder off shelves in the U.S. and Canada in 2020, finally went global in 2023. But the conversion away from their credo took decades and immense pressure. OK, let's shift gears. Another huge J&J product, Tylenol. We all remember 1982, the poisonings. Horrifying.
Mary Kellerman, the Janus family tampering. And the story that came out of it, J&J, the hero, the sources recount that narrative, the big nationwide recall, 31 million bottles, pioneering tamper-proof seals, became this corporate legend, reinforcing trust. But the sources, they poke holes in that. Problems with the narrative, they call it. They found J&J had, what, over 300 contamination complaints before the crisis? Yeah. In the three years prior, they were already working on tamper-proof packaging because of those issues.
And that nationwide recall, not maybe the immediate heroic act portrayed. Sources suggest they dragged their feet, only did the full recall when the media got hold of copycat poisoning spreading. And the sources raise this really disturbing possibility. Right. That the original tampering wasn't just random at the store level. Right. Wholesale boxes found by deputies who got sick themselves. It suggests tampering could have happened higher up.
in J&J's distribution chain. OK, that's unsettling. And there's this detail about the prime suspect, Roger Arnold. The sources suggest J&J and the FBI kind of ignored him, maybe because it got legally complicated if the tampering was internal versus random. Then there's this whole thing about a cozy FDA relationship at the time. Yeah, the FDA's criminal division, apparently inactive.
J&J playing keep away with information. Sources suggest J&J execs likely knew the killer might work for their distributor, Jewel Foods, but kept quiet.
And the FDA commissioner then, Arthur Hayes Jr., turns out he was secretly taking money from drug companies, including J&J funding previously. Seriously. The sources say Hayes basically turned the investigation into a love fest. Scripted statements absolving J&J early, avoiding the word recall. That's quite a story. But here's the crazy irony.
This, like, potentially corrupt relationship inadvertently led to tamper-proof packaging becoming standard everywhere, which undoubtedly saved lives later on. So the tamper-proof seal was the ending to that crisis. But the sources point to another maybe deadlier ongoing issue.
The liver toxicity, acetaminophen. Exactly. J&J knew for years, the documents suggest, that even moderate drinkers taking normal doses of Tylenol risked catastrophic liver damage. But they fought warnings. Why? Because safe was Tylenol's brand. And the dosage is key here. Critical. The max recommended dose, four grams for extra strength. It's right at the liver toxicity threshold. Basically, zero room for error.
Accidental overdoses are common mixing meds misjudging. And the sources mentioned an exec calling cases like Anthony Bennett eating a liver transplant. The cost of doing business. Yeah. And Marcus Trunk, who died mixing Tylenol products. They even say J&J shelved developing a potentially safer version because it would basically admit the current one wasn't perfectly safe. Plus the infant formula dosing mixups leading to deaths.
So, yeah, the tamper-proof seals fixed one problem. But Tylenol is still the leading cause of acute liver failure in the U.S. That heroic 1982 image persists, but the sources suggest the pattern of downplaying a known, serious risk for the brand.
That didn't really end. The conversion wasn't complete. That pattern, knowing risks, pushing aggressively. Yeah. It leads us right into Procrit, EPO. Right. EPO, big biotech discovery in the 80s. Clone gene, hamster ovary cells, J&J partners with Amgen, targets cancer patients with chemo-induced anemia, pitches it as this miracle quality of life drug, gives you energy back. But the sources highlight serious dangers that got downplayed. Well...
Or ignored. Big time. EPO thickens blood. Huge clot risk. And worse, maybe, findings in labs showed it could actually supercharge cancer growth. Supercharge cancer. How? Found EPO receptors on tumors? The drugs seem to feed them. Okay, that's terrifying. And J&J's reaction? According to the sources, suppression. They reportedly told a Harvard researcher looking into the cancer link, we have to kill this work. Kill this work. Wow.
Wow. And the FDA? Sources say they basically rubber-stamped approval, tiny warning label, required safety studies. They either vanished or got delayed for decades without results being published. Meanwhile, the marketing went into overdrive. Totally aggressive. Again, that sort of no more tears vibe, emotional pitches, strength for living, which sources call pure fiction, while glossing over the thrombosis risk. And they pushed higher doses. Why higher doses? More profit, higher dose, bigger payout.
Sources describe schemes, oncologists making huge kickbacks, hundreds of thousands a year, overfilling vials, shell companies. And actual evidence of harm was ignored. Seems so. The normal hematocrit trial showed patients on higher doses dine faster data apparently removed from publication.
A Danish study stopped early because EPO was killing patients. Tumors grew 38 percent faster. Amgen reportedly sat on that data for months. Unbelievable. By 2007, sources say at least eight studies showed major risks. Finally got an FDA black box warning. Strongest warning possible. But prescriptions kept climbing even after the warning. Yep. Intense lobbying. Medicare tried to restrict it. Pharma lobby got literally every single senator to sign a resolution attacking the restriction.
Sales hit a billion a year even after a J&J study, delayed 23 years, showed doubled stroke risks in breast cancer patients. How is that possible? The pattern just persisted, docs still pushing it for kickbacks. Sources mention a top prescriber in some tiny rural town, not a major cancer center. The human cost? Staggering. One epidemiologist estimated, privately, maybe hundreds of thousands of unnecessary deaths.
Potentially more than opioids over that time. And again, nobody went to jail. Fines. Just the cost of doing business. The profit motive just kept that pattern rolling. Largely unchecked. No real ending to that conversion away from safety. And that pattern of targeting specific, often vulnerable groups for profit.
The sources show it clearly with Risperdal too. Oh yeah. Risperdal, powerful antipsychotic. Big side effects. Weight gain, diabetes, boy tall addicts. And these newer atypicals like Risperdal, priced like 40 times higher than older drugs, but sources say not necessarily better for many things. And J&J's marketing plan. Described in the documents as a known illegal scheme. Sell to the symptoms.
Sales reps used checklists, pushing Risperdal off-label for anxiety, agitation, stuff the FDA hadn't approved it for, not just schizophrenia. And they knew it was illegal. Sources say explicitly yes. They knew and did it anyway. Figures like Alex Gorski, later the CEO, reportedly driving it. And they targeted specific groups. Key growth areas, the business plans called them. Kids and the elderly.
Vulnerable populations. They are getting kids with an antipsychotic. Fast growing market. Despite huge risks, elevated prolactin affecting development, severe weight gain, even reported deaths. And gynecomastia breast growth in boys happened in like one in 10 boys taking it. One in 10. Yeah. And J&J allegedly buried that data.
manipulated study drafts, excluded kids, calculated the rate weirdly to make it look lower, paid doctors like Dr. Biederman, who basically invented toddler bipolar to push drugs. They had pediatric parties, branded toys. That's deeply disturbing. And the elderly. Same playbook, equally disturbing.
Initial trials showed dangers like blood pressure spikes, dementia trials, showed no benefit, more deaths on Risperdal. But they pushed it anyway. Created a special elder care sales force for nursing homes, pushed Risperdal with other risky drugs, deals with Omnicare, the big nursing home pharmacy for kickbacks, used a law meant to prevent antipsychotic overuse to actually increase prescriptions. How did they manage that? Sources detail how they leveraged it. By 2001, 89% of Risperdal use in seniors was off-label.
Half for dementia, which the FDA had specifically rejected. The impact. Sources cite experts estimating maybe 1.2 million needless deaths in the elderly over two decades from these practices. More than annual opioid deaths at the peak. One source calls it euthanasia with plausible deniability. No way did anything happen. Eventually.
It's a pattern.
States ended up kicking patients off Medicaid rather than stop paying for the overpriced drug. The illegal targeting generated billions. Legal consequences were late, incomplete, and executives faced none. That conversion away from ethics. It looked pretty permanent in that part of the business. And speaking of devastation and influence.
The sources link J&J directly to the opioid crisis too. Duragesic Fentanyl Patch. Yeah, the Duragesic Patch. Sources call it a track withdrawal worse than the original pain. J&J played a big early role. FDA approved it in '90 despite warnings, partly via Dr. Curtis Wright, who later famously went to Purdue. And early deaths were ignored. Seems so. Florida teenager in '93, 52 similar deaths documented. Warning label ineffective.
And J&J was laying groundwork for more opioid use way back in the 80s, funding groups like the American Pain Society, pushing the safe for long term use idea involved in that sham consensus statement downplaying addiction. With a J&J lawyer and a Purdue doctor. Right.
And their marketing for DuraJoss. Misleading. Claimed fewer side effects, better relief than pills. FDA called them out on the lies in 98. Slogan, it stops the pain, not the patient. False. Often impaired people. And the supply chain piece is huge here. Crucial. J&J got into industrial poppy farming in Tasmania. Developed the Norman super poppy.
ended up supplying 65% of the raw ingredients for the U.S. oxycodone market, including for OxyContin. They were reportedly bribing farmers to plant more. So when the OxyContin backlash hit? J&J didn't retreat. Sources say Alex Gorski saw an opportunity, ramped up Durgessic promotion, targeted the same pill mill doctors as Purdue,
McKinsey advised them to target high-risk patients, males under 40, just pure greed, the sources suggest. And they avoided scrutiny. Partly. A key surveillance system, DAWUN, didn't test for fentanyl, so it was harder to link deaths. And they sued generic makers while using the same tech themselves. And they didn't stop there? Nope.
After Purdue pled guilty in '07, J&J launched Nucenta in '08. Another opioid, same playbook, claimed less prone to abuse. FDA knew it was dangerous. Internal docs explicitly said the goal was to displace the oxycodone molecule, replace OxyContin with their own drug. So while Purdue was the public villain... J&J was arguably a bigger player behind the scenes for decades.
for decades, supplying ingredients, pushing their own stuff and the influence. A J&J board member led the FDA panel on solving the opioid crisis in 2021. Unbelievable. So the ending for J&J's role here feels unfinished. Very unfinished. Lawsuits and settlements are happening, sure. But did their pattern of profiting from opioids truly end or just change shape? The sources leave that question open. This pattern of exploiting loopholes, prioritizing profit
It shows up in medical devices, too, according to the sources. Definitely. They point to the 510K process for device approval as a major loophole, a duct tape fix. Let's companies get approval if a device is substantially equivalent to an old one, often without new trials. Regulatory capture. Right. FDA funding tied to industry fees.
And the sources note Gorski brokering an FDA funding deal with the device industry right when J&J had these controversial devices under review. Like the pinnacle hip implant. Yeah. Sources say J&J knew it was failing in tests way back in 2000. Hit it.
submitted old specs to the FDA, considered hiding revision surgery reports. And the research they presented called a sham in the sources. The PNN study, basically bribery, paid surgeons royalties for procedures, not invention. Surgeons underreported failures. J&J manipulated data for a fake high success rate.
violated their own ethics code referencing Nuremberg principles. Meanwhile, the marketing never stopped moving. Coach K total disconnect from reality. High failure rates reported overseas, like 16% in the UK, pseudo tumors, metal poisoning from grinding joints.
Sources say J&J gaslighted surgeons who raised issues, and they profited from the revision surgeries, too. And surgeons taking royalties stopped using them on their own families. But kept recommending them to patients. Chilling detail. Then there's the ProLift vaginal mesh. Same story, different device. Sources say J&J knew a related patch delivered dangerous estrogen doses before approval manipulated data.
Knew the mesh itself caused horrific complications, erosion, pain, endless failed surgeries. But putch the more profitable version anyway. An engineer begged them to switch to a safer design.
Not good business. Manipulation sounds expensive. Spinning data, paying OBGYNs, weekend trainings, downplaying risks, leaning on consultants to change guidelines, ignoring the French developers warning. And the consequence. Immense. FDA warning 2005, Linda Gross, 18 surgeries. A Stanford Yale study forced by the FDA stopped early unethical failure rate, 15% erosion, no benefit. J&J kept selling it.
100,000 implants by 2010. Paid for a bias NEJM study, later retracted. FDA finally banned mesh in 2019. Lawsuits everywhere. 50,000 plus marks. Huge class action in Australia. Health minister apologized. J&J's response often blamed the women or doctors.
So the ending for these devices. Force off market by failure and litigation. Lawsuits brought some accountability. But that pattern. Profit over safety, pushing known dangers via loopholes and manipulation. It persisted for years, maimed thousands. That conversion away from patient well-being seems deeply rooted in that division based on these sources. Finally, the sources bring us right into the present almost. The COVID vaccine.
framed as maybe a chance for redemption. Yeah, there was that moment, March 2021. J&J with President Biden, hailed as a savior, looked like a chance for a real conversion back to public good. Symbolic, right?
Alex Gorski, with his Risperdal history, introducing the president. But the reality presented in the sources is less rosy. Indicates J&J knew their partner, Emergent BioSolutions was messy, had problems, chose them anyway, reportedly for control, knew their type of vaccine, adenovirus vector, had a rare clot risk that mRNA vaccines didn't.
And the problems happen. Manufacturing disaster at emergent, millions of doses ruined. The clotting cases appeared, as warned, and the vaccine ended up being less effective against variants like Omicron. So the redemption narrative kind of fizzled. Fell apart pretty quick. Sources suggest the pattern reemerged. Image control, maybe less transparency than ideal. Even facing a global crisis, that deep-seated way of operating didn't seem fundamentally changed. Like that J&J exec quoted in her oath said,
Honesty is a broad term. Wow. Okay. Just stepping back after digging into all these sources, it's really impossible to just see Johnson & Johnson as the no more tears company anymore. That image is real for many, but the documentation just reveals this pervasive decades-long pattern across so many different products, different parts of the business. Yeah.
Knowing dangers, hiding data, fighting warnings, manipulating doctors, exploiting loopholes, all while, it seems, prioritizing profits. And what's so striking, so compelling and unsettling is how consistent that pattern is. Like you said, it's the same playbook. Talc, Tylenol, Procrit, Risperdal, opioids, devices. It just repeats. And it forces you to ask, right, if a company with that...
powerful positive image built on trust with that famous credo. If they can operate this way for so long, enabled by weak regulation, lack of individual accountability, what does that really say about corporate responsibility and public health in America? It really does make you pause. Makes you think hard about the systems meant to protect us.
That conversion away from the values they state, it just seems to persist until some massive forced reckoning happens, usually after incredible human cost and billions in lawsuits. So for you listening, having gone through this deep dive with us, maybe the provocative thought to leave you with is this.
Given these patterns revealed so starkly in this material, how does society make sure that the story of corporate responsibility, especially in industries holding our health, our safety in their hands, how do we ensure that story finally does have an ending where integrity or patient well-being actually wins?