J&J Conducts Silent Recall for Children’s Medicines

Last week, J&J had a silent recall for another 5 million bottles of children’s Benadryl and Motrin. The last recall is called a “Silent Recall” because J&J isn’t telling people about it. In fact, the company is being pretty secretive.

According to The Wall Street Journal, no press releases were issued, as the company has done in every previous product recall. In fact, you can’t find any news about this latest recall on J&J’s website and even on its McNeilRecall Twitter page. So, just how consumers are to learn of these Silent Recalls is unclear. Maybe J&J is now relying on some form of extrasensory perception (ESP) as its communication’s strategy.

The medications were manufactured at J&J’s now-closed Fort Washington, Pennsylvania facility months ago, but the company only recently decided to act. The company claims that the recall "doesn’t affect consumers" and that the company has no evidence of patient harm.

Kudos to The Wall Street Journal’s Jonathan D. Rockoff and Dow Jones’ Peter Loftus for breaking the news of the Silent Recall!

J&J Recalls Velcade

In what has become routine for Johnson & Johnson (J&J), the company issued a late-Friday recall for numerous lots of its Velcade oncology treatment. The product is co-marketed with Millennium Pharmaceuticals (U.S.) and J&J taking rest-of-world responsibilities.

The culprit for J&J this time is white particles floating in the medicine. The particles were identified as a “polyester-like material.” It makes one wonder about the integrity of the manufacturing processes over at J&J/Millennium.

It is important to note that J&J actually issued a recall for the product, vs. secretly getting the products off the market. J&J is not expecting to receive many doses back, since most of them have already been injected into unsuspecting patients. J&J spokeswoman Kellie McLaughlin was quick to add that the company is not aware of any patient injuries due to the contaminated Velcade.

Pope Considers Condoms to Protect Abused Children

Over the weekend, the world was aflutter with the news that Pope Benedict XVI (formerly known as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger) is considering the use of condoms to be morally acceptable in certain situations. One of those situations is to prevent young children from being infected with HIV when being raped by HIV-positive priests.

Such a noble gesture in the interest of public health…

J&J Plans Advertising Campaign to Restore Faith

As I mentioned in a post back on May 31st (see What’s Next for J&J), Johnson & Johnson is looking to ramp up an advertising campaign to try and convince consumers its products are safe. The announcement was made by CEO William Weldon in an interview with Susan Todd of the Star-Ledger. Actually, I doubt it was an interview. The questions are so softball and sanitized that the whole thing looks to be orchestrated by J&J’s PR team (Kudos to them!).

One important note is that there is glaring factual inaccuracy in the article (partly why I believe it was submitted by J&J verbatim and Weldon was not actually interviewed by Susan Todd). J&J’s CEO makes the statement:

Q: Why did the problems at the Pennsylvania plant, which triggered the massive recalls, go unaddressed for so long?

A. It was a situation that evolved. There are a lot of issues that right now we can’t address. There are all kinds of investigations going on. That will be addressed in time. We’re endeavoring to make sure this never happens again any place. The critical thing is, this is not a problem systemic to Johnson & Johnson. We can say, clearly, that it was an isolated situation that evolved and needed to be addressed.

It sounds great, but it’s not true. The problems are systemic across J&J. It wasn’t just “the Pennsylvania plant” (meaning Fort Washington). The FDA also found problems at other J&J plants and event issued them a 483 violation in July.

After nearly two years of negative headlines, shadow recalls, deceiving government regulators and lying to consumers, J&J is claiming its problems are behind it and we’re in “the wake.” I don’t buy it. I do believe that middle management is taking the situation seriously and are trying to correct the problems. I also believe that senior management (including Weldon) are putting a lot of pressure internally to find scapegoats (including Ms. Goggins) – but that’s not trying to fix the problem. And certainly, senior management is not giving a lot lip service externally to this issue (it took multiple Congressional subpoenas to get William Weldon to show up).

I believe J&J is trying to give the appearance of fixing the problems – that’s different than actually fixing the problems.

Here’s the Star-Ledger article: Johnson & Johnson’s CEO looks ahead in wake of highly publicized drug recalls

Fallout of the Mid-Term Elections for the Healthcare Industry

The mid-term elections were either a stunning rejection of President Obama’s agenda or nothing more than a minor ripple in the vast sea of Progressive Politics – depending on your perspective and political persuasion.

However, since the Republican Party has captured the House of Representatives, former Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi has a lot of free time on her hands. Perhaps now that she’s politically irrelevant, Nancy Pelosi can finally find the time to become the spokeswoman for Allergan’s BOTOX. Since she looks like a cross between Michael Jackson and Zsa Zsa Gabor, Botox-a-Pelosi is the perfect spokeswoman for the brand and will shore up sales with the MoveOn crowd.

In other news, the Obamacare healthcare reform bill contained a provision to tax indoor tanning salons. Over the summer, a new 10% tax on indoor tanning salons took effect – much to the chagrin of the new Speaker of the House of Representatives, John Boehner and his Orangemen. Since Boehner will be more in the public eye than he has in the past, we’re looking for him to ramp up his already excessive orange appearance. Of course, the tanning tax will cost Boehner significantly, so I’d look for him to move quickly to try and repeal the tax.

No matter your political persuasion, you’ll have to agree big changes are afoot in the United States.

J&J Spokeswoman Hospitalized

Johnson & Johnson recently hired on teen pop sensation Demi Lovato to be its spokeswoman for J&J’s CLEAN & CLEAR® Skincare System.

Well, J&J spokeswoman Demi Lovato is now hospitalized. According to her representatives, she’s NOT in rehab. More specifically, her representatives have said she is in a “treatment center” for “physical issues.”

One has to wonder if Demi Lovato was poisoned with the pesticide 2,4,6-tribromoanisole from using J&J products.