JAMES BURKE "DOHANUE SHOW" INTERVIEW
After the 1986 Tylenol murder, Burke went on the "Donahue Show" where he publically speculated about the murder plot and offered his own theory regarding the killer's motive and method of operation.
In front of a national audience, Burke postulated that the same person who tampered with the pills that killed Diane Elsroth, later took another ''package off the shelf'' of some store, ''then did a very professional job of putting five capsules in, putting it back on the shelf, probably to mislead people from the first bottle.''
Now that was really amazing! How in the world did Burke come up with such a ridiculous unsubstantiated theory? And why would the CEO of Johnson & Johnson make such wild and false accusations on national television?
Did Burke believe he could use the "Donahue show" as a tool to so effectively market his crazy hypothesis that detectives would single-out an innocent person to accuse of murdering Elsroth?
Did Burke hope that one of Ms. Elsroth’s friends or family members would be accused of lacing the Tylenol capsules with cyanide? As it turned out, that's exactly what happened. People did make accusations against Dianne's boyfriend and his Mother because of Burke's sick propoganda campaign.
Throughout the interview Burke promoted his bizzare theories to Phil Donahue's huge national audience.
Regarding the probability that the two Tylenol bottles found with cyanide laced capsules would end up in two stores within blocks of each other, Burke said that a company computer analysis showed that the odds were in the 1 in a Billion against two bottles of tainted capsules from plants 1,000 miles apart ending up in stores within a block and half of each other in a two-week period. "The odds are something like 1 in a billion," said chairman James E. Burke. "We can't even estimate it, it's so great."
It’s impossible to know how Burke came up with these odds. There’s no relevance or accuracy to Burke’s odds of “Billions” against the two bottles turning up in the two stores they did; and Burke failed to mention the fact that the Tylenol "bottles" passed within 0 miles of each other at the same J&J distribution center in Montgomeryville, PA.
"We do not have any proof it didn't happen in the plant or the warehouse, but all logic tells us it didn't,'' said Burke.
REPENT JAMES BURKE
February 20, 1986
TYLENOL MAKER HOPEFUL ON SOLVING POISONING CASE
By IRVIN MOLOTSKY, SPECIAL TO THE NEW YORK TIMES
The chairman of Johnson & Johnson said today that the cyanide poisoning case in Westchester County, N.Y., involving his company's Tylenol capsules should be easier to solve than similar killings in the Chicago area in 1982.
The chairman, James E. Burke, did not suggest that any arrest was expected shortly in the death of a 23-year-old woman who took two capsules laced with cyanide. He said, however, that logic pointed toward easier solution in the Westchester case because the two bottles of Tylenol capsules tainted with cyanide had been in stores in the same neighborhood in Bronxville.
By comparison, he said, the tampering in Chicago involved perhaps a dozen bottles in many stores over a much wider area.
''I have a hope we'll be able to solve it,'' Mr. Burke said.
He spoke at a news conference at the National Press Club after attending an economic-affairs meeting of business leaders at the White House. President Reagan took the occasion to praise Mr. Burke for his handling of the Tylenol incidents, saying that the executive ''has lived up to the highest ideals of corporate responsibility and grace under pressure.''
Mr. Burke said the President's praise left him ''tongue-tied.''
The latest placing of cyanide into packages containing capsules of Extra-Stength Tylenol led Johnson & Johnson to announce on Monday that it was withdrawing from the capsule market. It will continue to make Tylenol available in pills and in caplets - coated, capsule-shaped tablets.
Asked whether he was sorry that Johnson & Johnson had not stopped making Tylenol capsules after the Chicago poisonings, Mr. Burke replied, ''Yes, indeed I am.''
The caplets are just as potent as capsules, Mr. Burke said, but he acknowledged that Johnson & Johnson faced a problem of convincing consumers that this was the case. Another problem to be surmounted, he said, was a preference for capsules by consumers who considered them easier to swallow than other medications.
A person who would put poison in the Tylenol capsules, Mr. Burke said, clearly was a deranged person. ''Psychiatrists tell us that these people are saying they need help,'' he said. ''These kinds of people know they are not well. They don't want to be called kooks; they don't mind being called sick.''
If that person came forward and asked for help, Mr. Burke said, he would receive it, although ''that doesn't mean the person would not have to deal with the halls of justice.''
On Tuesday, the Proprietary Association, which represents most makers of nonprescription drugs, decided against endorsing the Johnson & Johnson withdrawal from the marketing of medication in capsules.
When asked whether Johnson & Johnson thought the association's action was wrong, Mr. Burke said: ''I don't think I can say that. It is very hard for me to judge what our competition ought to do.''
Asked whether it was possible that the cyanide had been put in Tylenol capsules in both Chicago and Westchester County by the same person, Mr. Burke said this appeared extremely unlikely.
This conclusion had been reached, he said, because the cyanide had been placed in the capsules in Westchester in a skillful way but in a ''crude'' way in Chicago. In addition, he said that different kinds of cyanide were used in the Chicago and Westchester cases.
Mr. Reagan's praise of Johnson & Johnson and Mr. Burke came in a ceremony in the East Room at which he welcomed corporate executives on hand for a previously scheduled economics meeting.
''Jim Burke of Johnson & Johnson, you have our deepest appreciation,'' Mr. Reagan said. The other corporate executives then applauded the President's remarks.
Mr. Burke said later at his news conference that ''we were flattered that he was complimentary in Johnson & Johnson's handling of the case, and I was a little tongue-tied.''
A Hard Decision to Swallow
Monday, Mar. 03, 1986
Johnson & Johnson Chairman James Burke is not one to back away from trouble. Appearing last week on the Donahue television program to answer questions about the Tylenol poisoning earlier this month, Burke reacted swiftly when one caller denounced the culprit as a terrorist.
In a gesture that was rare for a buttoned-down businessman, he clenched his fist and pumped it in the air, as if to say, "Right on. I agree."
It was a fitting symbol of the drug manufacturer's dramatic response to the tragedy. Only the day before, Burke had announced that Johnson & Johnson would no longer sell any of its over-the-counter drugs in capsule form. The pharmaceuticals maker saw the move as the best hope of preventing a recurrence of the still unsolved poisoning of Diane Elsroth, 23, of Peekskill, N.Y., who died Feb. 8, after swallowing two Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules laced with potassium cyanide. Said Burke at a press conference:
"We take this action with great reluctance and a heavy heart. But since we can't control random tampering with capsules after they leave our plant, we feel we owe it to consumers to remove capsules from the market."
The decision will cost Johnson & Johnson as much as $150 million to recall its capsules and scrap their production. In addition to Tylenol, Johnson & Johnson made and sold capsule forms of Sine-Aid, a remedy for sinus congestion, and Dimensyn, a medicine for the relief of menstrual pain. The capsule form of Tylenol amounted to about 30% of the pain reliever's estimated 1985 sales of $525 million. To make up for its loss, the company last week began promoting Tylenol in the form of caplets, which are the smooth, elongated tablets that Johnson & Johnson began producing in 1983, after seven people in the Chicago area were poisoned by tainted Tylenol capsules. The caplets, far more difficult to adulterate, already make up about 15% of all Tylenol sales.
Johnson & Johnson's sudden decision prompted the pharmaceutical industry to re-examine its widespread use of over-the-counter capsules, which now include dozens of preparations ranging from Contac decongestant to Dexatrim diet formula. But as the industry sent its packaging experts to Washington last week for an emergency meeting with Food and Drug Administration officials, most companies said that they would keep on using capsules.
A huge consumer demand for capsules still exists despite the Tylenol scare. Many people find the gelatin-cased medicine easier to swallow and less bitter than tablets. The bright color combinations of capsules also make them more readily identifiable. Moreover, because so many prescription medicines come in capsule form, a common--but false--impression has arisen that capsules are more effective than tablets.
For greater safety, several companies have devised methods of sealing the individual capsules to make them tamper resistant. Eli Lilly has developed a tiny belt of gelatin that binds, like a piece of tape, the top and bottom halves and makes it difficult to open a capsule without tearing it. Sterling Drug uses sound waves to create a kind of spot-weld on capsules of its Panadol pain reliever. Johnson & Johnson says that it too studied new methods of sealing capsules but decided that none was completely secure.
After the Chicago poisonings, which caused Tylenol's share of the pain- killer market to plunge from 35% to 7%, Johnson & Johnson staged what industry experts called a "miracle" comeback. The company spent an estimated $300 million to recall 31 million old packages of Tylenol capsules and promote new ones that were "triple sealed" to resist tampering. Now the company must restore confidence yet again. It will not be easy: the poisoned woman's mother described the plan to withdraw capsules from the market as "three years too late."
Even so, many consumers feel sympathy for the manufacturer, and investors have been impressed by the company's decisiveness. Said Robert Benezra, who follows the drug industry for the investment firm Alex Brown & Sons: "Johnson & Johnson acted responsibly in the interest of the public's safety. That's how the consumers see it." The company's stock price went up 1 1/2 points last week, to 49, in contrast to a fall of 5 3/4 during the week after the poisoning. Investors generally believe that Johnson & Johnson (1985 revenues: $6.4 billion) has the financial wherewithal to preserve Tylenol's position as the best-selling nonprescription pain reliever. During 1985, the brand held a 34% share of the $1.6 billion market. The company's debts are low, and it holds a cash reserve of some $800 million.
The method, the motive and the culprit behind the latest poisoning all remain a mystery. The FDA has examined almost 500,000 Tylenol capsules from across the U.S. for evidence of cyanide, but has turned up nothing since Feb. 13, when investigators found cyanide in a second bottle of capsules, taken from a store just a few blocks from where the fatal package was sold in Bronxville, N.Y.
As Johnson & Johnson's nightmare began to subside last week, another company's may have begun. Consumers in several states, including Florida, Georgia and Maryland, claimed to have found bits of broken glass in Gerber baby food and fruit juice. Local and federal authorities began trying to confirm the incidents to determine whether any pattern existed. But FDA officials suspected that if glass was indeed found in the Gerber containers, ) it was the result of jars that chipped during shipment rather than a rash of copycat mayhem.
Once More Cyanide Poisons the Market for a Popular Pill, but J&J Boss James Burke Stands Fast
March 3, 1986
By Michelle Green
Since Diane Elsroth, 23, of Peekskill, N.Y. died on Feb. 8 after taking an Extra-Strength Tylenol capsule tainted with cyanide, James E. Burke has been reliving a nightmare. Chairman and chief executive officer of Johnson & Johnson (whose subsidiary, McNeil Consumer Products Company, makes Tylenol), Burke, 60, faced the same anguish in 1982, when seven people in the Chicago area died after swallowing poisoned Tylenol capsules. The Chicago murders remain unsolved and the inquiry into Elsroth's death has yielded few solid leads. The continuing investigation took an ominous turn with the discovery of a second contaminated bottle in a Bronxville, N.Y. store close to the supermarket where Elsroth's Tylenol had been purchased. Last week Burke announced that Johnson & Johnson would no longer produce Tylenol capsules or any of its other over-the-counter medications in capsule form—a decision that he said would cost the company an estimated $150 million in lost revenues and recall costs. (Taking Tylenol capsules off the market in 1982 cost the company an estimated $100 million.)
Through the crisis and while speaking to senior writer Michelle Green, the earnest, articulate Burke (who joined Johnson & Johnson in 1953) projected an aura of grave composure while explaining his company's response to the tragedy.
How did you find out that cyanide-laced Tylenol had caused the death of Diane Elsroth?
David Clare, our president, came in sometime that Monday afternoon and said, "We have a serious problem again." He was pale. He didn't have to tell me what it was. We've got lots of serious problems with a company this big and this complicated, but I could tell it was a Tylenol problem because of the look on his face.
What has your life been like since then?
Difficult, needless to say. We are back doing what we did 3½ years ago—there's a sense of déjà vu. But of course you're so busy dealing with the incident and the inordinate complexities of the response that you don't have a lot of time to think. I haven't worked out the number, but I'm sure there are several thousand people within our own company working on various aspects of this problem.
Were you fearful that a poisoning incident would crop up again?
I must admit, each of the anniversaries after the original poisoning, I don't think I slept all night because I thought if there's somebody out there who did it and he or she or they aren't in jail and are still alive—none of which we knew—they might do it again, just to show how smart they were. But most people said to me, "That's ridiculous. That was an isolated incident, and it's over." But just as my anxieties were largely relieved and I looked at a hugely successful comeback of the business—the highest market share in its history, highest sales, highest profits, all in the face of five new competitors; it was absolutely brilliant—after having done that, here we have this incident.
Do you have your own private scenario for how the second round of poisonings might have come about?
We all play detective in this one, you can't resist it. Everybody you meet does. That's one of the reasons for the interest in this: It's a grand unsolved mystery surrounding a product that is used every day by everybody, so we have something in common. It becomes a national pastime. I don't think any of us is any better at constructing possible answers than you are. I personally believe it happened in the local area for a reason or reasons unknown. I wouldn't know how to guess what happened. I have a feeling, though, that we may discover the perpetrator here. That may be wishful thinking—because we didn't in Chicago. It's just a hunch.
Do you see these tampering incidents as a form of terrorism?
I do consider this terrorism in the sense that invading the society through adulteration of a household product does strike terror. That doesn't mean it's a terrorist who's doing it just to terrorize—it may be to murder, to cover up a suicide, to extort money, or just to have fun, to show how smart they are.
Early on, there were rumors that the Tylenol in question may accidentally have become tainted by the cyanide used inside the plant for quality-control testing. Has that notion been discarded?
Yes. It's too bad that you do have to have cyanide inside the plant because it's become part of all the news stories. First it's a very small amount of cyanide that's kept in the laboratory—it's used for government-required analytical tests. Second, the quality-control lab is one of the most guarded parts of any plant. It's run by the most careful, highly professional people. The cyanide is under strict supervision. And most important, the cyanide in the lab is different from that found in the poisoned capsules.
How will you implement the switch from capsules to caplets?
Our caplets [oval-shaped tablets with a special coating to make them easy to swallow] have been on the market since 1984. We'll be putting more of them in distribution and in different forms. At the moment we only have them in extra-strength, and we don't have too many sizes. We're confident about them—we've never known of a case where tablets have been tampered with.
Can any product survive two bouts with fatal tampering incidents?
Yes, of course. When the poisonings in Chicago occurred, we cashed in on over 95 years of trust that we had built with the consumer. Everybody in the country believed in us because of our history, because of what Johnson & Johnson was: Anyone who'd ever used the baby powder or a Band-Aid or whatever had that attitude toward the company. And what our research shows us is that even today, after having gone through one of these scares previously, the public still feels that trust. And that's why we're bringing Tylenol back.