Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Tylenol case analysis
The importance of effective communication during a crisis situation essays
Essays of public relations roles in preventing crisis
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Tylenol case analysis
The Tylenol Murders What might have been the consequences if Johnson & Johnson had decided to “tough out” the first reports of Tylenol-related deaths and not recall the product? Quite honestly the company would be in ruins and unable to repair their already tarnished image. Though the company produces other products, there would be the consequences of losing loyal consumers and relationships would suffer with focal businesses such as hospitals and distribution centers. In addition, the company would need to reduce labor/employees to maintain a positive balance sheet. The economy would suffer due to the unemployment rate and the company would also suffer due to loss of stocks and public interest. The following article supports how Johnson …show more content…
Research attitudes about the issue at hand; Action. Identify action of the client in the public interest. Communication. Communicate that action to gain understanding, acceptance, and support. Evaluation. Evaluate the communication to see if opinion has been influenced.” (Seitel, Fraser P. 2014) Johnson & Johnson’s first reaction was about the community, the issue at hand, and the action took place. The company continued to act accordingly to public concern, in which reward of $100,000 was posted for any information leading to the arrest(s) of the responsible person(s). Tylenol created an advertising campaign advising that they would exchange the capsules for tablets at their cost. The company even continued with further evaluation by producing a new three step safety process to protect consumers and ensuring the product that was being consumed was safe. Johnson & Johnson (Tylenol) continued with statements to the media to show concern for the welfare of the public and their continued investigation into the …show more content…
How might the results have differed if the crises occurred today? The environment of the media was explosive. Johnson & Johnson was at the time and continues to be a high profile company and their chairperson, James E. Burke, as noted, has been with the company for almost 30 years. There was never a reason he needed to appear in the public as address concerns over a product until this incident. He was now thrusted into the limelight to defend their product and its company by addressing reporters from all over the world. James Burke followed the following rules of public relations; “To inform; To persuade, To motivate and To build mutual understanding”. (Seitel, Fraser P. 2014) One cannot imagine what his thoughts were, but to be calm enough to thoroughly think through a process is truly commendable. See what information Johnson & Johnson offers for its customers on the Tylenol website (www.tylenol.com). Follow the links to the Care Cards, House Calls, and FAQ sections. How do these sections demonstrate Johnson & Johnson’s concern for customers? How do you think Johnson & Johnson would use this website to communicate with the public if new health scares
Economic responsibility requires a company to remain profitable in order to appease stakeholders and risk management and sound business practices play a large role in acceptable economic responsibility. Johnson and Johnson may have tried too hard to increase its profits, which resulted in mediocre production rather than timely inspection to ensure the products are safe for distribution. A halt in production may decrease profits temporarily, but in the long run, products distributed will be safer and revenue would resume to a normal amount. Instead, trying to be profitable and avoid loss in the short run made Johnson and Johnson less profitable in the long run. Failure in legal responsibility may have caused Johnson and Johnson to fail. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulates drug distribution and has several criteria to pass in order to allow Johnson and Johnson to administer its premier medicines such as Tylenol. Not adhering to those laws allowed the distribution of unsafe medicines, subsequently leading to recalls and damaging the company financially. Johnson and Johnson tried covering up prior recalls of Motrin by hiring contractors to buy every packet (Kimes). Ethical responsibility requires companies do not perform questionable practices such as that described. The secret recall bought attention to Johnson and Johnson that it makes shoddy products out of the public’s view, which is wrong on many ethical bases. In the recent occurrence with Tylenol, Johnson and Johnson slacked on its labeling and tarnished the company’s
Tylenol is part of the Johnson & Johnson Company. Once they made the connection between the report and the Tylenol they put customer safety first, before they worried about the company’s profit. The company immediately informed customers not to consume any type of Tylenol product. To throw away what they had until the extent of the tampering could be determined. Johnson and Johnson stopped all production and advertising. The recall included approximately 31 million bottles of Tylenol.
The major groups that were directly affected are investors, employees, and suppliers. Here we should make the distinction between different types of investors. There are two major types of investors: insiders and outside investors. Insiders are the investors who know the information that is not known publicly and may benefit them in some way. Outside investors are the investors who only know publicly known information. In our case, outside investors was the group that lost the most. On the other hand, insiders, notably Mickey Monus and David Shapiro, were the one that gains millions on IPO. The group who suffered was employees of Phar-Mor. After the scandal was revealed, most of the stores were closed to cover up losses. As a result, thousands of employees got fired. Another party that was damaged by the scandal was Coopers&Lybrant, the firm that did the audit for Phar-Mor, lost its reputation as a firm who does an audit with integrity. The secondary effect of the scandal was the overall mistrust among investors. They thought that if a giant retailer can forge its accounting books, why smaller companies wouldn’t do the same. As a result, investors became reluctant in investing into businesses that caused harm to the economy as a whole. The last but not least group that was affected by the scandal is Phar-Mor’s suppliers. Mickey Monus was fiercely fighting with them to make the chipset deals to cover up his losses, sometimes using inappropriate pressure and causing suppliers making unprofitable deals. In additions, Monus forced them to pay fees and sponsor his basketball League using buyer power of his company. In addition, a lot of bills for supplies were unpaid for months by Phar-Mor. Some suppliers said that they hated doing business with Phar-Mor, but had no choice since it had an access to vast amount of customers.
In 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act, that was years in the making was finally passed under President Roosevelt. This law reflected a sea change in medicine-- an unprecedented wave of regulations. No longer could drug companies have a secret formula and hide potentially toxic substances such as heroin under their patent. The law required drug companies to specify the ingredients of medications on the label. It also regulated the purity and dosage of substances. Not by mere coincidence was the law passed only about five years after Bayer, a German based drug company began selling the morphine derivative, heroin. Thought to be a safe, non-habit forming alternative to morphine, heroin quickly became the “cure-all drug” that was used to treat anything from coughs to restlessness. Yet, just as quickly as it became a household staple, many began to question the innocence of the substance. While the 1906 law had inherent weaknesses, it signaled the beginning of the end for “cure-all” drugs, such as opiate-filled “soothing syrups” that were used for infants. By tracing and evaluating various reports by doctors and investigative journalists on the medical use of heroin, it is clear that the desire for this legislative measure developed from an offshoot in the medical community-- a transformation that took doctors out from behind the curtain, and brought the public into a new era of awareness.
Doctors work under intense pressure, and if a pill could fix a patient’s problems than many saw nothing wrong with that. What exacerbated the problem was that many hospitals also changed their modus operandi with regards to treatment. In some hospitals, “doctors were told they could be sued if they did not treat pain aggressively, which meant with opiates (95). However once the patient became addicted and could no longer get their prescription legally refilled, the drug dealers saw their chance. What is surprising is the fact that pharmaceutical companies acted in the same manner as drug dealers. Both sides did not care about the end user, and the problems they would have to deal with after using what was given to them. Their motive was purely to profit as much as possible, and they did not care about who would get hurt as a result of their
In August of 2001 Robert Ray Courtney was arrested in Kansas City, Missouri and charged with diluting drugs used to treat cancer patients. Courtney’s actions not only violated criminal and civil laws but they shattered the ethical code and the oath he took as a licensed pharmacist. His actions left many people wondering why anyone would commit such a horrible act, let alone a trusted pharmacist who was providing medication to patients whose very lives depended on him doing his job.
The Johnson & Johnson Corporation has conducted business for over 60 years utilizing their credo in implementing their obligations to all of the stakeholders across the globe. Mr. Johnson attempted to share his philosophy, but it took him an additional 8 years to publicize his corporate credo and management to put it into action. “He believed that by putting the customer first the business would be well served, and it was” (Hartman et al., 2014, p. 165). The Johnson & Johnson’s reputation and credo was tested during the Tylenol crisis when a product was use...
Lucian L. Leape Conducted a study in 1995 on “health policy analyst at the Harvard School of Public Health, found that 6.5 percent of patients at two teaching hospitals in Boston had been injured by their medicines, and one-third of these cases involved mistakes” (Stolberg, 1999). Due to this Study the F.D.A. official were convinced that the danger of prescription cascade is growing which prompted them to release a 150-page report which was made public, that called for pharmacists, doctors, hospitals and drug companies to work together to create ' 'a new framework ' ' for cutting down on overlapping prescription that have a high risk of causing a cascade. Explicit warning pamphlets were also created according to the new guidelines which requires manufacturers to release side effect possibilities in high risk drugs. (Stolberg, 1999)
In the late 1800’s it was discovered that papa-amino-phenol, could reduce fever, but the drug was too toxic to use. A less toxic extract called phenacetin was later found to be just as effective but also had pain-relieving properties. In 1949, it was learned that phenacetin was metabolized into an active but also less toxic drug, acetaminophen. Since then, acetaminophen has been sold under many over the counter brand names, most popular being Tylenol.
In the book, Propaganda, author Edward L Bernays, who is nephew of Sigmund Freud, transcends the public relation industry. This short, 13-part instructional manual delves deep into the intricacies and usage of propaganda. Bernays claims that the public is in a constant state of manipulation. He argues that in order for a society to be highly functioning and stable, public opinion must be manipulated and swayed. While I find his claims disturbing, it was refreshing to read something so blunt. Bernays’ use of psychological techniques to work the mechanics of public opinion truly classifies him as the “father of public relations.”
We live in a world where being medicated has become a societal norm. Modern health care practices have set the stage for the proliferation of direct-to-consumer advertising (DTCA) of prescription drugs by pharmaceutical manufacturers. Some of these practices include the emergence of managed care organizations (MCOs), the legalization of DTCA of prescription drugs, the emergence of the Internet as an alternative promotional channel, the increased desire by patients to become more involved in their own health care decisions, the disillusionment with traditional medicine, and the rise of ‘alternative’ medicine, to name a few. There is an ongoing debate as to the ultimate harm or benefit of this relatively recent practice of pharmaceutical manufacturers to direct their promotional efforts away from the physician and towards the consumer.
Pharmacy is a booming field when it comes to medicine, but it certainly has controversial issues such as compounding drugs. While the practice of making drugs customized to a patient seems ethical, there are problems that come along with it. Drug compounding was the norm in the past, but over time consumers began to see issues with it. Drug compounding still occurs to this day because some patients do need medicine specifically tailored to their needs. Compounding has also been the focus of recent disasters, some of which occurred less than two years ago. Whatever side one may take on this issue, it is clear that compounding medicine will be a polarizing issue for years to come.
It would have eliminated all the troubles and saved the company’s reputation if this was in place. Though when the intention of the drug was to help epileptic seizures, you fail to look at the other uses this product could have. In regards to the handling of the issue, Lundbeck should have taken a more aggressive stance against the prison’s usage of the drug. Writing letters will only take you so far and Lundbeck did not give them any ultimatum if they did not comply. Lundbeck was too passive in the handling of the situation. They should have reached out to more than just the prisons and state governments. This case I do believe is a federal matter as it effects more than one state so it should have been taken to the federal court to be hammered out. Even then Lundbeck’s response time to the issue was pretty slow and it might have taken the case longer to resolve. Lundbeck could have also maintained better contact with human rights organizations and NGOs Reprieve and Amnesty International so that a plan of action could have been sought out earlier knowing that the prisons and the government were not going to do anything about
Tylenol received massive media coverage which led to an expeditious communication of the event to the public. Johnson & Johnson (J & J) took a huge financial hit when it had to recall and destroy approximately $100 million dollars worth of inventory in addition to the loss incurred by the company when the public reacted to the incident (Campbell et al. al., n.d., n.d.). Tylenol's approach was to pull off the products as quickly as possible, stopped production, cooperated with the investigation and the media and halted all forms of advertisement or marketing of the product. Furthermore, Johnson & Johnson took the initiative to protect and improve their product packaging, which allowed them to regain the public's confidence and paved the way for improved tamper-resistant packaging now used by myriad of manufacturing companies.
Jonson & Jonson is one of the largest worlds well known company in health care, operates in three different segments through more than 275 operating companies located in more than 60 countries and employs approximately 128,300 people worldwide. Johnson & Johnson was organized in the State of New Jersey in 1886 and specialized in three main segments first pharmaceutical such as hematology drugs or anti-fungal drugs, second consumer products such as products for skin care, wound care, as well as baby and child care, and third segment is medical devices and diagnostics that’s includes wide range of surgical products to disposable contact lenses. (Johnson, 2014) .Jonson & Jonson now considered one of the world leading companies in health care (world’s eighth-largest pharmaceuticals company) and succeed to compete other health manufacturing organization such as Pfizer Inc. (United States) and Covidien plc. (Ireland) they also had so many world awards and recognition from different organizations such as Most Admired Pharmaceutical Company for 2013 form Med Ad News magazine (Top 50 Pharmaceutical companys, 2013) and the best products for Working Mothers in 2013 from Working Mother Magazine.