Challenging the cozy image of Johnson & Johnson Pharmaceuticals; what have they not told us?

BY SIMONE J. SMITH

“At Johnson & Johnson, there is no greater priority than the health and safety of the people we serve every day around the world. Our primary goal is to ensure the safety, well-being and privacy of the participants and all those involved in our trials.”

The first thing I want you to do before reading this article – especially if you are a new parent – is to take a look around your home right now. For what you ask? I want you to take a look for a product that has become a household name for over 100 years. I can guarantee that for many of us, we all have used products from Johnson & Johnson.

They have had a reassuringly cozy image as the ultimate family brand of: baby powder, baby shampoo and the maker of Band-Aids. They are also the name behind a massive range of drugs and medical devices, and most recently have stepped into the COVID-19 vaccine race.

For many of us, we feel safe using Johnson & Johnson products because we have been reassured about their quality and safety. Their fantastic marketing team has told us that they are committed to providing transparent updates throughout their clinical development process. With their new vaccine trials, they promised this transparency, as well as compliance with regulatory standards and their own high ethical and scientific principles.

This sounds great, and of course, many of us would believe these statements because we have used their products without any issues for years. Well, this article is not meant to scare you, but is meant to shed light on why once again, as educated consumers, we have to take our time to do research before we just trust the words of larger corporations.

On October 12th, 2020, Johnson & Johnson released a statement about them having to temporarily pause their COVID-19 vaccine candidate trials, including the Phase 3 ENSEMBLE trial, due to an unexplained illness in a study participant. According to their statement, the participant’s illness is being reviewed and evaluated by the ENSEMBLE independent Data Safety Monitoring Board (DSMB) as well as our internal clinical and safety physicians.

They also remind their consumers that adverse events – illnesses, accidents, etc. – even those that are serious, are an expected part of any clinical study, especially large studies. After a thorough evaluation of a serious medical event experienced by the study participant, no clear cause was identified. They stated that there were many possible factors that could have caused the event. Based on the information gathered to date and the input of independent experts, Johnson & Johnson found no evidence that the vaccine candidate caused the event. You can personally read the released statement at (https://www.jnj.com/our-company/johnson-johnson-prepares-to-resume-phase-3-ensemble-trial-of-its-janssen-covid-19-vaccine-candidate-in-the-us).

I have spoken about the blanket immunity that many of these vaccine makers have received from the government, meaning that if any harm comes from these rushed COVID-19 vaccines, they are not held liable. I want our communities across the African diaspora to be well versed on the verbiage used by these companies, and to be weary of what is propagated through mainstream media sources. I also want to share with you the not so cozy information about the Johnson & Johnson Company. In the last few years, they have been hit with a series of product misfires and court judgements that have challenged both public trust and investor faith.

At the beginning of October this year, a Philadelphia jury awarded $8 billion in punitive damages to a man claiming that the company did not warn young men that taking its anti-psychotic drug Risperdal could cause them to grow breasts. The lawyers for the plaintiff had something to say about the conduct of the company, “Johnson & Johnson is a company which has lost its way,” and the jury had chosen to impose punitive damages on “A corporation that valued profits over safety and profits over patients.”

I want to note here that the US Food and Drug Administration approved Risperdal for the treatment of adults in 1993, and it brought in some $737 million in sales in 2018.

They have also been going through five years of litigation over claims that it failed to warn customers that its blood-thinner Xarelto increased the risk of internal bleeding, and in March, Johnson & Johnson and co-maker Bayer agreed to pay $775m to settle about 25,000 lawsuits, though neither of the companies admitted liability.

In July 2018, Johnson & Johnson asked a judge in Trenton, New Jersey to dismiss as many as 14,000 lawsuits alleging its talc-based baby powder (yes, the one you use on your child) caused ovarian cancer.

There have been complaints moving through the legal system since 1999, and the company has failed to inform the FDA that at least three tests by three different labs from 1972 to 1975 had found asbestos in its talc. In one of the tests, the levels were reported as “rather high.”

One example of this complaint came from a California woman who actually won a legal battle against the pharmaceutical giant. In her complaint she states that the company’s baby powder caused her to develop terminal ovarian cancer. She was awarded $70 million in compensatory damages, and $347 million in punitive damages.

Ms Echevarria claimed that for 40 years, she used the baby powder for feminine hygiene purposes, and this resulted in her ovarian cancer diagnosis. The cancer spread to her kidneys, and she was so ill she was unable to attend the court proceedings.

Her lawyer, Mark Robinson, argued that Johnson & Johnson had encouraged female customers to continue using baby powder for feminine hygiene purposes despite the fact that there was a known link with ovarian cancer.

My goal is to encourage my community to become educated consumers. Do the work. Know what you are bringing into your homes, and exposing to your family. The research is out there my friends, all we have to do is look for it.