Introduction
When opening a package of over-the-counter medicine, removing the plastic seal from around the lid or the foil seal top is usually done without much thought. As with many other safety improvements made to consumer products over the years, tamper-resistant packaging has become another taken-for-granted development; the events leading to its implementation have been nearly forgotten.
Consumers take for granted that we are dependent on complete strangers for practically everything we buy. It seems that until someone is significantly harmed little attention is given to production and distribution of commodities. This blind faith in the system and those who produce, package and distribute commodities is usually only tested after people are made seriously ill or die.
Background
The United States in the 1970s and early 80s experienced a severe economic recession -- the worst downturn since the Great Depression. Tens of thousands of Americans were without jobs, inflation caused prices to skyrocket.
Ronald Reagan slashed social spending and welfare programs when he became president in 1981. As governor of California 1967 through 1975, he closed mental-health institutions and put thousands on the streets and into prisons. He was following a trend labeled "deinstitutionalization," a movement that gained momentum in the 1950s and favored community-based care over the sterile environment of mental institutions.
While the movement's original intention was to move mentally ill patients out of decrepit hospitals, into local-community residential-care settings (ostensibly where they would enjoy more personalized care), many states implemented the policy as a cost-cutting measure. Eventually the movement was deemed a failure because the funds for follow-up care were not made available.
Along with many other states, New York implemented similar deinstitutionalization policies in the early 80s in order to cut spending. Consequently, a growing homeless population overwhelmed New York City, many of whom suffered from some form of mental illness. This, in addition to other social conflicts from the 60s and 70s, contributed to higher levels of distrust for strangers.
Reagan's belief in limited government and his friendliness to Big Business resulted in significant deregulation during his first presidential term. In this laissez-faire climate, agencies like the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), created to protect consumers, lost power and control over the industries it was charged to regulate.
For example, in 1984, the FDA was forced to retreat from its position in which it likened food processors' advertising claims about health benefits of their food products to marketing the foods as drugs.
Political appointees within the FDA did everything but outright endorse the advertisements, as the food industry put pressure on the agency to adopt a more relaxed approach to food labeling. In other words, the FDA began protecting the interests of industry over the public's interest.
Watered down anti-trust laws ushered in a wave of media consolidation, which replaced media competition. News editors were under pressure to increase profit margins. Because straight news is not a profit generating market, they became even more dependent on advertising revenue. Running an unfavorable story about a sponsor might result in a loss of that sponsor's advertising dollars.
Sensational news stories increased as a way of selling more papers. Coverage of a crime panic increased public interest and created a desire to follow details of the crime investigation and its anticipated resolution.
If it bleeds, it leads.
The mysterious Tylenol poisonings provided news outlets with the right ingredients for a steady crime-story beat.
Ripe Conditions for a Crime Panic
Media attention in the early 80s of deinstitutionalization, increased illegal drug use, the return of Vietnam War vets, and other social strains resulting from poor economic conditions all contributed to an overall fear of violent crime by an anonymous attacker. Within such a context, crime panics are able to flourish.
Halloween sadism was one such crime panic that began in the late 1960s and has remained an urban legend ever since. An urban legend is a type of rumor most commonly associated with a crime panic. These legends are "varieties of persistent rumor stories, transmitted primarily in oral communication and secondarily through the mass media. The stories communicate shared anxieties about a newly perceived threat," and they are continually evolving (Victor, 1998).
Reported incidences of Halloween sadism peaked in 1970, 1971 and 1982. In each of the two former years, media coverage of fatalities linked to Halloween candy (albeit with greatly exaggerated details) sparked widespread panic throughout the country and led to an increased number of incidents of Halloween sadism. Studies have shown, however, that rumors of these two events were spread mostly by word-of-mouth rather than by media dissemination (Best, Horiuchi, 1985).
In the first instance, a five-year-old boy reportedly died after ingesting heroine-tainted Halloween candy, but follow-up coverage revealed the boy had actually found the heroine, not in his candy but in his uncle's home. This piece of the story didn't receive as much media attention as the original report.
Similarly, coverage of a fatal poisoning of an eight-year-old boy who ate Halloween candy laced with cyanide initially said the murderer was a "sadistic prankster" (Best 1985). Although, in reality it was the boy's father who poisoned his son in an attempt to collect life-insurance proceeds.
The 1982 spike, however, in reported occurrences of Halloween sadism was directly linked to media coverage of seven mysterious poisoning deaths in Chicago, Illinois, one month before Halloween. Reports of this story quickly reached saturation levels.
The so-called "Tylenol murders" spawned hundreds of copycat offenses, such as product tampering threats, hoaxes and dozens of cases of product contamination (some legitimate) across the country. Within this context a mass hysteria was fueled by the media's use of the incidences to warn parents of potential Halloween dangers. Some communities banned trick or treating altogether.
Not only did the Tylenol poisonings ignite widespread panic over Halloween sadism, they also generated immediate concern about product safety and consumer protection. Americans were quickly reminded that they "depended on others for nearly everything they consumed," and that man-made products were subject to the whims of kooks, accidents and human error.
Consumer confidence is fundamental in a capitalist society. "Manufacturers tremble at the suggestion that their wares may be tainted, moving fast to ensure that their good name does not become the butt of black humor (Spiro, 1982). In fact, as McNeil Consumer Products, the manufacturer of Extra-Strength Tylenol, cooperated with the crime investigation, Johnson & Johnson, McNeil's parent company, scrambled to find a way to repair the image of the country's best-selling pain reliever and reverse the damaging effects of the tragedy on its market share.
The Tylenol "Murders" and the Claimsmakers
The investigation into the cause of the Tylenol poisonings was as bizarre as the crime itself. Several interested parties were involved, each competing in a social-problems marketplace, each standing to gain something if their claims proved successful (Best, 1995). Victims are the most obvious claimsmakers. However, if a victims dies, as in the case of the Chicago poisonings, a relative usually serves as the deceased's representative.
The New York Times (the Times) began its coverage of the story on Sept. 29, 1982, when it reported on several mysterious deaths in the suburbs of Chicago. The victim: 12-year-old Mary Kellerman, Adams and Stanly Janus, who were brothers in their mid-twenties, and Stanley's wife Theresa Janus, 19. All died after taking capsules of Extra-Strength Tylenol. Thirty-one-year-old Mary McFarland collapsed at
work after taking the capsules.
Meanwhile, in another part of the city, Mary Reiner, 27, also took Tylenol capsules and died, only a few days after delivering her third child. It was promptly determined that the bottles of poisoned pills were purchased at separate stores. The last Chicago victim, flight attendant Paula Prince, was found dead on Oct. 1.
At the head of the investigation was Illinois Attorney General Tyrone Fahner, who was appointed to the position by the governor after the previous attorney general was convicted of tax evasion. Meanwhile, Fahner campaigned for election to his first full term as State Attorney General. Although Fahner was not well known to Chicago voters, press coverage of the investigation effectively served as free advertisement for his campaign.
Michael I. Schaffer, the chief toxicologist of the Cook County medical examiner's office in Illinois, handled the inspection of the manufacturing plant in Philadelphia. Although his conclusions appear debatable, because of his official credentials they were accepted at face value by the Times.
Claimsmakers always have something to gain. Whether the gain is for themselves as individuals, for a group or an organization, or for a particular institution depends on the problem being addressed. Claimsmakers shape our understanding of a problem, they "choose to focus on particular aspects of the condition" (Best, 1995). In their construction of a social problem, claimsmakers inevitably emphasize some aspects over others and promote a certain course of action. Focusing on particular causes and advocating specific solutions, they characterize, or typify, a problem's nature. Claimsmakers involved in the Tylenol investigation essentially constructed every detail of the crime story.
From the beginning the poisonings were framed by claimsmakers - the manufacturer, the investigators and the media - in such a way that directed the public, including the victims' families, to focus on a mysterious, deranged "madman." Hardly any mention of the possibility that the contamination could have been an accident. For sure, Johnson and Johnson (J&J) would not have recovered as quickly as it did after the so-called "murders" if the public had believed the poisonings resulted from a contamination accident during manufacture of the drug.
In fact, J&J launched one of the most successful public relations campaigns in PR history to quickly repair its image and regain its place as the leading pain reliever producer. It did not take long for Tylenol capsules to begin reappearing on store shelves. After being off the market almost two months, J&J hoped to reassure its customers with 80 million coupons worth $2.50 each. To this day, the Tylenol tragedy is used in public relations textbooks as a shining example of a well-organized damage-control campaign.
The Claims
Strangely, on Sept. 30, 1982, one day after the Chicago deaths, a Times article reported that "authorities said the cyanide was probably introduced sometime after the capsules left the plant in Fort Washington, Pa., where they are manufactured." The article also says that "cyanide, one of the deadliest toxins known, is not used in the production of the medication."
Several things about this article challenge the imagination. First, it is difficult to consider a thorough investigation of the manufacturing plant by proper authorities could have been completed over night, especially when the plant was located a few states away. Second, the statement announcing that cyanide was not used in the production of the medication was untrue, as will be shown later. Finally, there is a third misleading statement in the article claiming the company's sales and marketing employees in each of the effected regions were going to stores to pick up the "recalled bottles" when in fact no official recall had been made, nor was made for eight days. The recall came only after another Tylenol poisoning was discovered in California.
The Times' confusing coverage of the investigation continued daily. On Oct. 5, just six days after the deaths occurred, a Times headline declared, "Maker of Tylenol Cleared of Blame." Reporter Donald Janson writes that toxicologist Michael I. Shaffer flew to Fort Washington, Pa., to examine the McNeil manufacturing plant where Extra-Strength Tylenol was produced. After completing his "official" examination, Shaffer stated, "I don't think anything is impossible, but it's a million to one that the contamination didn't happen here." This unconvincing statement could not have been reassuring to the victims' families.
Even more unsettling, the article goes on to say that cyanide was in fact used in the production of Tylenol and that it had been kept in three unlocked "quality control laboratories," each with three 100-gram bottles of cyanide. Each lab was accessible to the plant's 1,000 employees. "Until a few days ago," said Schaffer, "the cyanide was equally accessible," noting that McNeil has "taken the new precaution of keeping its cyanide under lock and key."
According to Schaffer, the lethal chemical was used to test one of the ingredients in the Tylenol formula, Povidone, in order to make sure the ingredient did not contain "too much lead."
After testing, drums of powdered chemicals were dumped into vats and the material moved along an assembly line that filled and boxed them, which made it "impossible" Schaffer claimed, for employees to extract, tamper with or replace bottles or capsules. Never mind Schaffer's previous statement, "I don't think anything is impossible." The toxicology concluded that the tampering "probably" occurred in the Chicago area.
The Tylenol offender began to be typified by authorities and the media as a disgruntled employee or former employee of the manufacturer, distributor or retailer. This characterization was possibly due to another claimsmaker who was competing for attention in days after the Chicago deaths. An extortionist demanding $1 million via a letter to J&J threatened a repeat of the poisonings unless the money was deposited in a Chicago band account. The alleged extortionist, James Lewis, was described by the Times as a con-artist, a Chicago businessman and "former successful stockbroker who had suffered financial 'reverses.'" Attorney General Fahner dismissed the extortion attempt, saying it was "a whole side issue," thereby distracting the media and the public from any significance the demand potentially had.
California, Wyoming, and Pennsylvania also reported cyanide deaths.
Production of Tylenol capsules was halted on Oct. 5, after a California man was determined to have suffered strychnine poisoning after taking Tylenol. In Wyoming, a young janitor died after taking cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules purchased at a Chicago-based drugstore chain involved in the Chicago deaths. The Pennsylvania death occurring in April 1982, was also investigated when authorities were alerted that the graduate student's body contained cyanide.
As the investigation continued, a small number of suspects were tracked down and questioned but none were ultimately connected to the murders. It seems peculiar that an extortion demand would have been dismissed as a "side issue," but even weirder was the arrest and later release of an amateur chemist and dockworker, Roger Arnold, who worked at a warehouse that supplied Tylenol to two of the stores where the tainted bottles were sold, according to a Dec. 22, 1982 Newsweek article.
Arnold admitted having worked on a project involving the use of cyanide. A search of his apartment turned up a number of weapons, two one-way tickets to Thailand and a suspicious book that described, "how to kill people by stuffing poison into capsules."
Another suspect, Kevin Masterson, was described as a suburban Chicago man with a history of mental unsteadiness. Attorney General admitted that 95 percent of his leads came from the news media or through an "investigators' information line."
On Oct. 22, 1982, the FDA announced it was officially clearing the J&J subsidiary of "any responsibility for the contamination." It added that the tampering occurred after the capsules were shipped to the distribution points, "most likely after (the bottles)reached the retail shelves." This conveniently moved the focus of blame from the manufacturer to the distributor and retailers.
Families of the victims did not waste time in filing wrongful death and personal injury suits against J&J and its distributor. The suits maintained that Tylenol bottles lacked tamper-proof caps and lids, plastic or foil seals or warnings to inspect the product. The industry had for years resisted child-proof capping over-the-counter and prescription drugs citing cost restraints.
"Before the Tylenol affair, the idea of food and drug packagers collectively demanding increased government regulation was about as likely as Detroit begging for air-bag requirements" (Spiro, 1982). In order to maintain consumer confidence, however, the non-prescription drug industry had to do something fast.
Movement Toward Tamper-Resistant Packaging
Consumer buying habits were changed by the Tylenol scare. Consumers became more cautious and skeptical of packaged products in general. Non-prescription drug retailers became frustrated by the public's sensitivity toward over-the-counter drugs, which was said to have reached "extreme levels." Regardless of whether the Tylenol poisonings were the work of a deranged madman, as some claimsmakers suggested, or were the white-washed result of an accidental contamination, consumers began looking at all products with new scrutiny.
That began to change, however, after Congress passed new regulations requiring the drug industry to use tamper-resistant packaging on most over-the-counter drugs. Representatives of the drug manufacturing industry and the government began discussions about new packaging soon after the poisonings occurred. FDA commissioner, Dr. Arthur H. Hayes Jr., told a news conference that a regulation was necessary in order to "restore consumer confidence in over-the-counter products."
Drug manufacturers were allowed to collaborate with the FDA in developing new packaging regulations and given "wide latitude" in designing the new packages, the Times reported on Oct. 5, 1982. Absent from the Times' report is any critical examination of this odd procedure, namely industry writing its own regulations. Again, the news media at the time were especially dependent on their sponsors, which included the non-prescription drug industry, and were therefore reluctant to ask critical questions about this obvious irony.
Nevertheless, James D. Cope, president of the Proprietary Association, a trade association of non-prescription drug makers, warned that there could be no guarantee on the new packaging.
"It is tamper-resistant. It may give evidence of tampering. But it is not tamper-proof," said Cope.
Guaranteeing the industry's market share apparently was more important than guaranteeing the safety of their products. J&J continued marking Extra-Strength Tylenol in capsules, which could easily be opened and refilled with obviously signs of tampering.
Not until four years later did J&J permanently discontinue making Tylenol in capsules after several more deaths occurred: Diane Elsroth, 3, of Peekskill, N.Y., died on Feb. 8, 1986; Timothy Green, 32, of Nashville, Tenn., was found dead on Feb. 22, 1986; Sandie Gregory, 21, of Pullman, Wash., died on April 27, 1986. All had taken cyanide-laced Extra-Strength Tylenol.
Investigators claimed Green's death was a suicide, but revealed that in both Elsroth's and Gregory's cases, the tripple-sealed Tylenol bottles had shown no sign of tampering.
Again the claimsmakers constructed the details and typified the alleged offender.
Once again, the Times stopped short of asking questions about the manufacturing process or employees' accessibility to lethal chemicals in the manufacturing plant. Joseph Chiesa, president of McNeil at the time, proclaimed at a press conference, "we have conviction" that none of the poison was put into capsules by an employee. Authorities said they did not intend to "start a national scare," and press attention to these poisonings remained relatively quiet compared to the first series of deaths.
Conclusion
The Tylenol "murders" or poisonings have never been solved. No motive was ever established. The press participated as a claimsmaker by framing the crimes as random acts of murder by a deranged madman and psychopath. The Times typified the act as the "work of an aberrant mind." Coupled with the panic over Halloween sadism and other social strains in the early 80s, media coverage of the Tylenol poisonings worked to heighten fears of strangers.
A national hysteria resulted in many copycat offenses of product tampering and contamination across the country. Americans began thinking about their dependence on others for nearly everything they consumed. Consumers lost confidence and manufacturers were forced to take immediate actions to preserve their market share. J&J launched an aggressive public relations campaign promising consumers they could once again trust the company. The non-prescription drug industry teamed up with the agency that regulated it, created and passed new federal rules for packaging before the end of 1982. However, the industry would non guarantee its customers 100 percent safety, and in fact more deaths occurred four year later.
Claimsmakers were successful in focusing the public's attention on their own typification of the alleged offender and their own construction of the crime. According to the Times' coverage of the events, no serious investigation of the manufacturer of Tylenol or its employees ever took place.
(C)2012 Copyright by Chelsea Smith
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