No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson

by Gardiner Harris Narrated by Gardiner Harris

Overview

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER ¿ An explosive, deeply reported exposé of Johnson & Johnson, one of America's oldest and most trusted pharmaceutical companies-from an award-winning investigative journalist

“A damning portrait.”-Associated Press

“A page-turning drama that raises life-or-death questions about the world's largest healthcare conglomerate.”-Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of King: A Life

One day in 2004, Gardiner Harris, a pharmaceutical reporter for The New York Times, was early for a flight and sat down at an airport bar. He struck up a conversation with the woman on the barstool next to him, who happened to be a drug sales rep for Johnson & Johnson. Her horrific story about unethical sales practices and the devastating impact they'd had on her family fundamentally changed the nature of how Harris would cover the company-and the entire pharmaceutical industry-for the Times. His subsequent investigations and ongoing research since that very first conversation led to this book-a blistering exposé of a trusted American institution and the largest healthcare conglomerate in the world.

Harris takes us light-years away from the company's image as the child-friendly “baby company” as he uncovers reams of evidence showing decades of deceitful and dangerous corporate practices that have threatened the lives of millions. He covers multiple disasters: lies and cover-ups regarding the link of Johnson's Baby Powder to cancer, the surprising dangers of Tylenol, a criminal campaign to sell antipsychotics that have cost countless lives, a popular drug used to support cancer patients that actually increases the risk that cancer tumors will grow, and deceptive marketing that accelerated opioid addictions through their product Duragesic (fentanyl) that rival even those of the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma.

Filled with shocking and infuriating but utterly necessary revelations, No More Tears is a landmark work of investigative journalism that lays bare the deeply rooted corruption behind the image of babies bathing with a smile.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

A savage takedown of one of the world’s most trusted companies . . . Harris, a veteran US health reporter, brings the receipts as he takes us beyond talc into a wider world of alleged deceptive marketing, concealed data and profit-chasing at the expense of patients.”—Financial Times

“In No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson, veteran reporter Gardiner Harris uses his investigative skills to scrutinize the legacy of the company, as well as that of federal regulators. What he unveils is a damning portrait . . . a valuable history that’s not limited to Johnson & Johnson, and helps for a broader understanding of today’s health care system.”—Associated Press

“Deeply researched and smartly written, No More Tears reveals the disturbing story behind one of America’s most trusted brands. Gardiner Harris has done a great service, giving us a page-turning drama that raises life-or-death questions about the world’s largest healthcare conglomerate.”—Jonathan Eig, Pulitzer Prize winning author of King: A Life

“Leave it to Gardiner Harris, the premier pharma reporter of his generation, to take on the industry’s leviathan, laying bare the ruthless soul of ‘America’s favorite company.’ Harris’s tour of the sausage factory is one that doctors, nurses, and their patients should all take, to see for themselves how the business of medicine really works.”—Benedict Carey, award-winning New York Times science correspondent and author of How We Learn

“A masterpiece of muckraking . . . This hard-hitting exposé from journalist Harris documents scandals and malfeasance by the pharmaceutical conglomerate Johnson & Johnson. . . . Harris supports his takedown with a mountain of evidence and conveys his findings in scorching prose.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review

“Harris conducts consummate investigative journalism in this gangbuster exposé of the Johnson & Johnson corporation. . . . He takes readers on a dark and devastating ride through a corporate pattern of greed and malfeasance that becomes more disturbing with each revelatory chapter. . . . Comparisons to Patrick Radden Keefe’s Empire of Pain (2021) are obvious, although Harris’ work is all the more stunning as Johnson & Johnson has held an enviable and unmatched degree of trust in America for decades. It is very nearly impossible to believe that this company could be capable of so many layers of deceit and dishonesty, yet that is exactly what Harris lays bare in this masterfully researched title with a narrative akin to a thriller in its intensity. . . . An absolutely unforgettable must-read.”—Booklist, starred review

Product Details

BN ID:	2940191083285
Publisher:	Penguin Random House
Publication date:	04/08/2025
Edition description:	Unabridged

Read an Excerpt

Chapter 1

An Emotional Bond

Johnson’s Baby Powder and Tylenol are among the most beloved and iconic consumer products ever sold. They largely define Johnson & Johnson’s image and have long provided the company with a protective halo of affection from consumers, professionals, and government officials.

While Tylenol is a juggernaut, Johnson’s Baby Powder is among the most potent branding instruments ever. The product’s fragrance resulted from a lengthy effort to concoct just the right bouquet. After multiple experiments, the company created a complex and distinctive floral scent with more than two hundred ingredients—natural oils, extracts, and aromatic compounds—from all over the world. The fragrance has a sweet, vanilla-like base but also contains overtones of jasmine, lilac, rose, musk, and citrus.

Company surveys found this distinctive mixture of ingredients to be the most recognized fragrance in the world, and for much of the American adult population it conjured the most pleasant memories and associations. Talc products were the cornerstone of the company’s baby products, which, despite sales that have in recent years represented less than 1 percent of the company’s revenues, were collectively the company’s “most precious asset” and “crown jewel,” according to a 2008 company slide deck titled “Our Baby History.”

“The association of the Johnson’s name with both the mother-infant bond and mother’s touch as she uses the baby products is known as Johnson & Johnson’s Golden Egg,” the 2008 slide deck stated.

Surveys showed that the Johnson & Johnson brand is associated most strongly with baby products, and that this association creates an unmatched level of trust—invaluable for a healthcare company.

“Many companies have rational trust,” a 1999 corporate slide deck stated. It listed Merck, Bristol-Myers Squibb, GlaxoSmithKline, Procter & Gamble, and Colgate as among the companies with rational trust. At the time, pharmaceutical companies topped surveys of the most admired companies in the world. “Only Johnson & Johnson also has real emotional trust.”

“Johnson & Johnson’s unique trust results in real business gains for the company,” the presentation stated. Among the important benefits, the presentation claimed, is that consumers will forgive missteps and brand crises.

The most powerful of human emotional bonds is between a mother and her baby, the presentation stated. In the slides, the value of this bond is pictured as a piggy bank with coins dropping into its slot on the back, with the words “Mother-Baby Bond” on its side.

“Johnson’s baby is 50% heart and 50% mind,” concluded the slide deck, which is titled “Trust Is Our Product.”

A crucial way that Baby Powder engenders and sustains emotional trust is through its fragrance. Smells feed directly into the brain’s limbic system, the ancient seat of human emotion.

“Olfactory learning occurs before birth and helps develop social capacities,” another 2009 deck said. “Infants attach meaning to familiar smells within first hours after birth” and “Odor is important in human mother-infant bonding.”

So, for generations, much of the American population was implanted in the womb and throughout infancy with a brain worm that associates Johnson & Johnson with love, happiness, trust, and intimacy—a public relations contrivance of unrivaled power and perseverance. Those who attend graduate classes in business, communications, or medicine are still taught that Johnson & Johnson executives wrote the book on crisis response with their honesty and unselfishness in responding to an infamous Tylenol poisoning scare in 1982.

Internally, the positive associations with both products has been vital in creating and sustaining unusually strong beliefs amongst the company’s employees that J & J is uniquely ethical and an abiding force for good in the world, faith that paradoxically gives license to lapses that might not otherwise be accepted. Since the 1980s, every new J & J employee has been told soon after their hiring about the company’s response to the 1982 Tylenol poisoning case. The official story is repeated so often within the company that it has become something of a prayer.

Johnson’s Baby Powder and Tylenol have not contributed significantly to J & J’s profits in decades. But their histories remain the company’s defining narratives.

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