After looking at other people’s research such as plane recalls, vehicle disasters, fraud, and other things, I chose the incident that happened in 1982 which was the Tylenol Recall (Stockton, 2016). In the northern Illinois area in the summer of 1982, reports started to escalate about cyanide poisoning from Tylenol pain-reliever pills where adults and children suddenly started dying. The authorities said that the poison came from an Extra Strength Tylenol bottle which is the most common pain reliever in the country during that time. According to Stockton, an unknown poisoner took the medicines off the shelves and contaminated them with potassium cyanide, and returned the bottles back on the shelves (Stockton, 2016).

Johnson & Johnson, who was the parent company for Tylenol, acted immediately by preventing any retailers from selling their Tylenol bottles for safety purposes. The company recalled 31 million bottles of Tylenol products which estimated at roughly $100 million (Stockton, 2016). Johnson & Johnson came up with a new design for their medicine bottles which is a tamper-proof bottle to prevent any tampering on their products. Due to this incident, Johnson & Johnson’s share price with Tylenol tremendously decreased because of the number of deaths reported and the number of recall bottles. However, their immediate actions helped them solve the problem and prevented any more deaths, which caused the company to rise back from the dead after several months and even surpassed their pre-recall price by the end of 1983. According to Stockton, Johnson & Johnson company pointed out that while bad things can happen to good companies, the damage can be controlled with a quick response and obvious good-faith efforts to protect customers (Stockton, 2016).

Link:

https://allthatsinteresting.com/worst-product-recalls

References

Stockton, Richard. 2016. Three Massive Product Recalls, and The Chilling Circumstances Behind Them. April 11. Accessed June 29, 2019. https://allthatsinteresting.com/worst-product-recalls.