The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson

About this book

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 J & J’s image as the child-friendly ‘baby company’, uncovering reams of evidence showing decades of dangerous corporate practices that have threatened the lives of millions. He explores multiple disasters: cover-ups regarding the linkage between Johnson’s Baby Powder to cancer, the surprising dangers of Tylenol, a campaign to sell antipsychotics that are alleged to have cost countless lives, a popular drug used to support cancer patients that studies have shown to actually increase the risk of cancerous tumours and questionable marketing that accelerated opioid addictions through a product that rivals even those of the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma. Filled with shocking and infuriating but utterly necessary revelations, The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson is a landmark work of investigative journalism that lays bare the deep-rooted corruption behind the image of babies bathing with a smile.