'No industry has been as criminal as the pharmaceutical industry'

Investigative journalist Gardiner Harris explains why he spent five years documenting nine Johnson & Johnson scandals for No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson. He argues that the company’s exceptional public image conceals persistent misconduct, including keeping asbestos-contaminated Baby Powder on the market, promoting drugs and devices despite evidence of harm, and influencing doctors through payments. He estimates that J&J’s role in the opioid crisis, antipsychotic misuse and misuse of cancer-support drug EPO contributed to roughly two million deaths or serious harms, while acknowledging that the precise share attributable to its products is difficult to separate. He also criticizes the $5.5 billion talc settlement: nearly 90,000 claimants may receive only a few thousand dollars each, while their lawyers receive a substantial share.

Harris presents J&J’s record as part of a wider pharmaceutical-industry problem, sustained by lobbying, regulatory dependence, revolving-door conflicts, litigation tactics and pressure on the media. He says U.S. regulators often act too late, and calls for independent review of medicines and devices both before and after approval; he considers Europe’s system better in some respects, but still inadequate. He describes the tension between exposing corporate abuses and fueling distrust of science, especially vaccine denialism. Although he credits J&J with developing lifesaving medicines and once having a strong ethical culture, he sees no clear evidence that the company has changed, and says its celebrated credo has helped employees believe in its virtue despite contrary evidence.