TIME: Almanac 1993/TIME Almanac 1993.iso/time/caps/82/82tylen

Text File | 1992-10-05 | 5.7 KB | 111 lines

                                                                                October 11, 1982 

Cyanide-laced Tylenol

Poison Madness in the Midwest

Seven people die after taking cyanide-laced Tylenol


Adam Janus, 27, had a minor chest pain last Wednesday morning,
so he went out and bought a bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol
capsules. About an hour later in his home in the Chicago suburb
of Arlington Heights, Janus suffered a cardiopulmonary collapse.
He was rushed to Northwest Community Hospital, where doctors
worked frantically to revive him. "Nothing seemed to help," said
Dr. Thomas Kim, chief of the hospital's critical-care unit. "He
suffered sudden death without warning. It was most unusual."

That evening, grief-stricken relatives gathered at Janus' home.
Someone offered to go out for aspirin. No need, said Stanley
Janus, 25, Adam's younger brother, who had noticed a bottle of
Tylenol in the kitchen. He and his wife Theresa, 19, each took
at least one capsule. At 8:15 p.m., five hours after his brother
died, Stanley was pronounced dead. Theresa died on Friday
afternoon.

By week's end at least seven Chicago-area residents had died
under similar circumstances. Each had ingested an Extra-Strength
Tylenol capsule laced with cyanide. Food and Drug Administration
officials suspect that someone unconnected with the manufacturer
tampered with the drug; by their reasoning, the killer bought
Extra-Strength Tylenol over the counter, inserted cyanide in
some of the capsules, then returned the bottles to store
shelves. Illinois Attorney General Tyrone Fahner suggests that
a "a disgruntled employee in the production chain" was the more
likely culprit. Whatever the method and motive, the killer
clearly knew what he was doing. In each case, the red half of
he contaminated capsule was discolored and slightly swollen.
When opened, the capsules emitted the telltale almond odor of
cyanide; the poison was present in quantities thousands of
times the usual fatal dose. Says Police Chief Carl Sostak of
Winfield, Ill., home of one victim:  "Apparently a very
sophisticated and very malicious person is at large who had to
spend a lot of time and a lot of effort on this terrible plan."

Twelve-year-old Mary Kellerman of Elk Grove Village took Extra-
Strength Tylenol to ward off a cold that had been dogging her.
Mary Reiner, 27, of Winfield, who was poisoned on Thursday, had
recently given birth to her fourth child. Paula Prince, 35, a
United Airlines stewardess, was found dead in her Chicago
apartment, an open bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol near by in
the bathroom. Says Dr. Kim: "The victims never had a chance.
Death was certain within minutes."

The link to Tylenol was first noted by two off-duty firemen in
the area who were monitoring their police radios at home.
Philip Cappiteli and Richard Keyworth compared notes over the
telephone and were struck by the fact that the painkiller had
been mentioned in two of the reports. "This is a wild stab, but
maybe it's Tylenol," Keyworth speculated. They mentioned their
hunch to their superiors.

The nation was alerted to the danger of the suspect drug as soon
as the connection was made. Police cruisers, rolling through
Chicago streets Thursday afternoon and evening, blared warnings
over loudspeakers. All three national television networks
carried stories about the contaminated drug on the
Thursday-evening news. On Friday, the FDA belatedly advised
consumers to "avoid in prudence" all bottles of the capsules.
By then it was virtually impossible to obtain Extra-Strength
Tylenol anywhere in the Chicago area or indeed in many locations
around the country. Two Midwestern retail chains, Jewel and
Walgreen, withdrew all bottles of the pain reliever from their
stores.

The publicity caused a nationwide scare. One Chicago hospital
received 700 calls about Tylenol in one day. People in
Pittsburgh, Cleveland and other cities were hospitalized on
suspicion of cyanide poisoning. Dr. William Robertson, director
of the Poison Control Center in Seattle, offered some grim words
of reassurance:  "If it was going to be a lethal dose, you
wouldn't have time to call."

Johnson & Johnson, whose McNeil Consumer Products subsidiary
manufactures the painkiller, immediately recalled bottles with
lot number 1801 MA, MC 2880 or 1910 MD, which were among the
batches found in the victims' homes, and sent out half a million
warning messages to physicians, hospitals and distributors.
McNeil agreed to turn over all of the company's distribution
records to the Illinois department of law enforcement and to
bear the cost of collecting unused and unsold Tylenol, an
expense that could reach into the millions of dollars.

Until now, Tylenol enjoyed a solid reputation and healthy
sales. Analysts estimate that Johnson & Johnson sells between
$300 million and $400 million worth of the analgesic a year. An
$85 million advertising campaign has helped the company increase
its share of the pain-reliever market from 4% to 37% since 1976.
But the cyanide scare may do damage to the company's product.
Says one stockbroker in Chicago:  "The name Tylenol is now
linked with poison in people's minds."

At week's end authorities could only hope that more victims
would not turn up. They were worried, too, that the cyanide
murders would encourage a new, over-the-counter terrorism that
could be aimed at companies or random individuals. Already this
year, someone tampered with eyedrops and nasal sprays sold in
Los Angeles; at least ten people suffered burns, but no one
died. The frightening truth, says FDA Deputy Commissioner Mark
Novitch, is that there is no way to protect the public from
people who do such things.

--By Susan Tifft. Reported by Lee Griggs/Chicago