Introduction The key ethical issues that were presented in this case study were quality control, lack of customer care, responsiveness, and harming the customer. The Johnson and Johnson case may have been seen as a turning point due to many things the company did right. However, there were many ethical issues in this case which will be explored more throughout this paper. Background The situation that was presented to us occurred in September of 1982, where seven people in the Chicago area were killed when they ingested Tylenol, a painkiller produced by Johnson and Johnson. The Tylenol that ended up killing the seven had been laced with cyanide, but the extent of the damage and whether it was internal or external was not known for several weeks. However, upon investigating it was found to have been an external sabotage. In terms of Johnson and Johnson handling the situation, they first pulled all Tylenol for the shelves in the Chicago area before recalling the product nationwide, costing the company over 100 million dollars. Second, Johnson and Johnson found that it was necessary to let doctors, hospitals, and distributors know by explaining the situation and the recall via mailgram messages. Third, the company had created a toll-free phone line …show more content…
They were affected by Johnson and Johnson blatantly not giving them important information related to the case. For example, it was kept secret for a very long time that cyanide was found in one of the company plants. Whether it was related to the cyanide poisoning in the Chicago doesn’t matter, the consumer has the right to know of all the information that has been found throughout the investigation of the case. In relation to Johnson and Johnson, they were putting consumers at risk when they didn’t tell the consumers of the cyanide found in the company plant, which is said to have no relation to the Tylenol contamination according to the