Johnson & Johnson Acknowledges Errors in Recalls

William C. Weldon, the chief executive of Johnson & Johnson, is expected to acknowledge to lawmakers on Capitol Hill on Thursday that the company mishandled the removal of certain medicines from store shelves last year. He also planned to announce that after a recall of children’s liquid medicines, new batches would begin to reach stores as early as next week, according to a copy of his prepared testimony submitted to a House committee.

Mr. Weldon was to appear before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, at a time when the congressional investigators and outside inquiries have highlighted some company problems. As Natasha Singer and I reported in a story on Wednesday, the stakes are high.

In his prepared testimony, Mr. Weldon, who missed the committee’s first hearing on the recall because of back surgery, makes the case that he is committed to fixing whatever went wrong at the company’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare unit, which was responsible for the withdrawal of certain products from the marketplace. “Mr. chairman, I know that we let the public down. We did not maintain our high quality standards, and as a result, children do not have access to our important medicines. I accept full accountability for the problems at McNeil, and I will take full accountability for fixing them,” he said.

In the testimony, Mr. Weldon promises consumers will start seeing McNeil liquid children’s products back on the shelves as soon as next week.

Mr. Weldon also offers a mea culpa of sorts about the so-called “phantom recall” of certain vials of Motrin pills, an action taken by an outside contractor that went to convenience stores and bought up the product. That has continued to bother some lawmakers, who first criticized the practice at a May hearing. “Based on what I have learned since the May hearing about the way the Motrin retrieval was handled, including the points that this committee brought to light, it is clear to me that in retrospect, McNeil should have handled things differently. And going forward, if similar situations arise, they will be handled differently,” he says in his testimony.

Colleen A. Goggins, the senior Johnson & Johnson executive who was in charge of all the company’s consumer businesses, will also be making a return performance. Ms. Goggins, who has since announced she is leaving the company, is expected to testify about, among other things, the phantom recall. She pleaded ignorance at the time. “At the time of the hearing in May, I had no personal knowledge of and had not seen the contractor or McNeil instructions. Since then, however, I have reviewed the McNeil instructions to the contractor that instructed the contractor to purchase the product without engaging in discussions with the store personnel. Based on what I have learned since May, I believe that McNeil should have handled things differently. We, as a company, have learned from this process,” she says in a copy of her prepared testimony.

The Weldon statement. The Goggins prepared statement.

If you were sitting on the congressional panel, what questions would you ask the top executives after these recalls?

via prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com

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