TIME: Almanac 1990/1990 Time Magazine Compact Almanac, The (1991)(Time).iso/time/caps/82/82tylen

Text File | 1990-10-10 | 6KB | 105 lines

Cyanide-laced Tylenol
Poison Madness in the Midwest

October 11, 1982

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