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The Tylenol crisis occurred in the autumn of 1982, when seven people in the Chicago area in the United States died after ingesting Extra Strength Tylenol medicine capsules which had been laced with potassium cyanide poison. This incident was the first known case of death caused by deliberate product tampering. The perpetrator has never been caught, but the incident led to reforms in the packaging of over-the-counter substances and to federal anti-tampering laws. At the request of later Chairman Joseph Chiesa, new product consultant Calle & Company rescued the brand with the invention of Tylenol Gelcaps, the first inherently tamper-proof [enrobed]capsule, recapturing the 92% of capsule segment sales lost to product tampering. Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar). ...
Chicagoland is an informal name for the Chicago metropolitan area, used primarily by copywriters, advertising agencies, native residents, and traffic reporters. ...
Each caplet in this bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol contains a 500 mg dose of acetaminophen (paracetamol). ...
Medicine is the science and art of maintaining andor restoring human health through the study, diagnosis, and treatment of patients. ...
Potassium cyanide or KCN is the potassium salt of hydrogen cyanide or hydrocyanic acid. ...
The skull and crossbones symbol (Jolly Roger) traditionally used to label a poisonous substance. ...
Over-the-counter substances, also abbreviated OTC, are drugs and other medical remedies that may be sold without a prescription and without a visit to a medical professional, in contrast to prescription only medicines (POM). ...
The incidents
In the early morning of Wednesday, September 29, 1982, 12-year old Mary Kellerman of Elk Grove Village, Illinois died after taking a capsule of Extra Strength Tylenol. Adam Janus of Arlington Heights, IL died in the hospital shortly thereafter. His brother, Stanley (of Lisle, IL), and his wife Theresa died after gathering to mourn, taking pills from the same bottle. By October 1, 1982, the poisoning had also taken the lives of Paula Prince of Chicago, IL Mary Reiner of Winfield, IL and Mary McFarland of Elmhurst, IL. Investigators soon discovered the Tylenol link. Urgent warnings were broadcast, and police drove through Chicago neighborhoods issuing warnings over loudspeakers. is the 272nd day of the year (273rd in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar). ...
Incorporated Village in 1956. ...
Official language(s) English[1] Capital Springfield Largest city Chicago Largest metro area Chicago Metropolitan Area Area Ranked 25th - Total 57,918 sq mi (149,998 km²) - Width 210 miles (340 km) - Length 390 miles (629 km) - % water 4. ...
Incorporated Village in 1836. ...
Incorporated Village in 1956. ...
is the 274th day of the year (275th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar). ...
Nickname: Motto: Urbs in Horto (Latin: City in a Garden), I Will Location in the Chicago metro area and Illinois Coordinates: , Country State Counties Cook, DuPage Settled 1770s Incorporated March 4, 1837 Government - Mayor Richard M. Daley (D) Area - City 234. ...
Winfield is an incorporated village located in DuPage County, Illinois. ...
Incorporated Village in 1982. ...
As the tampered bottles came from different factories, and the seven deaths had all occurred in the Chicago area, the possibility of sabotage during production was ruled out. Instead, the culprit was believed to have entered various supermarkets and drug stores over a period of weeks, pilfered packages of Tylenol from the shelves, adulterated their contents with solid cyanide compound at another location, and then replaced the bottles. In addition to the five bottles which led to the victims' deaths, three other tampered bottles were discovered. Exterior of a typical British supermarket (a Tesco Extra) Exterior of typical North American supermarket (a Safeway) This Flagship Randalls store in Houston, Texas is an example of an upscale supermarket. ...
Pharmacy (from the Greek φάρμακον = drug) is the profession of compounding and dispensing medication. ...
The cyanide ion, CN−. From the top: 1. ...
Johnson & Johnson, the parent company of McNeil, distributed warnings to hospitals and distributors and halted Tylenol production and advertising. On October 5, 1982, it issued a nationwide recall of Tylenol products; an estimated 31 million bottles were in circulation, with a retail value of over US$100 million. The company also advertised in the national media for individuals not to consume any products that contained Tylenol. When it was determined that only capsules were tampered with, they offered to exchange all Tylenol capsules already purchased by the public with solid tablets. Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is a global American pharmaceutical, medical devices and consumer packaged goods manufacturer founded in 1886. ...
is the 278th day of the year (279th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...
Year 1982 (MCMLXXXII) was a common year starting on Friday (link displays the 1982 Gregorian calendar). ...
Investigation The crime has never been solved, although an opportunistic extortionist with no proven connection to the deaths had made a money demand. This person, one James W. Lewis, was arrested and ended up serving 13 years of a 20-year prison term for the extortion. Extortion is a criminal offense, which occurs when a person either obtains money, property or services from another through coercion or intimidation or threatens one with physical harm unless they are paid money or property. ...
James W. Lewis was convicted of extortion in relation to the 1982 Tylenol scare. ...
A second man, Roger Arnold, was investigated and cleared of the killings. However, the media attention caused him to have a nervous breakdown and he blamed bar owner Marty Sinclair for sending the police his way. He shot and killed a man he believed to be Sinclair, but who was in fact an innocent man who did not know Arnold. Arnold wound up serving 15 years on a 30 year sentence for second degree murder.
A $100,000 reward, posted by Johnson & Johnson for the capture and conviction of the "Tylenol Killer," has never been claimed.
Aftermath Johnson & Johnson was praised by the media at the time for its handling of the incident. While at the time of the scare the market share of Tylenol collapsed from 35% to 8%, it rebounded in less than a year, a move credited to J&J's prompt and aggressive reaction. In November it reintroduced capsules, but in a new, triple-sealed package, coupled with heavy price promotions, and within several years Tylenol had become the most popular over-the-counter analgesic in the US. An analgesic (colloquially known as a painkiller) is any member of the diverse group of drugs used to relieve pain (achieve analgesia). ...
Motto: (Out Of Many, One) (traditional) In God We Trust (1956 to date) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington D.C. Largest city New York City None at federal level (English de facto) Government Federal constitutional republic - President George Walker Bush (R) - Vice President Dick Cheney (R) Independence from...
A number of copycat attacks involving Tylenol and other products (see Stella Nickell for information on the 1986 Excedrin tampering murders) ensued during the following years. One of these incidents occurred in the Chicago area; unlike Tylenol, it actually forced the end of the product affected by the hoax, Encaprin, from Procter & Gamble. However, the incident did inspire the pharmaceutical, food, and consumer product industries to develop tamper-resistant packaging, such as induction seals, and improved quality control methods. Moreover, product tampering was made a federal crime. The term copycat (also written as copy-cat or copy cat) refers to the tendency of humans to duplicate the behavior of others, as expressed in the saying, monkey see, monkey do. ...
Stella Nickell is a Seattle-area woman who was sentenced to 99 years in prison for killing her husband in June 1986 (when she was 42 years old) by lacing his Excedrin capsules with cyanide after buying him life insurance policies amounting to $176,000. ...
Year 1986 (MCMLXXXVI) was a common year starting on Wednesday (link displays 1986 Gregorian calendar). ...
Excedrin is an over-the-counter headache pain reliever, typically in the form of tablets or caplets. ...
Encaprin is a now-defunct brand of ibuprofen-based drug manufactured by Procter & Gamble in the mid-1980s. ...
Procter & Gamble Co. ...
In the field of computer security, system hardware is said to be tamper-resistant if it is difficult to modify or subvert, even for an assailant who has physical access to the system. ...
Induction sealing, otherwise known as cap sealing, is a non-contact method of heating a metallic disk to hermetically seal the top of plastic and glass containers. ...
For the Jurassic 5 album, see Quality Control (album) In engineering and manufacturing, quality control and quality engineering are involved in developing systems to ensure products or services are designed and produced to meet or exceed customer requirements. ...
Additionally, the tragedy prompted the pharmaceutical industry to move away from capsules, which were easy to contaminate as a foreign substance could be placed inside without obvious signs of tampering. Within the year, the Food and Drug Administration introduced more stringent regulations to avoid product tampering. This led to the eventual replacement of the capsule with the solid "caplet", a tablet made in the shape of a capsule, as a drug delivery form and to the addition of tamper-evident safety-seals to bottles of many sorts. hi “FDA†redirects here. ...
Tamper-evident devices are ones designed to make it easy to see whether they have been altered. ...
In pop culture The Tylenol crisis has been referenced in many films and books. It has also been used as a basis to spread urban legends about poison in kids' candy at Halloween[citation needed] and other poisoned foods or drinks purchased by consumers. An urban legend or urban myth is similar to a modern folklore consisting of stories often thought to be factual by those circulating them. ...
Halloween, or Halloween, is a holiday celebrated on the night of October 31, most notably by children, who, in a tradition commonly known as trick-or-treating, dress in costumes and go door-to-door to collect sweets, fruit, and other gifts. ...
In the 1999 film The Insider, Russell Crowe's character, Jeffrey Wigand, explains the incident to Al Pacino’s character while discussing Johnson & Johnson's corporate responsibility and contrasting that with the seeming non-existence of social responsibility of his current employer, a large tobacco company, Brown and Williamson. The Insider is a 1999 film which tells the true story of a 60 Minutes television series exposé of the tobacco industry, as seen through the eyes of a real tobacco executive, Jeffrey Wigand. ...
Russell Ira Crowe (born April 7, 1964) is a New Zealand-Australian[1] actor. ...
Dr. Jeffrey Wigand (born December 17, 1942, New York City) was vice president of research and development at Brown & Williamson in Louisville, Kentucky and currently resides in Mt. ...
Alfredo James Pacino (born April 25, 1940) is a renowned and influential Academy Award, four time Golden Globe, AFI, two time BAFTA, Emmy Award, and two time Tony Award-winning American stage and film actor who played such iconic roles as Michael Corleone in The Godfather Trilogy and Tony Montana...
Johnson & Johnson (NYSE: JNJ) is a global American pharmaceutical, medical devices and consumer packaged goods manufacturer founded in 1886. ...
Brown & Williamson is an American tobacco company, which produces cigarette brands. ...
The incident was alluded to in the "Last Laugh" episode of CSI: Crime Scene Investigation in which the team investigates two deaths caused by drinking water from bottles which have been tampered with. Last Laugh is the twentieth episode in the third season of the popular American forensic crime drama CSI: Crime Scene Investigation, which is set in Las Vegas, Nevada. ...
CSI: Crime Scene Investigation is a popular Alliance Atlantis/CBS police procedural television series, running since October 2000, about a team of forensic scientists. ...
The incident was also alluded to in an episode of Numb3rs called "Toxin," in which over-the-counter medicines made by a leading pharmaceutical company were poisoned by a disgruntled former employee. The poison used was a drug called Primalect. Numb3rs (also capitalized as NUMB3RS and pronounced as Numbers) is an American television show produced by brothers Ridley Scott and Tony Scott. ...
In the Thomas Harris novel Silence of the Lambs, Jack Crawford mentions the Tylenol crisis, saying "I have to retire in two years. If I find Jimmy Hoffa and the Tylenol Killer, I'll still have to hang it up." This article is about the author Thomas Harris. ...
This article does not cite any references or sources. ...
For other uses, see Hoffa (disambiguation). ...
In George Carlin's special Carlin on Campus, he mentions the incident, noting, "I'd rather have a headache. At least you figure maybe the headache will go away. That cyanide stuff hangs on." George Dennis Carlin (born May 12, 1937 in New York, New York)[2] is a Grammy-winning American stand-up comedian, actor, and author. ...
Carlin on Campus ( 1984) Carlin on Campus is the fourth HBO special by American comedian George Carlin recorded April 18-19, 1984. ...
It was also mentioned in an episode of Vh1's I Love The 80's. Two of the comedians joked that the Bayer company might have tampered with the bottles.
See also In the field of computer security, system hardware is said to be tamper-resistant if it is difficult to modify or subvert, even for an assailant who has physical access to the system. ...
Tamper-evident devices are ones designed to make it easy to see whether they have been altered. ...
Packaging is the enclosing of a physical object, typically a product that will be offered for sale. ...
Further reading - Wolnik KA, Fricke FL, Bonnin E, Gaston CM, Satzger RD. The Tylenol tampering incident--tracing the source. Anal Chem 1984;56:466A-8A, 470A, 474A. PMID 6711821
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