Johnson & Johnson | Unibeauty and her Wicked Daughters at UCSC

Beginning in 1886 by pharmacist Robert Wood Johnson with his brothers James Wood Johnson and Edward Mead Johnson
They began by selling sterilizing techniques and surgical dressings
They had two big products in the beginning a book called Modern Methods of Antiseptic Wound Treatment, and a first aid kit that had the company’s cotton gaze in it
These were a hit among people in the industrial and service industries
1894 is when they first started to launch their baby products or their “heritage baby products” including the infamous baby powder
In 1921, they made the Band-Aid, in 1931 they made the first contraceptive pill, and finally in 1944 they became a publicly traded company

The companies that are owned by Johnson & Johnson

Starting in 2013, Johnson & Johnson got into public trouble and dealt with it swiftly when carcinogen formaldehyde was found in the mild baby shampoo
Because of this they vowed to take other chemicals out of their baby care line and other chemicals out of their adult care line, saying that they want to “be responsive to their customers”
In 2013 because of their “transparency” and ability to quickly reformulate their products and show consumers they were listening to their concerns, the groups that blew the whistle on their products turned around and praised them for the change
They did pay a $5 million dollar settlement to people that were affected by the chemicals in the baby shampoo

According to company records, J&J knew about asbestos being in talc since 1950s
It wasn’t until 2020 did they take product off the shelf after 20,000 lawsuits were filed against them
An exposé stated that J&J ramped up media coverage to Black and overweight women for their talc products
June 2021 J&J is ordered to pay 22 million to 22 women because they got ovarian cancer from the products
2022- people find out the J&J had been testing products on incarcerated Black men
In August 2022- talc products are off the shelves globally

There has been a boom in the number of opioids used in the United States
In 199 there were around 20,000 opioid related deaths and in 2021 there were 106,699 opioid related deaths
It wasn’t just Purdue Pharma and Mallinckrodt Pharmaceuticals that are often seen as the leaders of the US opioid crisis, however Johnson & Johnson’s subsidiaries were also at fault

On Tuesday April 4th 2023 Johnson and Johnson agreed to pay 8.9 billion dollars over the next 25 years to settle the talc baby powder lawsuits
The company still denies that these products had chemicals in them or that they knew it had chemicals in them
They filed for bankruptcy after being slapped with 60,000 lawsuits with lawyers stating J&J was using this as a stalling tactic
J&J tried to take this claim to the Supreme Court but were forced to continue with the trial and end the bankruptcy filings
The company has paid 7.4 billion dollars in litigation fees