Finished reading: No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson by Gardiner Harris 📚
I love a good expose on unchecked corporate greed. I’d say I’m not surprised because there are no depths to which unchecked capitalism won’t sink to but there were a few takeaways in this book that shocked me:
- J&J was conducting tests on black prisoners up to at least 1971, that’s nearly 30 years after the Nuremberg Trails!
- I was breathing in asbestos anytime I used J&J baby powder. Years ago I heard that talc was not good for the lungs, but I didn’t realize that all talc has trace amounts of asbestos due to their similar chemical makeup and co-location.
- J&J actively sold unapproved drugs in the optimistic hope that the FDA would approve them and thereby give a retroactive taciturn approval.
- Although Purdue and the Sackler family are the public face of the opioid epidemic; J&J has, outsold Purdue with subsequent opioids running the same marketing playbook that “this time it’s not addictive!” Not only that, but all the opium Purdue used to manufacture their opioids was supplied by… J&J.