No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson

Content Warning: This section of the guide includes discussion of mental illness.

Gardiner Harris opens with an anecdote describing how he first became interested in unethical and illegal activities at Johnson & Johnson (J&J), a major American pharmaceuticals, home care, and medical device conglomerate. In March 2004, Harris was at a bar at Chicago O’Hare Airport when he began talking with a woman who worked as a “pharmaceutical sales rep for Janssen, Johnson & Johnson’s biggest drug unit” (xi). The sales rep told Harris that she had recommended her sister take her son, the rep’s nephew, to a psychologist to whom she had sold Risperdal, a medication for schizophrenia, in order to address his behavioral issues. 

The drug rep was shocked how quickly the psychiatrist put her nephew on Risperdal and her nephew’s resulting weight gain. She realized that the company’s claims that the drug did not cause diabetes or metabolic problems were false. The drug rep felt “sick” at how much she had pushed the drug to the psychiatrist to use in children’s treatment, even though it was not approved for children. The drug rep had resolved to quit.