Johnson & Johnson Has a Long Rap Sheet — Why Should We Trust Its Vaccine? By Richard Gale and Gary Null Ph.D. for Children’s Health Defense
Johnson & Johnson has never made a vaccine, but since entering the pharmaceutical market in 1959, the company has made a lot of headlines — and been fined billions — for bad behavior.
For decades, according to an October 2019 article in The Guardian, “consumers worldwide have named the $347 billion pharmaceutical behemoth Johnson & Johnson (J&J) as one of its most trusted brands.”
From its humble beginnings in the 1880s, making cotton gauze dressings and eventually band aids, baby powder and shampoo, J&J has expanded into one of the most powerful multinational pharmaceutical and medical device companies in the world.
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In 1959, J&J entered the world of Big Pharma as a leading player after succeeding in getting Tylenol approved as an over-the-counter drug. Shortly thereafter, J&J commenced with a flurry of acquisitions to increase its product line, which included Neutrogena, Cordis, DePuy, Janssen Pharmaceutica and Centocor.
Today, in most American home medicine cabinets one will find a popular J&J product: Listerine, Tylenol and Benadryl, Neutrogena skin cream, Rogaine, Neosporin antibacterial ointment or Destin to treat diaper rashes.
Now people are eager for J&J’s “one shot and you’re done” COVID-19 vaccine despite health officials’ fears it may be less effective than Moderna’s and Pfizer’s mRNA competitors.
Vaccination centers and pharmacies are racing to get their hands on the new adenovirus-based vaccine. And as we will further note below, this is from a company that has absolutely no past experience in vaccine development and manufacturing.
We need to seriously challenge J&J’s reputation. A 2019 report by the British intelligence firm Alva has noted that J&J’s reputation has sunk dramatically during the past years, from ninth place among 58 major pharmaceutical firms to 57th place. Certainly, this is not a company with a clean ethical record.
A review of J&J’s rap sheet over the past three decades presents a dire and contrary image that should lead us to question the company’s claims about its COVID-19 vaccine given the lucrative market the pandemic has created for the most aggressive medical corporations.
Similar to its equally over-sized competitors Glaxo, Merck and Pfizer, J&J too has had to pay out billions of dollars over the decades for civil settlements and criminal activities. As the pharmaceutical giant receives applause across the mainstream media for the release and Emergency Use Authorization for its COVID-19 vaccine, Brazil’s Public Prosecution Service started an investigation into J&J’s antitrust activities under the Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) for “possible improper payments in its medical device industry.”
