Johnson & Johnson's Quality Catastrophe

[n2doc]

After 50-plus product recalls in 15 months, the $60 billion company is fighting to clear its once-trusted name

By David Voreacos, Alex Nussbaum and Greg Farrell

In the split second after the blast, Lance Corporal Cody Perkins thought he was still sitting in his unit's Humvee, enveloped in blinding dust kicked up by the roadside bomb. It was only when he slammed with shattering force onto the pavement that the 20-year-old U.S. Marine realized he'd been ejected from the rolling vehicle and thrown into the air.

Perkins's commanding officer was killed in the November 2005 incident outside Haditha, Iraq, and two other Marines were injured. Perkins came away with scrapes, bruises, and a fractured femur, or thigh bone. After emergency surgery in Iraq, the Mississippi native was transported back to the U.S., where surgeons implanted screws to fuse the broken bone.

That failed, leaving Perkins hobbled. A military surgeon, Dr. Keith Holley, told him that his best option was a so-called metal-on-metal prosthetic hip made by DePuy Orthopaedics, a unit of Johnson & Johnson (JNJ). The new hip was being promoted as tough and durable—and thus perfect for younger, physically active patients like Perkins. On Dec. 13, 2006, Dr. Holley implanted DePuy's ASR XL Acetabular System in the soldier at the Navy Medical Center in San Diego.

Perkins never regained the mobility he had before the injury, but he was able to resume full-time work. By late 2009, however, while he was working as a Marine criminal investigator at California's Camp Pendleton, it started—muscle fatigue at first, which led to shin splints, followed by pain in his hip that radiated up to his back and down to his knees. Soon he was unable to sleep through the night. "It's always uncomfortable," he says. "There's never a completely pain-free day."


more- long but good read

http://www.businessweek.com/print/magazine/content/11_15/b4223064555570.htm

[KoKo]

1. Weldon should have resigned. Sad to see this happen to

a company that had such a good reputation for so long. But, greed and loose regulations have ruined many a company in the past two decades.