Still Unsolved: The Tylenol Poisonings 1982 | True Crime Documentary | Plainly Difficult
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 30 ก.ค. 2024
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During September and October 1982 Seven people would unknowingly consume Tylenol tampered with Cyanide, The Perpetrator would never be caught.....
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00:00 Intro
01:52 An Innocent Looking Bottle
04:47 A Deadly Few Days
09:47 The Letter
16:47 Aftermath
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Have anymore suggestions for videos let me know below👇
Are you doing a video on mRNA Gene Transfection Therapies and their side effects?
Hey John. I never knew abt this. I'm Aussie. Pls can you do a video on the baby food poisoning in Australia. I'm not sure if any baby's died. But parents were terriyifed. Thanks. 🎉🎉Brilliant
I rememeber a Met police officer tampered with heinz baby food in 1989 by adding glass, metal, bleach.
I believe it was this case that led to tamper Proof packaging becoming a legal requirement for food in the UK.
Hepatitis C outbreak in Exeter Hospital (Exeter, New Hampshire) in 2012, attributable to David M. Kwiatkowski, a traveling radiology technician, who was - in the parlance - diverting drugs for his own use. I'm still marveling all these years later at how he was even able to get his hands on that stuff, to be honest (I work in a medical lab, and the only time I see anything like this is when a nurse messes up and sends drugs back to us instead of the pharmacy - an instant write-up offense (they're supposed to walk drugs down to the pharmacy for just this reason; and, no, I'm not employed by Exeter Hospital).
The Enschede Firework Disaster (2000, Netherlands) could be interesting.
The Bijlmerramp (1992, Netherlands) has an interesting aftermath with some unreported cargo being involved
On a related note, people who crack open packages so they can look at what’s inside and then stick them back on the shelf drive me nuts. At my job we end up throwing out so much stuff because people can’t keep their grubby fingers to themselves. It actually bugs me more than when someone outright steals something because at least then maybe it’ll get used. Instead it’s going to end up in a landfill somewhere because nobody is going to want to buy something that may or may not have been tampered with. It’s so wasteful
Or the next person doesn't notice and has to bring it back for an exchange.
I bought a little tub of face moisturizer some months ago and when I got home and opened it there was a finger swipe in it. 😒 Makes me so mad
Theres also some brands that out right don't even seal their packages which scares me I found some cool themed pimple patches at Walmart and they were a good price and I bought them cause they didn't look tampered with go home and realized the package wasn't sealed so I took it back and turns out all the packages by that brand were like that so I told the customer service person who was helping me that none where safely sealed. Its scarey to think that some companies risk poor reputation and safety of the consumers by doing that sorta thing
What drives me even more insane is store staff who just tape shut such opened packages and sell them to unsuspecting customers...
I've seen it happen, most store owners seem to think nothing of it.
Yup, I bought Maybelline CC cream from Walmart, I unscrewed the cap and the seal that usually is on the tube was removed. I was pretty disappointed because I bought it on sale
Can't feel pain if you're dead. Product as described [✓]
One way to think of it
@@PlainlyDifficult Don't worry, just some dark humour.
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Lol!
I remember a rather bizarre result from the Tylenol murders. A lion at the Philadelphia Zoo was sponsored by J&J and had been named “Tylenol”. The big cat was quickly given a new name after the murders.
probably for the best. tylenol is such an undignified name for such an amazing animal 😂
@@illogicalGhost They renamed the Lion “Motrin”. Not much better
At least a Tylenol lion was expected to be deadly...
..... That is sure one marketing campaign. When the controversy happened, did they rename him? Advil sounds like a good, masculine name.
Johnson and Johnson's response to this tragedy was immediate, far reaching, and focused on mourning those who died and doing everything in their power to be sure it never happened again. To this day it's considered the perfect response from an industry leader to situations like this.
I was a senior in high school when this happened and it was equal parts scary and fascinating to see the whole thing play out. Strangely, I still tend to choose pills over capsules if that's an option, and I assume it's from this case.
For those who are a bit younger and think the Halloween candy scares came about at the same time, those actually started much earlier (although the Tylenol scare triggered increased fears), in the 1960s our parents would throw away apples given as Halloween treats because of some random and far-reaching urban legend about kids being cut badly by razor blades which were hidden inside. In the early 1970s many local hospitals offered to x-ray bags of Halloween candy to ensure no foreign objects were present. Crazy stuff since no actual cases of this ever were documented.
Really shows what happens when a company doesn't try to shirk and hide and instead puts the public first. On the capsule side I don't think you can find any true capsules over the counter anymore. They're all gellcaps which are basically a hard pill covered in gelatin to make it slippery like a capsule, but with no ability to pull it apart and tamper with the internal contents. I think the only time I've ever had a real capsule was for a pharmacy filled prescription of amoxicillin
I remember my mom checking my candy haul in the 70s. Sad thing was, the few kids who were poisoned were poisoned by their own families.
Yeah, the fear of lawsuits and losing money will do that.
Dont think for a second that they give a fuck about their customers
I was 9 in 1982 and that was the first Halloween where we got lectured about people possibly doing bad things to our candy haul. Granted, I lived in a small town where everyone knew each other, but after that year there was always the worry about something bad happening.
There is a case of a mother putting a razor blade in an apple from her kids haul.
I don’t quite recall the whole story, but I think it was a money grab/publicity stunt.
Because of this, on Halloween 1982 my parents did not allow me to go Trick or Treat, but instead they bought candy for me and a friend (which they inspected thoroughly), then turned us loose, dressed in our costumes, on a local arcade. Then we went for pizza. Best Halloween night ever.
Now that's parenting.
@@Calvin_Coolage I’m sure they were bored to tears but it made them feel much better to be in control of our night. I’m sort of shy and I don’t like asking strange people for stuff so it was a relief for me to ditch trick or treating. I had a freaking blast even though I knew the reason why the grownups were upset.
@@ladyrazorsharp I was less shy as a kid so trick or treating was a blast. I'm still convinced the whole checking candy thing was a trick for most parents to dip into their kids' candy haul. Damn freeloaders.
Wow my mom used to pop corn and serve it to trick or treaters in small bags. We also took fruit, cake, etc . This was in the early 70's tho your mileage may vary
@Calvin_Coolage I'm confessing, I did do it, I wanted those twizzlers!!! Lol lol
I really like the fact that you’re covering other disasters/mysteries. You could talk about ANY event/accident/murder/mystery and I’d enjoy it. It’s your approach, your sense of humour and your humanity. ❤
What Bee said! I'm always happy when a new video from you pops up 😁
I agree with both of you! I get so happy when I get the notification!
Be quiet please 🙏
100% agreed haha. My fav YT personality these days
Being born in '84 I've always been floored by the fact that there was ever a time that OTC medications, foods, etc., WEREN'T sealed and tamper-evident. My 75yo mother always said "People just didn't DO things like that Tylenol thing before then."
Maybe not _poison,_ but you will never convince me that nothing ever got fucked around with before safety seals. You just didn't know it.
It’s crazy isn’t it
people have been tainted by modern parenting.
@@threestans9096eeing as how this happened in the early '80s it isn't exactly "modern" parenting.
(Edited because I realized I got the year wrong as soon as I posted.)
Oh tampering with products goes back a very long way. Not in the intentionally killing ppl kind of way, usually adulterating products for financial reasons but also doing it just because they think it's funny. After all, that's what started the TikTok trend - doing it because they thought it was funny (and it got them views).
But when I was a cashier at a gas station, I can say that we would regularly find products that had been opened and had a bite or a drink taken before someone put it back or just left it on the shelf. There were also plenty of times where someone had just opened it and no visible tampering had occurred. We just pitched the stuff anyway and wrote it off.
I've been rather disturbed lately with the number of soda pop bottles that I've gotten in 6 packs where the ring doesn't separate from the lid when I open it. Clearly Pepsi has been getting lazy.
Oh, they absolutely tampered with things
even more so back before pre-packaged items were a thing
Growing up, my parents made it a point that everything consumable we bought had to have an intact safety seal. I'm close to 40 and I still take safety seals very seriously specifically because this case comes to mind. Even if it's obvious the seal was disrupted unintentionally we either return the item or toss it. We don't buy ice cream that doesn't have a seal because for some reason the ice cream industry has refused to catch up by simply sealing the cartons.
same. When I first heard about this as a kid, I started looking for safety seals on products. Ice cream was the big one that stuck out to me because only the store brand generic stuff was consistently safety sealed. As of a few years ago, the only brand in our stores that is still unsealed is Bluebell... And they still aren't sealed. Despite that prank being literally named "The Bluebell-Licker". Bluebell does not care.
@@Pantology_Enthusiast Ben & Jerry's has a safety seal
I'm pretty sure this is a normal thing that everyone does. I've never met someone who wouldn't notice a broken seal or someone who would use it anyway. That's kind of the whole point.
Cardboard tubs here in the UK have a plastic cover under the lid; plastic tubs have something you need to snap to open them. I'm not sure why this isn't applied globally.
@@nerdygoth6905 Same in the EU. I dont remember since when, but its been many years, a couple of decades at least. In fact, we have regulations about product seals all around, not just icecream or medicins.
Fun fact: this case (more specifically Johnson & Johnsons response and action) gets taught or at least mentioned in public relation and crisis communication classes ALLLL the time, is used as a case study and is in textbooks as a basically perfect example of crisis communication and management.
I was only a child when this happened and kids, in general, don't always understand the significance or magnitude of certain incidents.
But even at 7 years old I remember my parents losing their minds over this. Everything changed, especially candy at Halloween. We weren't allowed to touch the candy we collected until it was checked by mom or dad. We weren't allowed to eat the mints at restaurants, use their toothpicks or anything else that used to be considered a small treat during an outing.
It was a really weird and very scary time to live in Chicago.
I can imagine
Same. It changed so much.
After this, as I recall, there was the pixy stix thing... And it went next level. I always assumed this was a copycat of sorts but nobody really knows what the deal was. It just kinda quietly "went away" over time and never seemed to repeat in the same form.
You'd think cyanide would be easier to trace, as it isn't friendly stuff at all, is pretty controlled, and doesn't "just form" in "kitchen conditions", so takes a little effort to get ahold of. But I guess it is a commonly enough used compound that it's still just that hard to trace 🤷♂️
I was a little older. Didn't live in Chicago, but it affected us. Everyone was talking about it and it did cause a nation wide butt pucker. I remember it being on the news a lot. I understand the need for safety seals on medicine, and food, but nearly everything is wrapped in at least one layer plastic, or that horrible clam shell packaging that can injure you just trying to open it.
Wasn't much better here in PA, between real stuff like this and parents/teachers flipping out over things that turned out to be urban legends it was crazy but I still miss the 80s.
Man you and I are the exact same age and have had the same experience. The Halloween candy thing still sticks in my mind today and I think of it every year when my kids go out. I’m glad of the caution it’s given me though. While I feel humanity is generally “good”, it doesn’t take many to make a large and tainted influence .
We've just had an issue here in Japan similar to the ice-cream licking. People were going to kaiten-zushi restaurants (those sushi restaurants where they send you your order on a conveyor belt) and tampering the orders for other customers as they trundled on by. Adding a ton of wasabi where people couldn't see, etc.
Pretty horrid thing to do
Unit 731… nothing messed up the Japanese do surprises me. Junko’s murder… Japan is a messed up place.
This is why we can't have nice things.
@@van3158 interesting stretch to go from people adding more wasabi to people's meal and unit 731 lol...
Also you say junko's murder? just look at the murder of jenny ertman and elizabeth pena in texas 1993, people are fucked up, and that's not limited to just japan..
As mean-spirited as secret spicy sushi is it's far less rancid than some jackass contaminating perfectly good ice cream with their nasty tongues for TikTok clout.
I was working at a medical supply company when this took place. People were majorly freaked out. We lost a little bit of business but manufacturers were pretty quick to adopt tamper-proof packaging.
I had a friend who took a single Tylenol 3 for a migraine and he never woke up... It was just plain Tylenol 3 but he had some sort of extreme reaction to the codeine. His parents were the ones who gave him the Tylenol 3, they're practically shells of their former selves now
Very Sad if no one knew he was allergic it was just very bad luck , Noone could have prevented it , ER did a storyline where a young man died after being given penicillin , he didn't know he was allergic either and died .
@@sarahudson108 Some deaths that may seem like allergies are not allergies, but the individuals have rare genetic mutations that make them "ultra-rapid metabolizers" of the substance, especially in children.
@@sarahudson108 I almost died in surgery because of a painkiller they gave me. I have no memory of it, but they said I was nearly gone. Woulda died in my sleep and never knew it was happening.
@@goosewithagibus Wow glad you are ok now , things can happen so quick , at least it is in your medical records so it can't happen again, lots of people get medi alert bracelets if they are unconscious , so doctors know not to give them things like penicillin , of the have allergies.
My parents found out I was allergic to Codeine when I was a few months old, went blue head to toe... gladly was not very far from a hospital.... I'm glad to be alive today!
Even to this day Tylenol tends to be more fastidiously sealed than other brands of OTC pills, including even other Johnson & Johnson brands like Motrin (their brand of ibuprofen). It always has both a neck seal to keep the cap on, and a foil seal inside, and it almost always comes in a glued box. A lot of other brands will only have 2 out of 3. I always assume the extra caution for Tylenol is a legacy of it being the brand most associated with the need for secure packaging.
Lawyers would rip them appart if it happened again.
I still find the concept of bottles of OTC pills weird. Were I live (UK) basically all OTC pills come in sealed boxes (glued) in plastic individually sealed strips.
@@cgi2002 just a guess: the bottles are part of the "child proofing" requirements.
Can't child proof the strips.
@@ricardokowalski1579 possibly, the US does have alot of child proofing rules the rest of the world doesn't. Except with their plug sockets, those things are fork magnets, ours atleast require the child to bend the fork in a really specific way to stab it in, and if they can do that, they are unlikely to try it.
@@cgi2002 yes. Those sockets are terrible
Regards 👍
This happened when I was a wee child. I barely remember the time before nearly all our products come in tamper-proof containers, but trust in Tylenol certainly rebounded quite quickly after this happened. I think the fact they made such a swift response and their design work for the tamper-proofing certainly helped.
J&J recalled all Tylenol capsules ASAP and ate the cost themselves. That went a long ways towards reassuring customers that they prioritized the public's safety over their bottom line. So contrary to expectation, confidence in their brand was higher a year later than before the poisonings. It's now taught in business schools as an example of the proper way to respond to a publicity disaster.
@@jonp3890 It was only a matter of time, soon dinosaurs will rule the world once again!
This is absolutely bizarre, I was just talking about this exact thing after she asked why medicines have so many seals. What a weird time for you to talk about this!
Great minds and all that!
@@PlainlyDifficult❤️
I was just researching what the safe daily limit is for acetaminophen literally a few minutes before I got the notification for this video. lol
I was a kid when it happened but I remember seemingly overnight every item you could imagine had some kind of tamper proof seal on it!
Seals are a good idea not just to prevent tampering, but to keep small children/toddlers/animals from getting into it. Just because it’s over the counter doesn’t mean it’s safe for pets or that toddlers won’t accidentally ingest it. Someone I know recently lost their cat to an accidental ingestion of ibuprofen, it was really tragic.
One of the later "copycat" poisonings was indeed solved, and the story is quite bizarre, and worth its own video. There was a _Law & Order: Criminal Intent_ episode, entitled simply "Poison", based on it.
Agree with the legacy scale rating. There's not a lot of items you can buy in the grocery store that don't have some type of seal that would be very hard to put back once you opened it.
I was a teenager when this was happening. The rapid adoption of tamper resistant containers in a variety of food and drug packaging Is what stands out the most for me.
I was a child when this happened and, yeah, I remember how much everything changed overnight. It wasn't until I went back to school to finish my undergrad degree in 2008-2010 that I learned in my chemistry 101 class that the murders were still unsolved.
To this day, I check for anything I buy to make sure it's sealed. This case was before I was born, too. It was just engrained in us by our parents to look.
I was a young child when this happened, and I remember my mother checking the safety seals on everything she bought very carefully around and after this time. Very scary stuff indeed.
When I worked at a gas station, there was a kid who came in and grabbed a Gatorade from the cooler, opened it and took a drink, and then put it back. He didn't realize the person in the kitchen saw him do it until she confronted him about it.
But when straightening the shelves and pulling product forward, we'd find drinks that had been opened all the time. That more than anything else has me checking the seals before opening products.
One thing I didn't hear (and don't see anyone else mentioning) is that this happened as doctors were starting to warn parents about Reye syndrome, at least here in the US. Reye is a really severe disease that can happen when a child takes aspirin while sick with chicken pox. Tylenol was a very commonly suggested substitute, and (at least in my family) was seen as much safer to give to children. So not only were these poisonings terrible, in general, but they caused particular anxiety to parents of young children.
It made the girl's death that much sadder.
They just have children ibuprofen instead of aspirin or Tylenol
@@drdrew3 Ibuprofen was only available by prescription in 1982.
I was going to HS in the Chicago suburbs when this happened. I remember how it went from 3 to 4 to 5....deaths. We actually had a bottle of Tylenol capsules around, my mom pitched them out as soon as it was tied to them. I doubt it was any danger since we'd had the bottle for a few months already.
My grandmother overheard this while I was watching this and she was like 🤯 the memories, and just spilled a whole story of it to me 😂. Love times like that
How aren't you more shocked than that
I work in pharma manufacturing (though we don't make Tylenol) and this story is told in training to all employees as a lesson in why tamper evident seals are important as well as other cGMPs that are done during manufacturing (labels are tightly regulated, for example, so someone couldn't steal some and put it on fake product).
So obviously a company were prefer not to kill their sources of revenue but what security is at your plant that ensures workers dont contaminate the product?
Both accidental and DELIBERATE.
@@edwelndiobel1567 There are cameras everywhere, for one. Also lots of QA testing, both during production and after. If a tamper evident seal isn't present or has been broken then an investigation is performed. If QA testing fails an investigation is performed. And product isn't released to the public if there is an open investigation. We also do reconciliation on each batch and lab samples which would catch if someone tried to take product home and alter it there. Can we always do better? Of course. But the cGMPs in place are miles better than things were in 1982.
I'm not sure how you'd "accidentally" add cyanide to a pharmaceutical product. That's just not something that happens accidentally.
@@edwelndiobel1567 calm down, production is followed by other professionals, as well as such technical products are manufactured in closed environments with no human interaction needed.
Perfect and scary timing - I've been in bed with the flu all week, and had just taken a couple of extra-strength Tylenol to lower my fever before I made my weekly check on what disaster PD had served up for us this week! Thanks, John, for reminding me of one of the most frightening random murder sprees in crime history!
I was a brand new nurse in Sept 1982 working in suburban Chicago. This event freaked most of my co-workers and myself when we had to give a patient Tylenol. The hospital I worked at took photos of all the boxed up Tylenol from the Pharmacy that were to be destroyed and posted the photos on every unit. For a time, we only gave Tylenol by the rectal method.
Lol in the bum
I was too young when this happened to understand it all, but my parents always stressed the need to check seals. Because of that, I started seeing what seals I could circumvent; it's a lot of them. And I'm not talking about things where you use a bunch of tools and painstakingly open something, I'm just talking about things you can do with just your hands. Slipping seals off packaging and then back on is surprisingly easy in a lot of cases. That said, medicine is the exception.
I remember when this happened. Prior to this it was actually easy to open the bottles. I didn't realize it was unsolved.
I can imagine pretty scary
The "child proof" lids are the result of kids getting into medications, not this case. And I put "child proof" in quotes because most kids can figure out how to open them anyway and I've seen a lot of adults (mostly Boomers who were adults when the lids were introduced) struggle to open them. Mom actually handed the medicine bottles to me or my brother to open them because she could never get them open.
@@SadisticSenpai61 I feel like everyone knows they don't work at this point. Personally I figured them out at about three or maybe four, which was way too young to be trusted with medication. :')
@@SadisticSenpai61 Even worse is that the child proof lids aren't even dog proof. I don't mean that a dog ate the bottle to open it or anything either. My dog straight up managed to open a bottle of her vitamins while I was stuck on the toilet watching. She ate maybe 4 of them max and they weren't made with anything that could be over dosed on thankfully.
They were just vitamins to help prevent inflammation that may or may not work. Very simple and safe ingredients only
they found and convicted the guy, they just couldn't prove it...
It's largely from this incident that we got tamper proof packaging.
Thankfully!!
I have a relative who works at Johnson & Johnson, and the poisonings still cast a long shadow at her workplace (she started working there after poisonings). Great video, as always, Plainly Difficult ❤❤
Yeah they had a huge recall and were on top of it.
We studied it in one of my business management classes in college.
In Eastern Europe, up until 1998 or so they were still selling paracetamol pills in similar bottles, just a press fit similar to photo film containers and some cotton balls on top. Easy to tamper with. Recently they all moved to blister packs or at least a foil seal on top of the bottles.
Even though I was a kid at the time I still remember when this happened and when nothing was tamper proof. It was absolutely terrifying for everybody and not just those in Chicago, because nobody knew what else or where else the poisoning may have occurred. The aftermath of the Tylenol deaths, affected all of our lives and will continue to do so. Thanks for another great video!
This situation was used as a case study in my Ethics class in Uni. J&J handled this like a true master.
The company immediately responded with help with the investigation, unlike a recent rail company I won't name. J&J also took responsibility to ensure that this could never happen again with their products, from the 3 seal bottles to the way they securely close the capsules and have the company name and info printed on the tablets themselves. I am old enough to remember before the Tylenol murders/poisonings as well as the after. I don't think the preparator intended on being the cause of a worldwide industry change, but here we are. 😊
Thanks for helping me explain to my children why their poor, arthritic mother can no longer easily open medication bottles. Love your work!
Happy to help
"What would you think if I said taking a painkiller would actually kill you?"
Are you calling me a pain?
😂
Damn it, got beaten to the punch. Bravo my dude.
I remember the empty shelves in 1982 at the local grocery stores.
I can imagine pretty terrifying!
I was in high school when this happened. It really changed how people looked at the products they purchased, and not just with medicine.
I grew up (and still live) a couple of hours drive west of Chicago and vividly remember this event. Both at home and at school we were taught that you never eat or drink anything with packaging that appears to have been tampered with in any way. It really did change the way lots of things, not just OTC medications, were packaged.
I'm pretty sure my parents swore off ever taking any OTC medication that was in capsule form for decades afterwards. Even today they're still a bit leery of taking even prescribed medications in capsule form.
I was in high-school in the Chicago land area when this happened, and it was indeed big news and scary. Younger folks today know only of over the counter medication with child resistant and sealed bottles, and this case is the reason for that.
I think the 80's being 40 years ago is just as scary.
Yes, scarier than this.
I was 9 when this happened. It was right before Halloween & it eviscerated trick or treating for years after. The cool thing that came about was that instead of trick or treating that year my parent’s let me have a party & a bunch of kids, who wouldn’t normally, came to my house.
Every chapter ended so abruptly that I thought my phone died or my AirPods disconnected, cmon man😂anyway great work on the video 👍🏽
Paracetamol
Yes it's very interesting but then all of a sudden
Anti climactic
I was only a child but I remember this one, the copycats were terrible, people put acid in eye drops, ground glass… it was shocking. I love your work, have you ever looked at the Granville Train disaster in Sydney? A guy my dad worked with was in it, he got out, got a cab to work and never spoke about it except when they asked him why he was 2 hours late to work that day.
It confused me so much when I found out that paracetamol and acetaminophen are the same thing. I am already dreading needing to relearn all these medication names.
Great video, btw, I was a little surprised you hadn't done one on this incident yet.
Acetaminophen is mostly American. Like in UK we call it adrenaline, but Americans call it epinephrine.
IIRC most generic names are the same, it's just a few exceptions like acetaminophen/paracetamol and albuterol/salbutamol that exist.
@@the_once-and-future_king. I know, I just didn't know the names were different until a few years ago and it's a lot to relearn.
@@EJAnonymus That's a relief. In that case, I may have just had bad luck running into those exceptions first.
@@StellaDraco Part of why that probably happens is that a drug having the same generic name just isn't very notable, so people aren't going to call attention to it.
Doing a quick search it appears mostly it's older drugs (before international standardization), and also many I saw in a slightly longer list were just spelling differences that are still mutually intelligible, especially if you know to expect them, and another group can be described as "same root, different name building convention".
Overall it looks pretty manageable to learn, if minorly frustrating to be a thing.
I knew that this was why medicines are tamper proof but didn’t realise it was still unsolved. Glad we now have safer packaging, and in some places limits on how much you can buy (good for prevention of accidental/intentional OD)
My mom went to school with Mary Kellerman. She tells me the story of how kids were called out of class one by one after their parents called scared about tylenol they had sent in their backpacks asking them to collect the pills from them.
So weird, I just happened to be thinking today about whether I was born before things were “sealed for your safety.” I’m from Chicago and was born in 1982; I remember people taking about this through the 80s/90s when I was a kid.
My mom used to tell me about this all the time as a kid in the 80's. Now I see why!
Scary stuff isn’t it
@@PlainlyDifficult indeed. Anxiety can no longer rule my life
I TOTALLY Remember this incident!!
I was in my young teens when this was going down, and my Mom was having a terrible headache and was getting to get Tylenol meds, when I yelled out, "...MOM, Don't, it could be poisoned!!!" She didn't hear of the news of the warnings being placed on the news. She actually kept the bottle of the OLD Product and compared it to the NEW Product, seemed pretty secured...
As for her headache that moment, well she got 'Bayer' meds and has been using that, Until 'Advil' came out then we would ALWAYS use 'Advil'. Point being --> Since the tampering issue, we Never went back to 'Tyenol', it is Not even found in this person med cabinet, nor my other siblings family.......What A Change!!!
Well done. Yeah as an oldie I was in my late teens during this crisis. It changed everything in packaging of so many things. John you are the best.
I vividly remember when I was a kid when this happened. My grandfather owned a grocery store and when he heard the news from his suppliers giving him a call and asking him to pull all the Johnson and Johnson Tylenol he had and if he had a list of sales to call those who bought Tylenol within the past week. It certainly was a innocent time back then you never would imagine something like this happening.
I have had health problems all my life, my dad too had his share. I clearly remember this happening from our Ling Island NY home. Watching the TV news and my mom bugging out when the guy was bagged in NYC....
Another awesome video!
I was less than a year old when this happened. It's hard to believe that it's been so long and that no one has been brought to justice.
J & J handled it exactly as they should have.
I love that we always get a weather update for London at the end of every video.
I like how this channel is branching out to other things instead of disasters and stuff love your format dude
That ice-cream licking scandal was also simply something foreign: I've never seen an un-sealed tub of ice cream ever unless it was filled manually for myself at the parlor.
That one was gross. You're not going to notice the missing seal until you pull it from your freezer at home, and that's only if you live alone or dive in quickly. If you do notice, enough time will have passed that the store wouldn't replace it.
Right? I've never seen an ice cream tub without the plastic seal around the container's lid. Is it just some brands that don't have that plastic? Where I live, you have to cut off that plastic before you can open the tub.
Plastic tubs have tamper proof tabs that need to broken but the more 'gourmet' brands at the supermarkets in Australia still just have tops that can be taken on and off at any time???
I was 27 years old when this happened and I remember it very well. I have never been able to understand why someone would do such a thing. Even if you have a problem with the company why would you kill innocent strangers? This is just evil beyond my comprehension.
Because it makes the company look horrible? And it had the intended effect, they lost hundreds of millions of dollars due to this.
@@rdizzy1 the people that died had absolutely nothing to do with the company, other than using their products. Anyone that believes that the best way to damage a corporation is by killing innocent consumers is truly an evil person.
@@HarryPrimate Evil or not, it was still the best way to damage the company.
Please do more of these!!! I love listening while cleaning or even just playing minecraft, love what you do, please keep doing it!!!
I was just looking for documentaries on this case, and then you release one. Serendipity at its finest.
I was just old enough when this happened to remember the world before it, kind of like people born in the early '90s can vaguely remember the world before 9/11. In both cases, L.P. Hartley's line from his 1953 novel _The Go-Between_ applies: "The past is a foreign country: they do things differently there."
Boy, do I remember this.
I was younger, but I still remember the empty shelves and the fear that was going on at the time
I enjoy your content as it is. Thanks for having such great quality videos!
Love your videos, and have been watching for quite a while now. This is probably my favorite so far though. Not necessarily because of the subject at hand, but I really loved your voiceover in this one. Not sure what it is that set this one apart from the others, but your line delivery seems slightly different here and I really liked that! Keep at it John!
There were an incredible number of copycats of these incidents, both total hoaxes and actual attempts on people's lives. I was a little too young to know and understand everything that was going on, but I remember the sense of painc being constantly inflamed by the news stories coming out. I hope everyone is doing well, and having a great day!
One thing that was changed (at least over here) is that over the counter medications could not be taken directly from a shelf. They're always behind a counter so people have to ask staff for a package that way tampering cannot be done by strangers as any returns will get destroyed rather than be put back on the shelf.
Here in the UK most over the counter medicine is on the shelves in supermarkets and it would be easy to sneak a few contaminated ones in-between the others.
@jaysoos20 where is "over here?"
@@ian3580 Portugal. The concept of grabbing medications off a shelf doesn't exist here anymore.
Things like vitamins and dietary supplements unfortunately are still exposed since they're usually shelved as food items, not real medications.
Quickly one of my favorite channels. Keep it up boss man. Was just thinking before this case how often the people accused of this shit go and commit some other murder or horrendous crimes and what the odds actually are that so many insane people end up suspects
Very well done. I remember this bizarre thing very vividly but had absolutely no idea it had never been definitively solved!
0:01 "I'll tell you who does a nice paracetamol, Morrisons"
Very tasty
As if you are not busy enough already, I would love to hear your take on the 25kg canister of cesium-137* that has been missing in Thailand since February. That should be a real hoot. Thanks, John, for all you do.
That's a story I wanna hear :) or the hundreds of missing radiation powered heaters in the old USSR
This is crazy! This happened when my parents were kids. I always assumed that seals were for freshness and stuff, but this makes everything make a bit more sense. I never even thought about people tampering with products like that! Super interesting video, as always
Outro song is a banger!
Love your content, been watching for years.
Thank you for what you do.
!!Thank you!!
If you ever wondered why you have to struggle with those damned blister packs to get each individual capsule out of the package, THIS is why.
@Debesys Nah. I grew up during this time. And buying limited quantities it to prevent meth manufacturing more than anything else
One *MILLION* dollars!
Honestly, the described "drill-board method" should be readily apparent to anyone familiar with pharmacology or compounding pharmacies - a vaguely similar tool is used to hand-load a batch of capsules for patients. It allows a precise dose to be loaded into a batch of capsules with relative speed.
Five*
@@kevinfealy4769 It's an Austin Powers reference
@@circeciernova1712 ooh, duuh I knew that
@@kevinfealy4769 Would've been funnier if you had just posted
*one hundred billion
I gotta say, this is one of your graetest videos ever! Well done!
This is a well put together and interesting video! Good work! 👍
I remember an episode of COPS where the cops came up to some guy who told the police "Took 15 Tylenol... Feeling pretty buzzed!"😂
RIP to his liver. Too much acetaminophen can cause liver failure, ampong other side effects.
No joke! I remember that episode because the guy kept flipping his tongue like a snake. The cop came up and was like, "Uh... so what's your deal?" Then he tells them about taking the Tylenol. The police officer said, "You know that's illegal right?"......."Oh no officer, Tylenol is legal." 🤦
I remember this case clearly. I was roughly 24 when this happened. We were all terrified. Anyone with any sense checked their medicine packages after that to be certain those packages had not been tampered with. I also remember that we thought Johnson and Johnson might well go under.
A new plainly difficult video is exactly what I needed with my coffee this morning.
You're work is magnificent. My favorite part is your weather report at the end. Love it.
Cant tell you how many times weve referenced this incident when i worked at a pharmaceutical company. Like whenever we covered CGMP, or ALCOA, this was brought up at some point
Regulation is written in blood, and investigations like this are why they must be consistent.
To be fair, as a brit, we probably *have* both had a Tylenol, in that Tylenol is just a brand name for paracetamol/acetaminophen as far as I'm aware (similar to how motrin/advil are US brand names for ibuprofen). I know that fact was mentioned in the video, of course, but it should be noted that as far as its actual effect goes, the base drug is the key thing, so I don't think there's any medical difference between a 500mg tylenol and a 500mg paracetamol dose available anywhere else
i’m a pharmacy tech and born well after this case, it’s wild to me that there was a time where all the meds i handle every day just didn’t have the safety seal???
i feel like that would also make them expire quicker because once a bottle is opened it’s shelf life is significantly reduced (obviously not the main issue here, but just another thought)
Putting the "killer" in "painkiller"
Interesting and informative
It kills something
@@PlainlyDifficult You're not in pain if you're dead?
I think one of the worst things about this story is the fact that a nurse had a theory about the Tylenol but she was ignored, I believe due to the unfounded thought that she was a female nurse and didn't have the same knowledge as male doctor
What theory did she have?
@@Gin-toki I believe she was the first to make the connection with Tylenol but they didn't want to make the call to pull it from the shelves on a "hunch by a nurse" or some nonsense.
Edit for more info:
Helen Johnson was her name, she was a public health nurse in Arlington Heights and first noticed the Tylenol bottle with the missing capsules and handed it over to authorities expressing her suspicion of its ties to the recent murders of the Janus family
I remember this. And I remember how in Australia, almost overnight, the regulations for drug and food packaging were changed.
love when you make these kinds of videos!!!!
My parents remember this well. To this very day my mother will not take Tylenol. I use a natural treatment for headaches- it’s called staying well hydrated to avoid dehydration… THE LEADING CAUSE OF HEADACHES!!
Very good advice tbh
Tylenol has just... never worked that well for me personally when it comes to headaches. The rare instances when I actually _get_ one, at least. My go-to is usually two Advil and one of those little miniature cans of Dr. Pepper. Sometimes just the Dr. Pepper works for a mild headache even though it's not healthy and I don't know why it works for me (it's not caffeine withdrawal).
I had to get a cortisone injection in my spine last month to help treat a disc I blew out back in 2017 (there's so little of it left now that the vertebrae are practically bone on bone 😖), and my GOD my body did not take well to it at all. I had what I found out is a "cortisone flare" that included a POUNDING HEADACHE for a solid 3 days after that NOTHING alleviated. For someone who rarely gets headaches, that was absolutely miserable!
And a bad sleep schedule
But alas. I am not so lucky as my hormone fluctuation will slam me with a headache and then a migraine. Ah joys of periods
Yeah, migraines don't care about your hydration level. Not that Tylenol does anything for my migraines anymore.
@@SadisticSenpai61 To be fair, migraines are not headaches.
Migraines are on a whole different level because its a sensory stimulus that triggers the electrical signals to misfire, resulting in altered blood flow to the brain. And then abject fcking _agony_
Better hope you dont need to hurl!
Even the worst headaches are a light breeze compared to the lightest migraine.
One of the first memories of news I have is the tylenol story. Pretty sure my parents were unnerved by it; I was only 5. Always a bit fuzzy on the details. I'm from a 1000 miles away.
Great video as always mate ☺️
I of course had heard of the Tylenol killer, but since I was born in '86, I was sketchy on the details. This was informative. Thank you sir!
People used to do stuff like this with baby food and jams in the UK which resulted in the safety seal buttons on jars.
Very uncanny. Crazy how the prime suspect lives free. If it looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, swims like a duck, it's probably a duck.
Well.... except for the many times it's actually a goose but the US "justice" system insists it's still a duck to save face and/or rack up a win for a criminal prosecutor. 🤷♀️
John, you and I must be close in age because I do not recall, nor can I fathom not having safety seals and antitampering features on consumable goods.😱 It was a bummer for me as a kid to think about how cruel some people could be. Their apparent disregard for human life was depressing. Not to mention, Halloween, as we knew it, was ruined forever. My personal disaster and legacy scale were skewed due to my selfish youth. The Tylenol poisoning rated a 10 and a 10 because I couldn't go trick-or-treating anymore. If I'd known then what I know now, I would have thrown myself on the floor, cried, and yelled out, "BALLS!".
Fortunately, all the "tampering with trick or treat food" cases have been family members specifically tampering with the children in their family's snacks (usually a parent, but not always). They then tried to blame it on having been some random house or whatever, but police have always been able to trace it right back to them. So the fear of trick or treating is essentially unfounded fear mongering.
But ppl remember there being incidents and having to throw away all their trick or treat candy because there was a report of tampering. They never hear the follow up that it was only one family that had their snacks tampered with and that it was done by those poor kids' family members.
Similar meaning you are both under 40?
The poisoned or razor blade/needle containing sweets at Halloween were an urban myth iirc. There was one guy in the uk who thought it would be a jolly jape to give out edibles which was pretty harmless if a bit idiotic and quite recent. Only major incident was a guy in America who tried killing his own kids by putting poison on candy the kids had already collected and bought home and trying to make out it was already contaminated which is probably where the myth started.
Well I never stopped doing trick or treating on Halloween until I was at a certain point in my teenage years but my mom always would make sure that my candy was still sealed before I got any. Definitely any fruit would end up in the trash, or certain other stuff that was not in a sealed package or wrapping. And I could totally understand why.
I love the eerie music you composed for "The letter" section. It really gives a disturbing atmosphere in the video
Another great video. Thank you!
I don't really watch many disaster videos anymore, but I still watch true crime all the time and the way you break things down is unique. You will definitely find success if you decide to explore true crime a bit more.
You might also like the channel Well, I Never, it's a channel that covers historical true crime along with other history-related stuff that's lesser-known.
I've always been an ibprophen/NSAIDs person.
Not necessarily because of this, but because if its not an antiinflammatory, it won't work for me for migraines or injuries.
This was a very well done video though! Thank you
I'm the opposite. Ibprophen does absolutely nothing for my migraines. Not that Tylenol does anything either. But it did help back when I first started getting them. I'm at the point where only prescription meds do anything. I use sumatriptan these days. Unfortunately, my insurance only covers 9 pills a month. Luckily, the preventative meds (venlafaxine) seem to keep me from getting migraines as often as I used to.
@@SadisticSenpai61 migraines suck, I have prescription naproxen to use as needed and it usually helps quite a bit if I pare it with caffeine. I hope you're able to get more migraine free days!
I vaguely remember this happening; I was just a kid. This and then the poisoning sent at Halloween somewhere around the same time really changed the atmosphere. No more personal goodies; everything had to be store-bought and wrapped for safety. But it may be why I don’t like to buy capsules now. Unless it’s a prescription, I get tablets/caplets usually.