House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform Chair Edolphus Towns (D-NY) has sent a letter to Johnson & Johnson (J&J) CEO William Weldon requesting additional specific information on a market action taken regarding one of its Motrin products last year. Information requested on what Towns terms a “phantom recall” includes the names of J&J employees who were involved in making the decision to pursue this action, names of the contractors involved, and all records related to the action.
The letter, dated May 28 and publicly released on June 2, follows a Congressional hearing the day before that brought J&J and FDA to the table to take a hard look at J&J’s recent recall and GMP compliance problems [see related story posted yesterday in IPQ’s “In the News”].
Specifically Towns was following up on allegations made in that hearing that J&J hired contractors to purchase suspected defective products from retail outlets rather than initiating a recall, performing a so-called “phantom recall.” It was not until this activity was discovered by FDA that J&J announced a recall of the affected medication. [More on this story is provided for subscribers on page 2. Links to related documents are also provided.]
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