Read The Tylenol Mafia for Free Online Page A

currently have no evidence that any other Extra Strength Tylenol capsule product or any other Tylenol product was similarly contaminated.”
    Burke immediately focused his efforts on getting the right men in place at the scene of the crime and at J&J and McNeil headquarters. During the hastily organized meeting held in Burke’s office on Thursday morning, Burke named six senior executives to an Emergency Strategy Group. The team would meet twice daily to make decisions on how the evolving Tylenol situation should be handled. The group included J&J President, David Clare; International Company Group Chairman, Wayne Nelson; Company Group Chairman, Arthur Quilty; Company Group Chairman, David Collins; Corporate Public Relations, Vice President, Lawrence “Larry” Foster; and J&J General Counsel, George Frazza. The group met at 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. every day for close to six weeks. Many times, according to Foster, the morning meeting was still in session when the evening meeting was scheduled to begin.
    Burke told David Collins on Thursday morning to take a lawyer, a public relations aide, and a security expert and fly out to McNeil headquarters in Fort Washington to handle the crisis from there. Burke commanded Collins to “Take charge.” Ninety minutes later, the corporate helicopter touched down at McNeil, 60 miles west of J&J’s New Brunswick headquarters. Collins’s first question to McNeil executives was to ask if any cyanide was used on the premises. Once inside the building, Collins made a phone call to attorney Paul Noland, a childhood friend and college roommate from his days at Notre Dame University. Noland was a partner in the law firm of Rooks, Pitts, and Poust, with offices in Chicago and Wheaton, Illinois. Noland had previously handled product liability cases in the Chicago area for Johnson & Johnson.
    Collins asked Noland to go down to the Cook County Medical Examiner’s Office, find out as much as he could, and then call him back at McNeil. “I needed my own eyes and ears on the scene,” he said later. Collins also called another attorney pal, Francis “Mike” Heroux, to help him manage the crisis. Heroux, like Noland, was a partner at Rooks, Pitts, and Poust, in the firm’s Wheaton office in DuPage County.
    Collins had many longtime friends living right there in the middle of the Tylenol murders crime scene. He had grown up in Oak Park, Illinois, just seven miles east of Jewel’s headquarters in Melrose Park, and nine miles west of Chicago. Oak Park is known for its expansive homes. The largest collection of Frank Lloyd Wright-designed residential properties in the world is in Oak Park. The town is also known for its excellent school system, which includes two public high schools, Oak Park High School and River Forest High School, and one private high school, Fenwick. David Collins, Paul Noland, and Mike Heroux all graduated from Fenwick High School in 1952.
    In 2003, Collins was inducted into the Fenwick High School Hall of Fame. When addressing the Fenwick students and alumni attending the induction ceremony, Collins said Fenwick is “a place to build strong friendships that can help you through many situations – and a place to think about the values you will take with you through life.” In the fall of 1982, with the Tylenol brand in big trouble, Collins needed all the help he could get from his many friends still living near Fenwick High School.
    After Collins got his lawyers in place in Illinois, he turned his attention to the hectic situation at McNeil headquarters. Thirty-three telephones were set up to handle the incoming calls. McNeil President, Joseph Chiesa, received continuous updates from harried managers as new reports came in of fatalities and other supposed poisonings, the vast majority of which were not actually Tylenol poisonings.
    McNeil executives used a felt-tip marker to write down each bit of information on drawing paper attached to a big easel. As the reports accumulated,