The power of precision

Since most folks have gotten their books (though not all!) I wanted to take a look at a few reasons that this month’s pick, Gardiner Harris’s No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson stood out to me. 

First, it’s worth reiterating: as a piece of muckraking, this book is superb. At its core, this is a well-executed case against a business that has been acting badly for generations, in ways that the public either doesn’t know about or hasn’t quite joined together.

But there are many more reasons that I think this book elevates itself beyond merely making a very powerful argument. 

So let’s take a look at a few of its strengths.

No More Tears puts a human face on tragedy

Despite the crusading nature of investigative journalism, the reality is that people—that is, victims—often get the short end of the straw in these stories. Sometimes they become almost secondary to the wrongdoing: after all, the idea that somebody was harmed is table stakes, and so the perpetrators and the mechanics of their misdeeds become central to the story you’re telling. Other times when victims are given space in the story, they take on an almost melodramatic position. They’re put in place to amp up the emotion. 

Harris does something much more humble, I think, and just lets people’s stories show you the consequences of corporate misconduct. Take Toni Roberts, one of the plaintiffs in the case that Johnson & Johnson knowingly sold carcinogenic Baby Powder for years. By the time she arrives in the book, Harris has spent 50 pages laying out the evidence against the company. But in just about two pages, he absolutely humanizes the consequence of this business decision. Mostly using her testimony in the asbestos case, Harris illuminates Roberts’ life, her health, and her death. It’s gut-wrenching and precise and brings it all home.

It comes with PLENTY of receipts

This book is absolutely full of evidence of misdemeanors conducted by Johnson & Johnson at almost every level of the business. From corporate executives to salespeople to doctors to pharmaceutical researchers, each step in the chain is examined as Harris carefully delivers the layers of each case to the reader. That means it doesn’t just become a book about leadership malfeasance or misdirection for the top—in the way that, say, John Carreyrou’s Bad Blood blasted Theranos. It’s the almost mundane distortions of corporate medicine that end up being 

One example that stuck with me was the company’s hard press to target children with ADHD and other behavioral issues with an anti-psychotic medication called Risperdal. They pushed doctors and families to use Risperdal without properly flagging up major side effects including substantial weight gain and the development of breasts in men and boys, known as gynecomastia. 

Scientists at Johnson & Johnson were given the task of conducting a metastudy to try to hide data about these side effects, but their first attempt didn’t succeed. So they kept looking for a way to hide the bad evidence. “Rejiggering the analytical plan after the results have been seen—particularly if those results are disappointing—is unethical,” writes Harris. “So the company’s first draft should have been its last.” In the end, the J&J researchers undertake four drafts of the study until the numbers are suppressed in the way they desire. It’s one small example of how mundane actions can mislead people. The banality of evil, really.

Harris turns a great sentence

The prose of most science journalism falls into one of two categories—either workmanlike, focused on doing the job to get you from one place to another, or ecstatic, an addiction to over-expressive language in an attempt to inspire awe in the reader. Both modes have their uses, but they mean that sometimes writing fails to rise to the occasion, or feels drunk on its own language. 

I thought that in a few critical places, Harris managed to elevate his book by using some very subtle word choices. Nothing flashy, just some clever pinpointing. There was one part at the very beginning of Section III—the story of Tylenol—that comes to mind. “Winter comes early in Northern Illinois,” he writes, almost bringing a camera in to establish a visual.

As he recounts the story of the Chicago Tylenol murders, the language is spare and exact, but in ways that give it power. Dennis Kellerman didn’t walk to his daughter Mary’s room when she was sick, he padded. He didn’t simply go back to sleep, he climbed under the covers. And when she dies from the cyanide somebody has secretly slipped into the pill she takes, her parents aren’t distraught, they are left watching their world unravel. These are small word choices, but they bring the scene to life, give it depth. The camera is watching as chaos unfolds.

Let me know what you think when you read it, I’d love to hear what stood out most to you.

Onwards,

Bobbie