Poison Madness in the Midwest

By Susan Tifft

Seven people die after taking cyanide-laced Tylenol

Adam Janus, 27, had a minor chest pain last Wednesday morning, so he went out and bought a bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol capsules. About an hour later in his home in the Chicago suburb of Arlington Heights, Janus suffered a cardiopulmonary collapse. He was rushed to Northwest Community Hospital, where doctors worked frantically to revive him. "Nothing seemed to help," said Dr. Thomas Kim, chief of the hospital's critical-care unit. "He suffered sudden death without warning. It was most unusual."

That evening, grief-stricken relatives gathered at Janus' home. Someone offered to go out for aspirin. No need, said Stanley Janus, 25, Adam's younger brother, who had noticed a bottle of Tylenol in the kitchen. He and his wife Theresa, 19, each took at least one capsule. At 8:15 p.m., five hours after his brother died, Stanley was pronounced dead. Theresa died on Friday afternoon.

By week's end at least seven Chicago-area residents had died under similar circumstances. Each had ingested an Extra-Strength Tylenol capsule laced with cyanide. Food and Drug Administration officials suspect that someone unconnected with the manufacturer tampered with the drug; by their reasoning, the killer bought Extra-Strength Tylenol over the counter, inserted cyanide in some of the capsules, then returned the bottles to store shelves. Illinois Attorney General Tyrone Fanner suggests that "a disgruntled employee in the production chain" was the more likely culprit. Whatever the method and motive, the killer clearly knew what he was doing. In each case, the red half of the contaminated capsule was discolored and slightly swollen. When opened, the capsules emitted the telltale almond odor of cyanide; the poison was present in quantities thousands of times the usual fatal dose. Says Police Chief Carl Sostak of Winfield, Ill., home of one victim: "Apparently a very sophisticated and very malicious person is at large who had to spend a lot of time and a lot of effort on this terrible plan."

Twelve-year-old Mary Kellerman of Elk Grove Village took Extra-Strength Tylenol to ward off a cold that had been dogging her. Mary Reiner, 27, of Winfield, who was poisoned on Thursday, had recently given birth to her fourth child. Paula Prince, 35, a United Airlines stewardess, was found dead in her Chicago apartment, an open bottle of Extra-Strength Tylenol near by in the bathroom. Says Dr. Kim: "The victims never had a chance. Death was certain within minutes."

The link to Tylenol was first noted by two off-duty firemen in the area who were monitoring their police radios at home. Philip Cappitelli and Richard Keyworth compared notes over the telephone and were struck by the fact that the painkiller had been mentioned in two of the reports. "This is a wild stab, but maybe it's Tylenol," Keyworth speculated. They mentioned their hunch to their superiors.

The nation was alerted to the danger of the suspect drug as soon as the connection was made. Police cruisers, rolling through Chicago streets Thursday afternoon and evening, blared warnings over loudspeakers. All three national television networks carried stories about the contaminated drug on the Thursday-evening news. On Friday, the FDA belatedly advised consumers to "avoid in prudence" all bottles of the capsules. By then it was virtually impossible to obtain Extra-Strength Tylenol anywhere in the Chicago area or indeed in many locations around the country. Two Midwestern retail chains, Jewel and Walgreen, withdrew all bottles of the pain reliever from their stores.

The publicity caused a nationwide scare. One Chicago hospital received 700 calls about Tylenol in one day. People in Pittsburgh, Cleveland and other cities were hospitalized on suspicion of cyanide poisoning. Dr. William Robertson, director of the Poison Control Center in Seattle, offered some grim words of reassurance: "If it was going to be a lethal dose, you wouldn't have time to call."

Johnson & Johnson, whose McNeil Consumer Products subsidiary manufactures the painkiller, immediately recalled bottles with lot number 1801 MA, MC 2880 or 1910 MD, which were among the batches found in the victims' homes, and sent out half a million warning messages to physicians, hospitals and distributors. McNeil agreed to turn over all of the company's distribution records to the Illinois department of law enforcement and to bear the cost of collecting unused and unsold Tylenol, an expense that could reach into the millions of dollars. Until now, Tylenol enjoyed a solid reputation and healthy sales. Analysts estimate that Johnson & Johnson sells be tween $300 million and $400 million worth of the analgesic a year. An $85 million advertising campaign has helped the company increase its share of the pain-reliever market from 4% to 37% since 1976. But the cyanide scare may do damage to the company's product. Says one stockbroker in Chicago: "The name Tylenol is now linked with poison in people's minds."

At week's end authorities could only hope that more victims would not turn up. They were worried, too, that the cyanide murders would encourage a new, over-the-counter terrorism that could be aimed at companies or random individuals. Already this year, someone tampered with eyedrops and nasal sprays sold in Los Angeles; at least ten people suffered burns, but no one died. The frightening truth, says FDA Deputy Commissioner Mark Novitch, is that there is no way to protect the public from people who do such things. -- By Susan Tifft.

Reported by Lee Griggs/Chicago

With reporting by Lee Griggs/Chicago

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