The following post is from Dr. Ed Kuffner, Sr. Director, McNeil Consumer Healthcare

Recently, there have been reports about acetaminophen, the medicine in TYLENOL® and the potential for liver damage if the medicine is misused or taken in overdose amounts. The U.S Food and Drug Administration (FDA) held a public meeting yesterday and today to discuss this very issue. As the makers of Tylenol, we share the FDA’s goal of helping to ensure that over-the-counter (OTC) and prescription medicines are used safely and properly. As a physician, I can tell you that my medical colleagues and I have been actively involved in the conversation – and are committed to finding the right solutions.

What do people need to know about acetaminophen and liver damage? Tylenol, when taken as directed, remains the safest pain reliever people can take. It’s important for people to know that it’s not the recommended dosage of acetaminophen that poses the risk. Rather, it’s when people take more than the recommended dose either intentionally, often because they think it will work better — which is not the case — or unintentionally, often because they don’t realize that several products they are taking at the same time (both prescription and OTC) each contain acetaminophen.

Importantly, you can confidently continue to take Tylenol according to the directions currently on the package and can prevent inappropriate use by:

• Reading the label before each use and always following the directions
• Never taking more than the recommended dose
• Never using two products containing acetaminophen at the same time
• Keeping medicine out of the reach of children
• Consulting a healthcare professional with questions

The safety and efficacy of acetaminophen has been established through more than 50 years of clinical use and scientific investigation and it is safe when used as directed. To learn more about the appropriate uses of Tylenol, I’d suggest you reach out to your healthcare provider, or turn to www.Tylenol.com or, if you’d like to speak to someone at McNeil directly about your questions about Tylenol, call our Consumer Call Center at 1-888-222-0082 (English and Spanish).

A few colleagues and I just completed a trip to Central America where we visited several NGOs with whom we partner on micro-financing projects. You may be asking, so what in the world is micro-financing? Essentially, micro-financing (also known as micro-enterprising or micro-credit) focuses on providing small start-up loans (usually $100 – $500 each) to individuals in resource-poor settings that enable them to create small, community-based businesses to improve their livelihood. This is a growing phenomenon over the past several years; thousands of organizations are doing a wide range of projects around the world.

Micro-financing appears to be an excellent platform upon which to deliver small business training and health education messages in community-based settings.

Our trip included stops in Costa Rica and El Salvador where we visited remote locations to see firsthand just how the concept of micro-financing plays out. A few examples…

In Costa Rica, we partner with Fundebase and APACO on projects that provide loans and a dose of health education, disease prevention, and wellness programs to local communities along the way. We visited with a mother and daughter in Santa Cruz de León Cortéz, for instance, who received a loan to start a sweater-knitting business. The loan enabled them to purchase a knitting machine, yarns and other materials to take a first step. And now, several months later, they’re selling their sweaters in a catalogue that reaches throughout the country. Their energy and passion were palpable as they described how they started and where they’re planning to go next. Without question, the start-up loan changed their lives. The project we support facilitates these loans and also brings health programs – breast and cervical cancer awareness, nutrition education, and oral care – to the community, and these two women are among the dozens participating.

In El Salvador, we partner with Asociación para la Organización y Educación Empresarial Femenina (OEF) on micro-enterprising efforts reaching more than 60 families in Aguaje Escondido. Individuals apply for small loans from the OEF community bank, which also doubles as a community health center for health and wellness check-ups and screenings. Carmela used her loan to open a bodega and bakery shop; Andres used his loan to purchase tools to expand his carpentry business. Each story we heard was more inspiring than the previous. And, the health center — THE meeting place for community members — has increased prevention and wellness screenings, reduced the rate of teenage pregnancies, and has eliminated malnutrition among the children. It’s an amazing story of how a simple idea takes hold in a community and creates a ripple effect throughout.

Earlier today, Kathy Buto, Vice President for Health Policy here at Johnson & Johnson, testified before the U.S. House of Representatives about the draft Tri-Committee Health Reform Bill . In her formal remarks, Kathy described how reform represents an opportunity to enhance access to healthcare and to improve the affordability of medicines and medical treatments and how the company is convinced that wellness and prevention will improve the healthcare system.

Overall, Kathy emphasized how the company believes that the best healthcare system is one that serves as many people as possible.

Rather than cover all aspects of the draft bill, Kathy focused on topics where Johnson & Johnson could provide some perspective that the committee could find helpful, including wellness and prevention, comparative effectiveness research, Medicare Part D, and options available through the health insurance exchange.

I’ve included a copy of her remarks below for your perusal:

Read the rest of this entry »

After we launched the Johnson & Johnson health channel on YouTube in August of last year, one of the first videos I posted was a series on ADHD which was originally produced by Dr. Nancy Snyderman. The first part called ADHD: A Child’s Diagnosis told the story of Davina Beacham, a 37 year-old artist whose oldest son Brad was recently diagnosed with ADHD. During the course of this diagnosis, Davina discovered that she too had ADD (without the hyperactivity).

Now Davina is a frequent visitor to social media sites like YouTube, and when she saw that the video she was featured in was running on the Johnson & Johnson health channel, she felt compelled to leave a comment. When I saw her comment, I contacted her and asked if she was interested doing a follow up video. We decided that we would, and so I grabbed a cameraman and drove up to Dover, MA, to visit Davina at her home. She and her family were extremely gracious, and we did interviews with Davina, her husband, Hal, and her two boys Brad and George.

Subsequent to the original video two years ago, she also learned that George, her younger son, was diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome as well as ADHD. Despite all the complications and challenges posed by this situation, what impressed me most was the openness, patience and understanding that Davina showed her two boys, always emphasizing and nurturing their creativity and expressiveness. Her husband Hal, the only member of the family without ADHD, showed a similar patience, embracing the situation, rather than resisting it.

I’m very happy with the video stories that were the result of this visit. And I left the two boys with flip cameras. I WAS going to leave one for both of them to share, but I found out VERY quickly that wasn’t going to work! The idea is for them to record a kind of video diary of their very interesting life, which I would then post on the JNJhealth channel. I’m looking forward to these, and I’m sure they will be as interesting and gratifying as our own experience videotaping this wonderful family. Here are the links to the current videos:

Davina, Part One
Davina, Part Two
Brad
George

Some of you may be asking yourself, what’s with the bathroom mirror and medicine cabinet? Where’s that quirky earhorn I’m so fond of???

JNJBTW has been around for more than two years now, and during that time, we’ve learned a great deal. We’ve started to listen a bit more to what is being said online about our business and our industry and have tried, whenever possible, to become part of those conversations.

While we are still learning and growing (hopefully that process will never stop) over the past few months, the earhorn that used to grace the top of the JNJBTW page has increasingly looked out of place.

You see, in the beginning, only a few of us were contributing to the blog and, admittedly, we were a bit unused to listening to people – hence the earhorn.

Today, however, more and more folks within Johnson & Johnson are not only paying attention to what’s being said online, but are turning to JNJBTW to share their stories and perspectives.

And so it was high time for a new look – one that would convey that people from within Johnson & Johnson are now starting to share useful information as well as their own thoughts and experiences on this blog. By reading JNJBTW, people will hopefully see a different, and perhaps more personal side of Johnson & Johnson – and the hope is that this new look is in keeping with that content.

JNJBTW received a shout out the other day from one of our nation’s leading newspapers. But it wasn’t the kind of mention of the blog that I felt all that good about. The article concerned how pharmaceutical companies were turning to social media as a way to reach their customers, and listed JNJBTW as one of many examples of how companies were on the social web. It’s a trend we’ve noticed as well, and given the growing number of people who go online for health information, one that will continue. (Note to the Washington Post – Johnson & Johnson isn’t a “pharmaceutical” company – we have substantial medical device and consumer businesses as well. ) According to the paper:

Johnson & Johnson also hosts a blog (http://www.jnjbtw.com) that is largely self-congratulatory about what the company is doing (see “Giving Back Image of the Week”). But it recently had a couple of interesting tidbits, including a J&J expert on the value of corporate wellness programs and a series of tips on keeping kids safe from injury.

I’m glad the writer found the tips from Dr. Isaac and from Safe Kids to be of interest, but I was disappointed to hear that she found the blog – and in particular the Giving Back Image of the Week – to be “self-congratulatory.”

Through JNJBTW I had hoped to provide some of those folks in the corporation who are usually silent an opportunity to be heard and to engage with others online. I’ve encouraged people to use it to tell their stories, share their perspectives on different topics that are of importance to them and try to connect with others online. I don’t think the folks posting on the blog meant to give themselves a “pat on the back,” but were instead posting to share their experiences with others.

The same holds true for the Giving Back Image of the Week. When Shaun Mickus and I discussed his interest in posting the photos, I know he felt it was more about highlighting the efforts of the charitable organizations we happen to partner with than talking about our company’s support. I think our hope was that we would encourage others to learn more about the activities of these organizations.

Clearly there is room for more “interesting tidbits” and other useful information on corporate blogs like JNJBTW, but I also think there is space for people at companies to blog about what they are doing and who they are working with.

Society for the Arts in Healthcare Partnership
Stagebridge Senior Theatre Company, Oakland, California
 
Johnson & Johnson has partnered with the Society for the Arts in Healthcare since 2001 to provide grants to organizations that produce innovative projects to serve patients, their families and caregivers in health care settings, and to promote healing and preventative health.

Stagebridge uses theatre and storytelling to bridge the generation gap and to stimulate positive attitudes toward aging. Stagebridge’s intergenerational programs feature senior theater productions, storytelling in the schools, nurses training programs, acting classes for seniors, and writing contests for children.
 
These young girls from Peralta Elementary School watch with delight as the Stagebridge storyteller entertains their class.

(Photographer: Shraddha Borawake, a Johnson & Johnson – International Center of Photography Fellowship recipient)

Now that we are in warm weather season, I seem to be spending most of my weekends reminding my son — and his friends in the neighborhood — to WEAR THEIR HELMETS whenever they hop on their bikes, skateboards or scooters.
(This weekend, in fact, I had to add “go cart” to that list after my son and his friend threw one together using some of the scrap lumber in the garage.)

Most of the time, my pleas are met with blank stares or the occasional “why.” Well now, thanks to an article in today’s USAToday, I have yet another example of why they should keep their helmets on.

The article opens with the story of a mom who returned home to discover her 10-year-old son laid out in the street, his head in a neckbrace, his smashed bike beside him. Fortunately, her son remembered to wear his helmer. According to the article:

discover her son had that underscored the good work that Safe Kids has been doing to improve childhod safety. “The No. 1 killer of children is not cancer or diabetes or obesity,” Korn says. “It’s unintentional injuries, or accidents. And almost every single one of them is preventable.”

Having observed the efforts of Safe Kids for several years now, I know that by taking some basic steps you can greatly reduce the incidence of childhood injury. Yet as experts like Safe Kids have found, parents need to remain vigilant and to stay firm with their kids to ensure that they keep those helmets on. I know from experience that this isn’t always easy to do — but based on stories like the one related in the USToday, it is worth the effort.

Wednesday night, Rob Halper and I hosted another of our blogger dinners — this time in NYC.

The conversations we had at Piano Due (which served a really nice porcini mushroom ravioli course) spanned a variety of subjects — from how to monetize a Twitter account to dogs. John Mack, who was one of our guests, posted a nice wrap-up of the conversations that went on at HIS end of the table — which appeared to mostly focus on steps that can be taken to improve the accuracy of online health information.

At the other end of the table, there were discussions about the ROI of social media sites and expanding the awareness of social media efforts. Oh — and there were several conversations about dogs.

So what did I take away from all the socializing? Well, I picked up quite a bit, but one point stuck out in my mind — that ensuring the accuracy of healthcare information online is crucial — and that one of the best ways to do so is to encourage numerous stakeholders to enter the conversation. According to John’s summary of the discussion:

I agree. But that can only be accomplished once more of these stakeholders overcome objections by dispelling perceived risks — and mitigating real risks — to jump into discussions on different healthcare topics. There is clearly much that needs to be done before this can be achieved.

I’d like to thank all of our guests for joining us and making this a great evening.