Mama’s Club
Kampala, Uganda

As part of the Company’s philanthropy portfolio for HIV/AIDS and a partnership with the HIV Collaborative Fund, Johnson & Johnson supports Mama’s Club, a group that offers psychosocial support to HIV-positive mothers and pregnant women in Uganda. Mothers attend community outreach meetings where they learn how to prevent the transmission of HIV/AIDS and connect with each other for emotional and social support, and participate in peer-to-peer counseling and support groups to reduce the stigma and discrimination often associated with the disease.

Here, the photographer portrays the sunlit room where young children enjoy the camaraderie of these community-based meetings. Their mother looks on from her seat behind. Though not the focus of the image, the mother’s adoration is apparent in pose and expression.

(Photographer: Myriam Abdelaziz, a Johnson & Johnson – International Center of Photography Fellowship recipient)

Safe Kids USA issued an important hot weather safety alert: 

Never leave your child alone in a car! Did you know that when left in a hot vehicle, a young child’s core body temperature may increase three to five times faster than that of an adult’s and can reach dangerous levels within minutes?

Watch the video for more information and safety tips:

Safe Kids has been keeping children safe for more than 20 years. Find out more about Raising Safe Kids, One Stage at a Time

Approximately every two seconds, someone needs blood in the U.S. According to AABB, an average of 40,000 units of red blood cells is needed each day. Blood transfusions are often required for trauma victims, people undergoing heart surgery or organ transplants, and patients receiving treatment for leukemia, cancer or other diseases.

Most people who donate blood never have the chance to meet the recipient. The video I Saved Lauren’s Life shares the true story of Lauren Larsen, who became a multi-gallon blood recipient during the near-fatal birth of her child. Four years after her recovery, Lauren and her blood donors met in person. Several of her donors talk about the experience of meeting someone whose life they helped to save just by taking the time to donate blood.

Today, Lauren is an active blood donation advocate who also serves as a living example of the impact of volunteer blood donation.

A series of videos that raise awareness about the importance of blood donation are now featured on the Johnson & Johnson health channel.

Find out more about becoming a blood donor here.

Three Johnson & Johnson companies: Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals Inc., Ethicon Inc., and Information Technology Services Inc., partnered with the Raritan Valley Habitat for Humanity to build a new home for a family in Franklin Township, New Jersey.

One Ethicon employee, Dharini Amin, led a team of volunteers in the effort during Ethicon Community Works Day. This community service day offered employees the opportunity to choose from approximately 40 local projects; more than 600 employees participated. Below is Dharini’s story about working with Habitat for Humanity.

From Dharini Amin, Manager Strategic Accounts, Ethicon Inc.

We all live our days working, taking care of family and repeating that cycle. Some do a great job of finding time in their lives to give back and I wished I was one of them. Being a working mom, I didn’t get as much time as I wanted to help others until I was offered the opportunity to lead a project for Ethicon Community Works Day. I chose a project that was in my own neighborhood.

I was very excited to be part of Habitat for Humanity since I’ve heard so much about the work they do to help families achieve the dream of their own home. I didn’t know what to expect: Would they really allow us to be part of building this home? Would I have a team that was ready to roll up their sleeves?

When I arrived at the site with a team of 15 volunteers, everyone was so eager to work. I was amazed by the diverse team of my colleagues from R&D, marketing, finance, IT, sales, and operations who were all ready to contribute their knowledge, dedication, enthusiasm, and the right spirit. The team worked so hard to make sure we did everything possible to get this house done. That night, everyone walked away pretty tired. 

Dharini (second from right) with a team of volunteers

From Peg Achenbach, O.D., Senior Director Professional & Medical Affairs, Johnson & Johnson Vision Care, Inc.

Across the world, there is a common misperception that seeing well translates to good eye health. However, even people with perfect vision can be affected by serious eye diseases.

According to a new survey from The Vision Care Institute, Global Attitudes and Perceptions About Vision Care, many adults and children do not visit an eye care professional for a comprehensive exam. Additionally, one-in-three parents/caregivers have never taken their child under 18 years of age for any type of vision assessment. The findings reveal that adults in Brazil, the United Kingdom, Italy, and the Unites States report high rates of comprehensive eye exams, while lower rates are reported in China, Singapore, Japan, and Russia.

Given the importance of comprehensive eye exams, I was very concerned by these findings. A comprehensive eye exam is different than a vision screening, which is a type of screening that children may receive at school or may be part of a driver’s test to detect vision deficiencies. A comprehensive eye examination, on the other hand, is conducted in an optometrist or ophthalmologist’s office. Eye care professionals check for vision correction needs in addition to determining overall eye health. Regular comprehensive eye exams may help to identify other health concerns, such as high blood pressure and diabetes.

Caring for your eyes and improving your vision can help to improve your quality of life. For more information about key findings from the study, and to learn more about eye health for adults and children, visit the The Vision Care Institute.

Mike Samuelson, Director, access2wellness
Johnson & Johnson Health Care Systems Inc.

As graduates have completed commencement ceremonies and embarked on job searches that they hope will result in a life without parental support, many are finding that they no longer receive the benefits of their family’s employer-sponsored health plan. Adults ages 19 to 29 are among the largest and fastest growing segment of the U.S. population without health insurance, totaling 13.2 million in 2007, according to The Commonwealth Fund, a non-profit research group. ScienceDaily reports nearly 60 percent of employers who offer coverage do not insure dependent children over the age of 18 or 19 if they do not attend college or only attend part-time.

While youth is often considered a time of perfect health, WebMD Health News states that unintentional injuries among young adults, such as smoking and obesity, are on the rise. “Lack of coverage and access to health care services puts the health of young adults at risk, and can subject them, as well as their families, to potentially dire financial consequences, “ said Sara Collins, co-author and assistant vice president at The Commonwealth Fund, in a report on Young Adults at Risk: 13.7 Million Lack Health Insurance Coverage.

According to The Commonwealth Fund President Karen Davis : “State-level efforts to cover young adults are very important and will help many young adults as they transition to the labor force. However, most uninsured young adults do not have access to affordable private coverage through their parents’ plans.”

So what can be done to help the growing number of youth who are uninsured?

One possibility is for healthcare providers, family members and friends of young people to share information about assistance resources. There are a number of programs that are available. As someone who has been working with access2wellness and Together Rx Access for nearly four years, I have seen that these valuable, free to use programs can help qualified individuals gain access to the medicines and medical products they may need.

Brittany Hume, Corporate Contributions, Johnson & Johnson

Working in the field of HIV/AIDS, I consider myself spoiled by the caliber of people that I encounter on a day-to-day basis. Passion and gritty determination are prerequisite characteristics for choosing a career in global public health, and the organizations with which Johnson & Johnson partners on its Corporate Contributions work are peppered with unsung heroes chasing ambitious dreams and overcoming inconceivable day-to-day challenges to improve the health of millions.

Robin Smalley is one such person. As one of the co-founders of mothers2mothers, Robin helped launch an organization that tackles one of the most tragic—and preventable—public health issues in Africa today: the transmission of HIV/AIDS from a mother to her baby.

As they say, though, some leaders are born, and others are made. Robin would place herself in the latter category.

At first introduction, Robin is a bright, warm person whose sunny disposition reflects her California roots. She spent the first half of her career in television, serving as a writer, producer, and director for iconic shows like “Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous” and rubbing elbows with actors and celebrities. Despite her success earned by years of hard work, Robin began to question her happiness and fulfillment.

And then, disaster struck. In one year, Robin lost her mother, her stepfather, and her best friend. Adrift at her best friend’s death bed, Robin began absentmindedly listening to her best friend’s brother, Dr. Mitch Besser, speak of his struggle to help HIV-positive mothers and babies in his work as an OB/GYN in South Africa. Over the course of two weeks, they talked amid their grief. After the sister’s funeral, Mitch called Robin and urged her to come visit Cape Town and see his patients herself.

The rest, as they say , is history.
Eight years after Robin first flew to Cape Town, mothers2mothers has expanded from one clinic in South Africa to 546 sites in seven countries. Their work has received global acclaim, including the Skoll Prize for Social Entrepreneurship (2008), the Presidential Citizens Medal (to Dr. Besser, in 2008), and the Africa Regional Social Entrepreneurs Award (2009) by the Schwab Foundation, an affiliate of the World Economic Forum. But most importantly, they have helped over 81,000 HIV+ women care for themselves and protect their babies from HIV transmission.

Although scientific advances and high-quality medical care have nearly eradicated pediatric AIDS in developed countries by reducing the rate of transmission to 1-2%, a staggering two thirds of HIV+ women in Sub-Saharan Africa do not receive the treatment and care they need to protect their babies. Compounding the problem are overburdened hospital staff who lack the time needed to advise recently diagnosed women about proper prevention steps; crippling social stigma associated with HIV/AIDS that can make a woman afraid to disclose her status, even to her partner and family; and the logistical and financial obstacles to receiving regular prenatal care. Not surprisingly, an HIV-positive diagnosis caused many women to lose hope for their babies and themselves.
mothers2mothers responded to this need by building a unique infrastructure of support, hope, and empowerment. The organization trains HIV-positive mothers to counsel newly diagnosed pregnant women and new mothers on how to reduce the risk of transmitting the virus to their babies. These women, known as “mentor mothers,” teach their clients what they need to know to care for themselves and their babies, including user-friendly information about antiretroviral medications, advice for disclosing their status to their families, proper infant feeding practices, and the importance of regular prenatal checkups and delivery in a health facility. Equally important, however, is the psychosocial support that mothers2mothers provides. Mentor mothers lead by example, showing their clients that yes, HIV+ women can have HIV- babies, and that by advocating for their own medical care, women can live to see their children grow and prosper.
Robin maintains that seeing these mothers and babies in person was all she needed to rediscover her direction in life. I invite you to see some of these women, and to hear Robin tell her story in her own words, here and here .

Marc recently wrote about the progress Johnson & Johnson has made in engaging with people in the social media realm (such as the Kilmer House blog, the Johnson & Johnson health channel on You Tube, and the Twitter account) and lessons learned along the way. As Marc says:

“As a company that sells not only consumer products, but also prescription medicines and medical devices, there were numerous legal and regulatory hurdles that needed to be taken into account. But we realized early on that it is only by jumping in that you can learn— and we are learning every day.”

Many of our operating companies have also found ways to get involved in social media initiatives. When I found out that DePuy Mitek is using Twitter to reach golf players and fans with health and fitness updates, I had to check it out. I was also interested on a personal level, because my husband loves to golf, but I don’t know much about helping him stay in good shape for his game beyond slipping sunscreen in his bag when he heads outside.

DePuy Mitek is the official mobile health and fitness provider of the PGA Tour and Champions Tour, which means they provide players with on-site rehabilitative and preventive care and educate fans. From their unique position at the tour, they are using Twitter to inform attendees about events, such as opportunities to have a photo taken with a replica of the Charles Schwab Cup or the FedEx Cup. They share with their followers on Twitter the same tips they give to on-site pros and fans: techniques to improve your swing, how to find the right golf shoes, and other info to keep your body and your game in prime form.

For those of you who don’t golf but stay active in other ways, they also tweet about maintaining joint health, preventing and treating knee pain, and how to detect the early symptoms of osteoarthritis (which I’ve learned from a recent tweet is the number one cause of disability in the US).

You can follow on Twitter at NSM_GolfTour

Read Marc’s article on social media here

By Doug Chia, Senior Counsel & Assistant Corporate Secretary, Johnson & Johnson

This is my first post on JNJ BTW.

Today, I’m writing on a subject near and dear to my heart—shareholder voting. You may have heard that earlier this month the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission (SEC) announced a number of corporate governance reforms aimed at shoring up investor confidence. You can read about all of those reforms in the SEC’s press release, but I’d like to highlight in this post what is perhaps the most significant of these reforms—one that may directly impact you if you own Johnson & Johnson stock through a brokerage account–the elimination of the “broker vote” in uncontested director elections.

For those of you who don’t live and breathe this subject, I’ll attempt to translate that into plain English.
Previously, under the rules of the New York Stock Exchange, if stock brokers didn’t receive instructions from clients on how to vote their shares on the election of the board of directors at an upcoming annual meeting, the broker had the discretion to vote those uninstructed shares as they deemed appropriate. Since typically retail brokerage account holders who did vote tended to vote in favor of the recommendations made by the listed company’s management team, most brokers voted uninstructed shares along management’s recommendations.

To illustrate how this discretionary broker voting worked, let’s say you owned 100 shares of Johnson & Johnson stock in a brokerage account at XYZ-Trade. You received your Johnson & Johnson Annual Report, Proxy Statement and proxy card for the April 23, 2009 Annual Meeting in the mail from XYZ-Trade sometime in mid-March. As you typically do every year, you perused the Chairman’s letter and some of the stories about Johnson & Johnson’s newest business developments in the Annual Report, but you didn’t mail your proxy card back to XYZ-Trade in time to vote on the Johnson & Johnson Board of Directors or other business. In the final days before the Annual Meeting, XYZ-Trade saw that you had not instructed them on how to vote your 100 shares of Johnson & Johnson stock and thus cast the votes for the election of directors on your behalf.

Because of the SEC’s recent action, your broker will not be able to do this for next year’s Johnson & Johnson Annual Meeting. From now on, if you don’t take the affirmative step of telling your broker how to vote your shares in director elections, your votes will not be counted at all. Why am I taking the time to explain this to you? Basically, I am encouraging you to vote. Vote your shares at next year’s Annual Meeting and at every shareholder meeting after that one for as long as you own Johnson & Johnson stock. Vote in line with Johnson & Johnson management’s recommendations or vote against them if that’s what you wish. Just please take the time to vote, not only for our shareholder meetings, but for all of the companies in which you hold stock. We think it’s important that you do so. After all, voting in director elections is your legal right as a shareholder and starting now, if you don’t, no one will do it for you. At Johnson & Johnson, we believe in shareholder engagement and hope you exercise your right to vote going forward.

You may have noticed your physician using a PDA or smartphone during your last visit to the doctor’s office. According to a report by Manhattan Research, this trend is on the rise in 2009, with approximately 64 percent of U.S. physicians using a PDA or smartphone to stay connected while on-the-go.

Ortho-McNeil-Janssen Pharmaceuticals, Inc observed this increase in the number of health care professionals using mobile technologies and created the BLACKBAG™ iPhone Application, which gives physicians access to the latest medical information at their fingertips. Within the first two months of launching the app, BLACKBAG was downloaded by approximately 24,000 users.

The idea behind the BLACKBAG app was to provide physicians, pharmacists, nurses, and other health care professionals with easy access to resources and tools to help them stay informed; an electronic version of a doctor’s “black bag.” The app contains unbranded content across a number of medical areas and specialties. Health care professionals can subscribe to customized news feeds to receive breaking medical news, and access to journal summaries, conference coverage, videos and podcasts related to their areas of interest.

Here are a few screen shots from the BLACKBAG app:

BLACKBAG iPhone App

UPDATE: Since posting, there have been a few reviews of the app – here, here, here and here that are worth checking out.