Snake In The Grass: J&J Can Recoup Tylenol Losses
9 CommentsBy Ed Silverman // September 8th, 2010 // 7:02 am
What can Johnson & Johnson ceo Bill Weldon do with all those millions of bottles of pediatric Tylenol that have been recalled this year? Rather than throw them in the trash, Bill can donate them to the US military for a perfectly good cause.
How so? Well, it turns out the military is giving a children’s dose of acetamnophen, which is the active ingredient in Tylenol, to dead mice that are then dropped by helicopter into the jungle in Guam in hopes of eradicating invasive brown tree snakes from around the naval base there. Snakes, after all, do not care if their Tylenol smells musty or contains metallic flecks. Grind ‘em up, feed ‘em to the mice, drop the mice in the jungle and, voila, no snakes. And for Weldon, no embarassing trips to the landfill.
“The discovery that snakes will die when they eat acetaminophen was a huge step forward,” Anne Brooke, conservation resources program manager for Naval Facilities Command Marianas, tells Stars And Stripes. “The problem was how you get the snakes to eat it.”
Putting Guam aside for a moment,this could be the public relations coup that Weldon so desperately needs. Rather than sheepishly dispose of millions of Tylenol tabs in the middle of the night, he and his new quality control team can be photographed proudly donating the poorly made goods to an effort that serves vital US interests. And best of all - J&J may be able to realize a tax break in the process. How’s that for leadership possibilities?
Suzanne
“Well, it turns out the military is giving a children’s dose of acetamnophen, which is the active ingredient in Tylenol, to dead mice that are then dropped by helicopter into the jungle in Guam in hopes of eradicating invasive brown tree snakes from around the naval base there.”
How do you give a dead mouse a dose of Tylenol? Or does the dose kill the mouse, too? And do snakes eat things that are already dead? I just have s-o-o-o-o many questions! This sounds like part good idea, part April Fools’……
To be on the safe side, military moms please purchase your children’s fever reducers off base, thank you.
Josh
They will probably inject it in them. Snakes will eat dead mice (in captivity), but they prefer live ones. Funny story though.
Tom McCollum
Love this article. Do I need to go to Snopes.com to check it out to make sure it is real?
I would love to see the J&J guys opening up all the bottles and pouring out the pills.
I had the same question about the mice. Do they live through the Tylenol only to die from being dropped from a helicopter?
Donal Coveney
You couldnt make this stuff up! If it was earlier in the year I would have checked my diary for April 1st. Only down side is are there enough snakes to gobble up all the iffy product? A case of every cloud has a silver lining - or more accurately “every cloud has an acetominophen laced dead mouse”! We have a phrase for this in Ireland: “GUBU” from a politician who described an event as “Grotesque, Unbelievable, Bizarre and Unprecedented”
Suzanne
Tom wrote, “Do they live through the Tylenol only to die from being dropped from a helicopter?”
The Stars and Stripes article makes it sound like they fashioned some little mice parachutes for them: “Each mouse was attached to two squares of cardboard and a streamer of green paper.”
Josh
Probably so they don’t splat….
Cassandra
As far as I know, the problem in Guam is not “invasive brown tree snakes… around the naval base there.” The snakes, which are not native to the islands but were accidentally transported there on ships, are well on their way to exterminating Guam’s populations of birds, including many species that are unique to the island: The birds of Guam have not evolved defenses against these invaders.
If the tylenol waste can be put to some good use in eliminating these snakes, then some good will have come of it, though it sounds like a risky method which may do yet more environmental damage.
Glembi
Samuel L. Jackson would be proud - keeping snakes off planes (and away from airbases, too)!
D Bunker
“And best of all - J&J may be able to realize a tax break in the process. ”
I’ll sleep So much better if J&J gets a tax break for disposing of Children’s medicines which are Actually only fit to kill snakes.