WASHINGTON — Johnson & Johnson executives were briefed on an outside contractor’s plan to buy up defective painkillers instead of issuing a recall, documents obtained by The Associated Press on Friday indicate.
E-mails sent to J&J last spring by contractor Inmar show J&J was informed that the plan to purchase thousands of packets of Motrin could “draw scrutiny,” in the words of one Inmar executive.
Congressional investigators have been probing J&J’s handling of problems with its Mo trin tablets that emerged last year. The maker of consumer products and medicines has attracted scrutiny after a slew of product recalls.
The communication between J&J and Inmar, a supply-chain management company, appears to contradict testimony from J&J executive Colleen Goggins, who told lawmakers last month that J&J was not aware of the plan to use contractors posing as customers to buy the defective product.
