New Kind of Headache

After cyanide-laced Tylenol capsules killed seven people in the Chicago area last fall, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration passed tough new regulations requiring drug manufacturers to package their products in tamper-resistant combiners. Now those safer boxes and bottles are turning up on store shelves across the country, and in some cases, companies have gone to extraordinary lengths in their zeal to protect.

As the maker of Tylenol, Johnson & Johnson had the most to gain by renewing consumers' trust. Before the murders, Tylenol had 37% of the $1.2 billion painkiller market; that share slipped to 7% during the scare, but has now rebounded to 24%. Tylenol's new wrapping offers triple protection: 1) the outer box is glued shut; 2) the cap and neck of the bottle inside the box are encased in a form-fitting shrink seal; and 3) an airtight foil seal covers the opening underneath. Like some other manufacturers, Johnson & Johnson says it has not raised prices to cover the extra 2.4-c- that these safeguards add to the cost of the package.

St. Joseph's Adult Maximum Strength Aspirin-Free Tablets now come in multilayered plastic sheets so tough that a consumer can get a headache just trying to pry one open. Other manufacturers have tried, not successfully, to find the middle ground between and frustration. Bristol Myers now packs bottles of Excedrin and Bufferin in little pull-top cans that look like baking-powder canisters. The company picked this approach, which will cost an extra 5-c- per package, after trying out 24 different methods. It found that consumers liked the idea that any tampering with the can is especially easy to spot. They also found it simple to open. Pretty simple, anyway. For klutzes, there is a diagram showing how to remove the top. This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.