J&J Giving $200 Million For Health Of Women, Kids

TRENTON, N.J. -- Health giant Johnson & Johnson is donating about $200 million in cash and medicine to a sweeping United Nations program created to improve the health and lives of people in poor countries.

J&J is launching a five-year program called "Every Mother, Every Child," meant to help almost 400 million women and children in developing countries. The maker of No More Tears Baby Shampoo will donate its medicine for treating intestinal worms in children, send pregnant women messages on prenatal health on their cell phones, and work to make childbirth safer. J&J also will continue research on new treatments for the AIDS virus and tuberculosis, both of which disproportionately affect women and children in developing countries.

"It's a natural extension of our commitment to improve the health of mothers and children everywhere," Johnson & Johnson CEO Bill Weldon said in prepared remarks. "For several decades, we've worked in partnership with dozens of nonprofits and governments in every region of the world to help treat and prevent diseases that place mothers and children at risk."

The J&J effort addresses part of the United Nations' Millennium Development Goals. That's an ambitious international effort, begun in 2000, to bring everyone in the world basic needs and rights, from good health, shelter and education to equality between men and women.
J&J, based in New Brunswick, announced the program Wednesday and discussed it with reporters during a conference call Thursday with Weldon, UN Assistant Secretary-General Robert Orr and officials of three health projects.

"Our company's credo stresses the importance of giving back to the community," Weldon said. "We want every woman and every child, in every country, to know that they belong to that community and that we dedicate ourselves and our resources to their good health."

Weldon has spent recent months trying to refurbish J&J's once-golden reputation, which has been tarnished by 11 recalls of medicines, contact lenses and hip implants in the last year. The largest recall involved 136 million bottles of children's and infants' liquid medicines that might have contained tiny metal particles or had too much of their active ingredient. Congress, federal prosecutors and the Food and Drug Administration are looking into J&J's handling of the recalls.

J&J's announcement of the "Every Mother, Every Child" program comes just ahead of the U.N.'s Millennium Development Goals Summit, to be held in New York Sept. 20-22.

Source: Huffington Post