No More Tears: The Dark Secrets of Johnson & Johnson

This audiobook was insightful, shocking and maddening as hell.

I grew up with Johnson and Johnson's Baby Magic lotion and can still recall its smell and the comfort it gave. Well, that memory has been dashed after I read this book that details the alarming deception and greed within one of North America's most trusted companies. 

This is an in-depth look by investigative journalist Gardiner Harris, who also narrates the book. It was well researched, but I would have enjoyed this book if it was less detailed. I went in knowing about the Tylenol scandal and finished the book knowing more about talc powder than I ever needed to.

There's just so much info and with the author's narration (not all authors should narrate their own books), it felt too long, too dry and too textbooky with a lot of focus on court trials and medication names. 

This book dives deep into the deception, greed and unethical dealings of a company that sold itself as a trusted, family company but then targeted customers and ignored health risks all for increased profits. 

My Rating: 3 stars

Author: Gardiner Harris

Genre: Nonfiction

Type and Source: eAudiobook from public library

Narrator: Gardiner Harris

Run Time: 14 hours, 23 min

Publisher: Random House Audio

First Published: April 8, 2025

Read: June 22-27,2025

Book Description from GoodReads: One day in 2004, Gardiner Harris, a pharmaceutical reporter for The New York Times, was early for a flight and sat down at an airport bar. He struck up a conversation with the woman on the barstool next to him, who happened to be a drug sales rep for Johnson & Johnson. Her horrific story about unethical sales practices and the devastating impact they’d had on her family fundamentally changed the nature of how Harris would cover the company—and the entire pharmaceutical industry—for the Times. His subsequent investigations and ongoing research since that very first conversation led to this book—a blistering exposé of a trusted American institution and the largest healthcare conglomerate in the world.

Harris takes us light-years away from the company’s image as the child-friendly “baby company” as he uncovers reams of evidence showing decades of deceitful and dangerous corporate practices that have threatened the lives of millions. He covers multiple lies and cover-ups regarding the link of Johnson’s Baby Powder to cancer, the surprising dangers of Tylenol, a criminal campaign to sell antipsychotics that have cost countless lives, a popular drug used to support cancer patients that actually increases the risk that cancer tumors will grow, and deceptive marketing that accelerated opioid addictions through their product Duragesic (fentanyl) that rival even those of the Sacklers and Purdue Pharma.

Filled with shocking and infuriating but utterly necessary revelations, No More Tears is a landmark work of investigative journalism that lays bare the deeply rooted corruption behind the image of babies bathing with a smile.