Rep. Ed Towns: J&J uncooperative in federal probe

NEW YORK Johnson & Johnson has been less than cooperative with a congressional probe into the recent product recalls of J&J’s McNeil Consumer Healthcare division and the subsequent shuttering of its Fort Washington, Pa., manufacturing facility, the New York Times reported Thursday.

In an interview with the Times, Rep. Ed Towns, D-N.Y., suggested J&J has been less cooperative in responding to requests than were either Bank of America or the insurance giant A.I.G. when they recently were under investigation.

Towns and the committee may have to resort to subpoenas to compel J&J’s cooperation, Towns said.

Bonnie Jacobs, McNeil spokeswoman, countered that the company has already produced approximately 20,000 pages of documents, and that corporate executives were made available for interviews in a timely fashion, the Times reported.