was no tainted product, because all the product was off the shelves. The company then designed some tamper proof packaging and reintroduced Tylenol, against "advice to the contrary," and succesfully recaptured a substantial portion of its former market.?FN1Wayne L. Pines, "How to Handle a PR Crisis," ?MDUL?Public Relations Quarterly?MDNM? (Summer, 1985) pp. 16 17.
Quick and decisive action can be the best approach to crisis management, but quick and decisive actions taken prematurely can also create a crisis. This was a lesson the Food and Drug Administration learned when it announced its intention to ban saccharin in 1977. The FDA was immediately criticized by almost every party interested in the issue, and Congress prohibited the agency from implementing a ban on the artificial sweetener.
The FDA made a number of mistakes and has been attributed with actually creating the crisis. Its decision was based on a Canadian study indicating that saccharin caused cancer in rats. It announced the decision in a press release, but failed to explain
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