McNeil, Legs, and Gillian McCain, eds.Please Kill Me:
The Uncensored Oral Histor y of Punk. New York:
Penguin Books, 1997.
Lacy Schutz
See also Blondie; Boy George and Culture Club;
Glass, Philip; MTV; Music; Music videos; New Wave
music; Performance art; Pop music; Synthesizers;
World music.
Tamper-proof packaging
Definition Product packaging designed to
frustrate attempts to alter its contents
After the Tylenol murders, consumer fears about the safety
of over-the-counter medications were partly allayed by the
development of protective packaging.
Prior to the 1980’s, medicines such as asprin were
routinely placed on open shelves with nothing more
than screw-on caps and a wad of cotton inside. Some
medicines might be sold in boxes, but their flaps
generally slid in and out with ease. The first kind of
protective packaging used by pharmaceutical com-
panies, the familiar “push down and turn” lid, came
only after wide publicity focused on the accidental
poisonings of small children. However, child-proof
caps were primarily intended to protect the inno-
cent from their own curiosity, and they often frus-
trated adults seeking to take their medications. As a
result, packages without child-proof lids were made
available for the elderly and other people living in
households without small children.
Tylenol Murders This casual approach to pharma-
ceutical safety changed after the 1982 Tylenol mur-
ders in Chicago. The murders made plain in the most
shocking way possible the vulnerability of over-the-
counter medicines to being made vehicles for poison-
ers’ malice. Not only were all Tylenol products swept
from store shelves while investigators tried to deter-
mine how extensive the contamination was, but also
many other non-prescription drugs were withdrawn
because of fears of copycat criminals seeking further
media attention at the expense of human life.
Immediately after the Tylenol killings, there was
real concern that the murders might end the sale
of over-the-counter medications, making it neces-
sary to reinstitute policies requiring pharmacists to
keep even non-prescription medications behind their
counters. However, consumer advocates called upon
pharmaceutical corporations to cooperate with the
Food and Drug Administration to develop alterna-
tive means of protecting the public from future
tainting of common drugs. The solution they devel-
oped was to create barriers that would make it diffi-
cult or impossible for future poisoners to imitate
the Tylenol murders.
The most obvious security solution was to seal the
flaps of boxes containing retail drugs. In order to
open the sealed boxes, it became necessary to tear
the flap loose, leaving visible damage. However, there
was concern that a sufficiently skilled poisoner might
develop a means to loosen such flaps without leaving
tell-tale damage. As a result, it was decided to add ad-
ditional layers of protection, such as a plastic sleeve
around the neck of a bottle, or a paper under the lid
that sealed the bottle’s neck altogether.
In addition, it was noted that the Extra-Strength
Tylenol capsules that had been the primary vehicle
for the Tylenol murders had been adulterated by
carefully pulling apart the two halves of each cap-
sule, dripping in a droplet of cyanide, and reassem-
bling the capsule. As a result, it was decided that
rigid plastic capsules would henceforth be restricted
to prescription medicines, which were considered
less vulnerable to tampering because access to them
was restricted. All over-the-counter medicines that
could not be administered in tablet form would
henceforth use a softer gelatin-based capsule that
would crush or disintegrate if disassembled.Impact The development of tamper-proof packag-
ing enabled the public to regain confidence in the
safety of over-the-counter medicines. Within a mat-
ter of months, the sale of Tylenol products returned
to levels comparable to those prior to the Tylenol
murders. However, security came at a price. Protec-
tive packaging was often difficult and frustrating for
legitimate users to remove, particularly if they were
elderly or disabled. Furthermore, all the additional
packaging had to be discarded, adding to the bur-
den on the nation’s landfills. However, it was gener-
ally agreed that these downsides were an acceptable
price to pay for safety.
More subtly, the growing ubiquity of tamper-
proof packaging marked a loss of innocence by the
American people. Every protective sleeve and inner
lid that had to be peeled off a bottle of over-the-942 Tamper-proof packaging The Eighties in America