The manufacturing plant that has been the cause of Johnson & Johnson’s latest in a string of recalls has already been described as dirty and poorly maintained. It turns out that it was also staffed with temps and contract employees who weren’t properly trained, according to tax records and an FDA inspection report filed earlier this year.

From the Los Angeles Times:

At McNeil’s Fort Washington plant [in suburban Philadelphia], the company cut 478 jobs from the end of 2005 to the end of 2009, according to Whitemarsh Township tax records.

[…]

Although the job reductions could reflect production shifts to other locations, the FDA report specifically mentioned a lack of training for contract employees and temporary workers — failings that point to substandard staffing levels, said Albert Wertheimer, a professor of pharmaco-economics at Temple University.

“That’s probably one of the causes of this,” Wertheimer said. “I would suspect it’s a matter of trying to get by with less, but in this case it didn’t work.”

“Drug plant that recalled children’s Tylenol had cut staff” [LA Times]

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