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20 October 2008

International Health Care Company Improves South Africans’ Lives

Johnson & Johnson has history in fostering social justice and well-being

Roger Crawford, Johnson and Johnson’s executive director for South Africa

By Phillip Kurata
Staff Writer

Johannesburg, South Africa — The South African division of Johnson & Johnson (J&J), the world’s largest health care company, played a leading role on the corporate front to topple the apartheid regime and plays a vigorous part now in efforts to defeat the HIV/AIDS epidemic.

J&J has been nominated for the Secretary of State’s Corporate Citizenship Award for 2008 in recognition of its positive effect on the communities where it does business.

Roger Crawford, J&J’s executive director for South Africa, said his company’s commitment to the welfare of the community is borne out by its actions.  He read aloud part of the third tenet of J&J’s credo, “We are responsible to the communities in which we live and work. … We must encourage civic improvements.”

“In the 1980s, when the anti-apartheid struggle was heating up, we felt that we had to take a stand on the side of social justice,” Crawford said.  Back then, he was a young J&J executive who believed that enlightened corporations could do more to end apartheid by staying engaged than by leaving the country.

J&J embraced the Sullivan principles for responsible business behavior in South Africa, which included ending segregation of the races in all eating, locker room and work facilities and equal and fair employment practices for all employees.  Crawford befriended the author of the principles — Reverend Leon Sullivan, an American Baptist minister and an outspoken critic of apartheid — and was assigned to organize the international business community to apply the principles.

Crawford was national Sullivan coordinator from 1982 to 1984 and chaired the association of corporations that had signed a declaration to work for the downfall of apartheid.  The association was dissolved in 1994, when the first democratic elections in South Africa were held.

Pinky Ntwasa explains her work on HIV/AIDS, which is funded by Johnson & Johnson.

“Shortly after I joined J&J,” Crawford said, “I realized that the U.S. business community had to organize themselves properly.  The actions we took with regard to our employees were in violation of South African labor laws.”

Outside the political arena, J&J made a large investment in 1990 — roughly $3.8 million in today’s dollars — to build and equip a special unit devoted to burn victims at a large hospital in Soweto, the sprawling black township outside Johannesburg where the anti-apartheid uprising began.

At the time, Soweto did not have electricity or gas lines.  The corrugated metal shacks were heated by oil stoves and lighted by candles after sunset.  Fires were frequent and deadly.  J&J acted in the face of a callous and racist government to show its care for the black community.  When Crawford pays a visit to the burn unit today, he is greeted with hugs and handshakes by the doctors, nurses and therapists there.  J&J continues to support the burn unit with supplies, equipment and medical research exchanges.  The unit operates independently of J&J supervision.

The burn unit has been identified as the most efficiently run medical unit in South Africa, and South Africa’s Department of Health intends to make it the model for hospital treatment upgrades throughout the country.  J&J says it is interested in finding ways to partner with the Department of Health to help improve hospital treatment nationwide.

Today, a good portion of the 3 percent pre-tax profits that J&J South Africa contributes to charity goes to fighting the HIV/AIDS epidemic.  J&J earmarks $65,000 for the Humana People to People charity that trains workers to work in the seething, impoverished shantytowns where the disease runs rampant.

“J&J’s core expertise is in running business and research and development.  We are always looking for partners in the war against HIV/AIDS that we can provide financial and management support to,” Crawford said.

J&J has provided the seed money to two biotech companies, Tibotec and Virotec, to develop new medications to fight the epidemic.  One outcome is a new drug called Prezista, which provides relief to patients who have developed resistance to other medications.  J&J has turned the patent rights over to a South African generic drug maker, Aspen.

“By giving the patent away, J&J has made the drug available in South Africa,” Crawford said.

The health care company also distributes kits of its products — pain relievers, shampoo, skin softeners, cotton swabs — to the HIV/AIDS workers who make home visits.  “These help the caregivers to clean the patients and when the patients are clean, it is easier for their loved ones to hold them and love them,” Crawford said.