Contractor Questions Order to Remove Motrin From Shelves

Sept. 20, 2010 — -- For generations, parents have depended on Johnson & Johnson, trusting the company's medicines in the middle of the night.

Today, the gold-standard brand is in a tailspin and its quality is being questioned as Johnson & Johnson faces a second congressional hearing.

There have been eight recalls in the last year -- 136 million bottles of children's medicines including Children's Tylenol, Motrin Infant Drops, Children's Benadryl and Zyrtec -- and the company is apologizing for the largest over-the-counter children's medicine recall in history.

In November 2008, Johnson & Johnson and its subsidiary McNeil Consumer Healthcare discovered that some of its Motrin tablets were not dissolving properly -- meaning that if a consumer had a headache and took the medication, it might not work as expected.

Usually when there is a manufacturing problem, the product is recalled even if, as in this case, it does not pose a harm to consumers. In this case, contractors were sent to 5,000 convenience stores around the U.S. to quietly buy the faulty Motrin without alerting the public.

"I had been told not to say that this was a recall," said Lynn Walther who works for a Portland, Ore., inventory company. "I did not understand why I should be telling someone that this is not a recall when in my mind it was a recall."

In an exclusive interview with ABC News, Walther said that he was hired by a contractor to walk into convenience stores and quietly buy specific lots of Motrin IB caplet eight-count vials. Though he said his purchases often were met with puzzled looks from store owners, Walther said he had been told not to give the stores an explanation.

"Usually the only thing that was said was 'That's quite a bit of Motrin. What are you going to do with that?'" Walther said. "I just said, 'I'd like to purchase this Motrin.' I didn't make any conversation that I didn't feel was necessary."

He said he was following the instructions he'd been given. "You should simply act like a regular customer while making these purchases," the document said. "There must be no mention of this being a recall of the product. Run in, find the product, make your purchase and run out."