Bausch & Lomb comes clean on concerns about 'ReNu'

[Guest guest]

May 28, 2006]

Regaining consumers' trust: Bausch & Lomb comes clean on concerns

about 'ReNu'

http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2006/05/28/1661268.htm

(Baltimore Sun, The (KRT) Via Thomson Dialog NewsEdge) May 28--

Wearing a dark suit and standing before a nondescript backdrop,

Bausch & Lomb chief executive Zarrella looks into the camera

and soberly lays it on the line.

" The health and safety of your eyes has always been our first

priority. That's why we've stopped selling one of our ReNu contact

lens solutions: MoistureLoc, " Zarrella says, speaking slowly and

deliberately during the commercial, which recently began airing

nationwide. " Despite exhaustive testing, we're unable to eliminate

the possibility of a link to a rare eye infection. "

Quick and conciliatory damage control is considered key to

countering corporate catastrophes. Modern examples run the gamut

from Martha showcasing recipes she picked up in prison to

soften her image as she reclaimed her decorating empire to Exxon's

shutting down communications after its Alaskan oil spill in 1989,

which exacerbated bad impressions.

The health care industry is particularly sensitive turf because

product failures and shortcomings can affect the quality, even the

length, of people's lives.

In 2004, Merck & Co. was criticized for its reluctance to recall

Vioxx after it was found that the arthritis painkiller could

increase the risk for blood clot-related heart attacks and strokes

for long-term users. Conversely, & 's rapid pulling

of Tylenol from store shelves amid a tampering scare in 1982 earned

it public and industry praise, and a generation later is still

considered the gold standard in corporate damage control.

Bausch & Lomb's response has been viewed as somewhere in the middle -

- both complicated and facilitated by modern technology. Rumors

about Bausch & Lomb have multiplied on the Internet and television

and print media have taken the company to task.

The company turned to all three outlets to spread its counter-

message. It has run print ads in national and local newspapers along

with the TV commercial in which Zarrella is the plaintive -- if

unglamorous -- star. It also launched an online information center

and sent out hundreds of thousands of e-mail messages to customers.

Barbara Puffer, a public relations professional from Connecticut,

has worn contact lenses for 40 years and uses ReNu products. She got

an e-mail from the company in mid-May and almost immediately posted

it to an online communications group, under the heading " Hot

news ... I have my eye on a great PR case unfolding now. " Bausch &

Lomb must " have some savvy PR folks cranking out the message, " she

wrote.

" The cost to do nothing would have been far greater for their

reputation as a good health care provider, " said Puffer, who teaches

an online course on the topic at University of land University

College. " Had they not immediately worked on this containment and

recovery, it could have affected other products. "

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention announced this month

during a continuing investigation that MoistureLoc was the likely

cause of an increase in a fungal eye disease that has led to vision

loss and corneal transplants. By the time of the announcement,

Bausch and Lomb was already in full communications crisis mode to

protect the 153-year-old business.

The Food and Drug Administration issued a finding May 15 that

claimed the Rochester, N.Y., company did not properly review

MoistureLoc after it was on the market and did not notify the agency

of reported infections in a timely manner, which the company

disputes.

The business is also under fire for waiting until April 13 to take

MoistureLoc off store shelves after the FDA announced on April 10

that it was looking into the product as a cause of the infections.

In an e-mail interview, Bausch & Lomb spokeswoman Margaret Graham

said the company stopped shipments of MoistureLoc immediately,

but " within two business days " learned there was confusion in the

market about what products were safe to use. The company then

formally removed MoistureLoc from retailers and alerted consumers to

not use it.

" We regret any confusion caused during those two days and if there

was something we could go back and change, it would be eliminating

that confusion from the start, on April 10, " Graham wrote.

According to the latest data from the CDC, there are about 130

confirmed cases of Fusarium keratitis -- the infection associated

with MoistureLoc -- in Puerto Rico and 26 states, including two

cases in land. Nearly 40 of those infected have had to undergo

corneal transplants to save their vision.

Since deciding to permanently take MoistureLoc off the market as of

May 15, the same day Zarrella's commercial appeared, Bausch and

Lomb's full attention has turned toward rebuilding its reputation.

" I don't want to go into the specifics of our marketing plan for

competitive considerations ... but you can be sure that we're going

to do what it takes to rebuild this brand and regain confidence in

our products, " Zarrella said during a conference call May 15.

The chief executive weathered his own PR crisis in 2002 when it was

discovered he'd lied on his resume, falsely claiming he held a

master's degree in business administration. At the time, Zarrella

offered to resign, but Bausch & Lomb chose to withhold his $1.1

million bonus that year instead.

During Zarrella's conference call, he estimated the MoistureLoc

recall alone will cost as much as $70 million. On top of that will

be the lost sales: MoistureLoc was a $100 million product last year.

But the lost market share could be the most devastating. Also, since

April, Bausch & Lomb's stock is down about 24 percent.To counter

those effects, the company has offered fact sheets and product

replacements or refunds as well as a Wear & Care kit full of

freebies meant to encourage proper eye maintenance. It has

communicated with thousands of eye-care professionals and given

multiple presentations to various organizations.

When a company faces a public relations predicament, a series of

events is set in motion, said Jay White, chief executive of

Baltimore Research Inc., a firm that runs focus groups for companies

looking to gauge public reaction to products, advertising and even

crisis management efforts.

Large corporations typically have in-house teams that monitor media

accounts of troublesome situations, which they use to gauge

sentiment. Then they get to the real work, assembling a team of

public relations specialists, ad agents and executives to brainstorm

possible counterbalance measures. All of it must happen on a tight

timeline.

" The major objective is to turn a negative into a positive, " said

White, who saw such plans in action while on the job before starting

Baltimore Research.

He spent 13 years in sales and marketing for Dow Chemical Co., which

manufactured napalm and Agent Orange, and another eight-plus years

at National Fruit Product Co., which had to deal with the 1989

backlash against apples sprayed with the ripening agent Alar. Some

environmental groups contended it increased the risk of cancer in

children.

When it comes to health, " perception is reality, " White said. " It

gets back to emotional versus rational behavior. "

Reputation is a company's " number one asset, " according to

Bernstein, a 1977 University of land University College graduate

who runs a crisis management company in California and is the author

of Keeping the Wolves at Bay: A Media Training Manual.

Bernstein tells clients there are five tenets of effective health

care crisis communication: It must be prompt, compassionate, honest,

informative and interactive.

Thus far, he says, Bausch & Lomb has ignored at least three. The

company did not share all of its information, hasn't been apologetic

enough and was too slow to respond to concerns and initiate a

recall, he said. " You need to respond very quickly, and if you

don't, several things happen, " Bernstein said: rumor, innuendo, loss

of public confidence and the prospect of more lawsuits.

Bernstein pointed to Duke University Medical Center's botched heart

and lung transplant that led to the death of a 17-year-old girl in

2003 because her blood type and the donor's differed as a sensitive

situation that was managed well.

" They admitted their mistake right away, " he said, putting the

surgeon on camera " practically in tears " and volunteering to do a 60

Minutes interview. The hospital also ended up paying a lower

settlement to the family than might be expected, he said, because

the response was appreciated.

" They were speaking from the heart, " Bernstein said. " People

understand that mistakes happen, even at Bausch & Lomb. Nobody's

perfect, people understand. But when you try to obfuscate or tiptoe

around the truth, that's when you start to look like you've

committed a crime. "

" The pharmaceutical industry in general, with rare exception "

handles crises badly, Bernstein said. " It's astounding how

businesses in any industry, particularly health care, fail to learn

from the mistakes of those who precede them. "