Nation IN BRIEF : ILLINOIS : Settlement Reached in Pill Poisoning

The families of seven people who died in 1982 after taking cyanide-laced Tylenol reached a settlement with the drug’s manufacturer, McNeil Consumer Products Inc., just as the case was going to trial in Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago. McNeil admitted no liability for the deaths, lawyers for both sides said. Terms of the agreement were kept confidential. The seven, all from the Chicago area, died in late September of 1982 after taking tainted Extra-Strength Tylenol. No one has been charged in the deaths. The lawsuit, filed in 1983, alleged that McNeil should have known its Tylenol capsules could be tampered with.