Lawrence G. Foster, a former journalist who started the public relations department at Johnson & Johnson and helped lead the company out of a crisis when seven people died after taking Tylenol, the company’s signature pain reliever, died on Oct. 17 at his home in Westfield, N.J. He was 88.

He had cancer and heart disease, said his son Lawrence G. Foster III, who confirmed the death.

In late September 1982, police connected a string of mysterious deaths in and around Chicago to cyanide-laced capsules of Extra Strength Tylenol, throwing the public into a panic over the realization that a killer had turned a common household product into a weapon.

Investigators determined early on that the capsules had been tampered with not at the factory but by a person or persons who had purchased packages of Tylenol at various outlets, placed cyanide inside random capsules and returned the packages to the store shelves. Still, the association of the product with the crime threatened the Tylenol brand with extinction.

Mr. Foster, a Johnson & Johnson vice president in charge of public relations, became a chief adviser to the chairman, James E. Burke, in formulating the company’s response. The strategy, which was widely viewed as a model of corporate crisis management, was to put consumer safety first, to respond to the media with alacrity and to be entirely honest.