Pure Food and Drug Act

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US President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906

The Pure Food and Drug Act is a consumer protection law that was drafted in the USA in 1906 under President Theodore Roosevelt . The law should protect against misleading labels and contents on medicines and food. It was the first in a series of major consumer protection laws enacted by the US Congress in the 20th century that ultimately led to the establishment of the Food and Drug Administration . Originally, the law stipulated that drug manufacturers were obliged to indicate all contents of a drug sold on the packaging. However, this regulation was successfully challenged by manufacturers and advertising agencies , so that a compromise was reached which requires the specification of ten addictive ingredients. These ingredients include alcohols , morphine , cocaine , heroin , opium , eucaine , chloroform , cannabis indica , chloral hydrate, and acetanilide .

Historical significance

The Pure Food and Drug Act was part of several progressive pieces of legislation and was signed by President Roosevelt on the same day as the Federal Meat Inspection Act. Enforcement of the Pure Food and Drug Act was assigned to the Presidium of the Chemistry Division of the US Department of Agriculture, which was renamed the US Food and Drug Administration in 1930 . The Pure Food and Drug Act is believed to be the origin of the Food and Drug Administration as it was its responsibility to execute the law.

Legal controversy

In March 1907, several shipments of suspected cancer drugs were confiscated, suspected of being false labels with false claims. The manufacturer of these drugs, Dr. Johnson's Mild Combination Treatment for Cancer then filed a lawsuit alleging the Pure Food and Drug Act did not allow such widespread confiscations. In 1911, the United States Supreme Court ruled in favor of Dr. Johnson on the grounds that at the time there was no exact consensus in medicine about the effects of the drug. In 1909 an attempt was made to ban Coca-Cola on a legal basis . The reason was a greatly increased caffeine content in the drink, which had existed since 1903 when Coca-Cola replaced cocaine as an active ingredient with caffeine . First a decision was made in favor of Coca-Cola because the judge of the United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola decided that the beverage company had the right to determine the amount of caffeine per beverage. However, the case was later reopened by the Supreme Court and it was ultimately decided that the caffeine levels needed to be reduced.

Influence on future consumer protection laws

In 1938, two consumer protection laws were signed that built on the Pure Food and Drug Act. The Wheeler-Lea Act expanded the scope of the Federal Trade Commission and made it possible to punish violations of the law relating to false statements in advertisements about the effects of drugs. The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of the same year achieved similar results for the Food and Drug Administration . These two consumer laws were supported through various initiatives by the American Medical Association . One of these initiatives tried to discourage drug manufacturers from making false statements about the effects of their drugs with a seal of approval. Advertisements that were checked by the American Medical Association and assessed as truthful, received the seal of approval and thus permission to be displayed in the organization's official magazines. In 1952 the Durham-Humphrey Amendment was introduced which further emphasized the distinction between prescription and non-prescription drugs.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c NANCY TOMES: Remaking the American Patient: How Madison Avenue and Modern Medicine Turned Patients into Consumers . University of North Carolina Press, 2016, ISBN 978-1-4696-2277-4 , doi : 10.5149 / 9781469622781_tomes .
  2. ^ Andrea T. Borchers, Frank Hagie, Carl L. Keen, M. Eric Gershwin: The history and contemporary challenges of the US Food and Drug Administration . In: Clinical Therapeutics . tape 29 , no. 1 , January 2007, ISSN  0149-2918 , p. 1–16 , doi : 10.1016 / j.clinthera.2007.01.006 ( elsevier.com [accessed June 14, 2018]).
  3. ↑ James Hamblin: Why We Took Cocaine Out of Soda . In: The Atlantic . January 31, 2013 ( theatlantic.com [accessed June 18, 2018]).
  4. ^ Pop psychology: The man who saved Coca-Cola. Accessed June 18, 2018 .
  5. ^ Milton Handler: The Control of False Advertising under the Wheeler-Lea Act . In: Law and Contemporary Problems . tape 6 , no. 1 , 1939, p. 91-110 , doi : 10.2307 / 1189730 , JSTOR : 1189730 .
  6. ^ David F. Cavers: The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938: Its Legislative History and Its Nouns Provisions . In: Law and Contemporary Problems . tape 6 , no. 1 , 1939, p. 2-42 , doi : 10.2307 / 1189727 , JSTOR : 1189727 .
  7. ^ John P. Swann: FDA and the Practice of Pharmacy: Prescription Drug Regulation Before the Durham-Humphrey Amendment of 1951 . In: Pharmacy in History . tape 36 , no. 2 , 1994, p. 55-70 , JSTOR : 41111608 .