Evening star., 1940-07-29
Food and Drug Unit
Insists Public Get
Whole Truth
Administration Pushes
Enforcement Of New
Label Regulation
BY ARTHUR T. WE'LL.

"Under new management, but
business as usual" is the slogan of
the Food and Drug Administration.
As a matter of fact, the new
management" is more theoretical
than real The bureau, lifted out
Of the Department of Agriculture,
was placed under the Federal Sc
curity Administration q few weeks
ago in the belief that a consumer
agency does not belong in a pro-
ducing department.
But r. S. A. Administrator Nc
Mutt has decided he has plenty to
do without interfering with the
efficient operation of the F. D. A.,
which has been under the aggres-
sive direction of sharp-featured,
bald-headed w. G. Campbell ever
since the late DR. Harvey w. Wiley
crusaded the original pure food law
to passage in 1906.
Further, the F. S. A. hasn't been
able to find quarters for its new
ward, and it still remains housed
In the Agriculture Department, its
guardian for more than 80 years.
Protection From Fakery.
There is nothing theoretical about
the F. D. AS activities, however. 1t
seeks at all times to protect the
consuming public from fakery, from
the "chiseling fringe" of manufac-
turers who are not above winking at
the impurity of their products or
the accuracy of their weights.
Under the Copeland-Lea Act of
1898. dangerous" drugs were out
lawed Immediately. Of the market,
for instance, went fat reducers con-
tanning dinitrophenol, which is used
IN making explosives. Then the F.
D. A. busted itself with deceptive
packaging to prevent consumers
from buying tiny tubes of tooth
paste or shaving cream in overlarge
containers, candy boxes with false
bottoms or bottles with deceptive
concave sides.
July the last of the labelling pro-
visions of this drastic law went into
effect and F. D. A. is proceeding
more than ever now to insist that
the public get not merely the truth.
but the whole truth.
There's a difference" explained
Miss Ruth De Forest Lamb, chief
educational officer of the Food and
Drug Administration. "The old
label truthfully declared you could
get relief from rheumatism by
taking a certain medicine. but 1t
probably didn't tell you it also could
make you drug addict or that the
cinchophen in it might cause vel
low atrophy of the liver The new
labels will.
Only Colored C0rnstarch.
"Or. under the old law, the house
wife might have been truthfully
told that by adding milk, sugar
and an egg or two to a powdered
preparation she could obtain an
easy, palatable dessert. Under the
new law she will learn that what
she has been paying for is simply
colored cornstarch. II she still wants
to pay fancy price for it that's
her concern, not ours. To us the
fundamental thing is that the con-
suming public gets facts. not sales
talk"
In DR.. Wiley's day greatest stress
was laid on the need for pure foods.
Upton Sinclair's jungle" in 1906
caused Theodore Roosevelt, then in
the White House, to order a Federal
investigation of the meat-packing
industry preliminary to seeking
passage Of the Wiley pure food law.
Then, with the food industry
cleaned up to nearly every ones
satisfaction, drugs began taking
more and more of the administra-
tion's attention.
Now the pendulum has swung
back to the food industry.
Most if not all the vitamin, min
eral and other dietary products
have been marketed traditionally
through drug trade channels, but
DR.. E. M. Nelson, who is in charge
of the F. D. AS vitamin division
and who helped work out vitamin
D at the University Of Wisconsin,
has decided that some order and
consistency must be brought into
this chaotic field which could de-
velop into racket" if not properly
supervised.
The F. D. A. will hold hearings
shortly to classify all vitamin-con-
tanning products as foods with the
exception of injectable preparations
and high dosage concentrates in
tended for use under a physicians
supervision. Dr. Nelson believes the
public is entitled to know the mini
mum intake required to overcome
deficiencies in any of the six vita
minis, A, B-1, c, D, riboflavin and
nicotine acid or in the minerals
calcium, phosphorus, iron and
iodine. 1t isn't enough merely to
state that they are rich in certain
vitamins."
Thus some breakfast food makers
have been declaring that their food
contains ~itamin B-1 when they
were putting only a milligram Of