46 FOOD, DRUGS, AND COSMETICS Mr. CAMPBELL. Of course it would be. All action under this paragraph is court action. The Department would prefer a charge of misbranding in a case which would go to court and be tried on its merits. Paragraph (b) is substantially what is in the law now. It names more narcotic products than those given in the present act, and it also contains the following: The Secretary is hereby authorized, by regulations prescribed after notice and hearing, to designate as narcotics or hypnotics within the meaning of this paragraph such other substances as he may find to possess narcotic or hypnotic properties. This would permit the Secretary to include narcotics other than those named therein, as new ones appea». This is obviously in the interest of the consumer, and is not an imposition upon the manufacturer. Section (c) is purely what is in the act now, because alcoholic or chloroform content is required to be shown on the jubel. These products usually are present in such small quantities that they are not habit forming. The CHAIRMAN. Does the repeal of pro ibition have any reference to the use of alcohol? Mr. CAMPBELL. No, sir. Paragraph (d) is merely to require that directions for use be stated on drug labels. That paragraph (d), of course, should be read in connection with section 4 (a), which refers to the use of drugs. makes compulsory the use of a label. It The CHAIRMAN. We will take an adjournment for one hour, to reconvene at 2:15. (At 1:15 p.m. an adjournment was taken until 2:15 p.m.) AFTER RECESS The subcommittee met at the expiration of the recess, at 2 o'clock p.m., Senator Copeland presiding. Senator COPELAND. The committee will come to order. Before asking Mr. Campbell to return to the stand, there are two or three gentlemen present who must return to the East and they are proponents of the bill. Although it will be out of order a little, we will call on them now. The first one is Professor Henderson, of Yalo University. Professor Henderson. STATEMENT OF PROF. YANDELL HENDERSON, PROFESSOR OF APPLIED PHYSIOLOGY, YALE UNIVERSITY, NEW HAVEN, CONN. Professor HENDERSON. Mr. Chairman, I appreciate very highly your courtesy in allowing me to interrupt Dr. Campbell, and, in return, I am going to try to be as brief as I possibly can and deal only with a few specific matters so as to leave time for my colleagues. Dr. Freeman and Dr. Haven Emerson, who are also to speak during this pause in Dr. Campbell's testimony. I have a rather extensive experience, running over many years, in relation to certain aspects of public health and the hazards to health, and even to life from substances that are not now under, but that ought to be under, the Food and Drugs Act. I know of cases in FOOD, DRUGS, AND COSMETICS 47 which illness, or even death, has occurred from inadequate protection because of the inadequacy of the present law. The Food and Drug Administration has been subject to criticism for not doing certain things that they are provented from doing by the weakness of the present law. I agree absolutely with all that Dr. Campbell said this morning. It was entirely in accord with my experience. For this reason I have come down here to support the strengthening and revision of the Food and Drugs Act. I want to dwell on just one or two specific points. There is a new drug just now being introduced called "dinitrobenzol." I wonder that it is not on the market already in patent medicines. It takes only a little to make the metabolism, the combustion in the body, go up 10 or 15 percent or more. The man or woman that takes it Toses weight rapidly. It would be a wonderful antifat medicine. But if the patient increases the dose and takes too much, as some certainly will, the combustion goes up, and so extremely that the temperature rises, not only 4° to 5° as in an ordinary fever, but 9° or 10°. Within 24 hours that patient has practically burned himself to death. That will happen often unless the Government controls the use of that drug in patent medicines. Against such drugs the present law does not give protection. Under the provisions of the revised act that Dr. Campbell described this morning there would be protection. The particular reasons that I have appeared at this hearing are two; first, I have been brought into contact with cases of injury to health, and even to life, by preparations that go into the American homes against which neither the present law nor the bill before you, as now printed, affords adequate protection. This experience enables me to see how important and how necessary is the protection that the present law does give, and how beneficial will be the increased protection that the revised law will give. Secondly, while I am a supporter, to the last comma, of this bill, I have come here also to urge that its provisions should be expanded and extended sufficiently to protect the American home against household preparations that sometimes do quite as much harm as any adulterant in food preparations. One class of such substances has been dealt with in a special act, the so-called "Corrosive Poisons Act", passed 5 or 6 years ago. Before that such substances as soda lye and ammonia and oxalic acid, that women use to clean the kitchen sink and to polish copper, were sold with no warning label; and it was a common accident for young children to get hold of the can and swallow some of the contents with the result of death or lifelong injury. This kind of accident used to happen frequently and is now provided against. But there is another group of hazards and accidents against which there is as yet no protection and for which I think this revised bill should give protection. I will touch on only two or three. One of these substances occurs in polishing powders and in the liquids used to clean forks and spoons. Three or four years ago there were a number of cases of severe illness, and my personal belief is there were some deaths, from minuté amounts of silver polish left on the forks and spoons. It was very puzzling, for at first no one suspected the polish; everyone suspected some food, until one of the men from the United States 48 FOOD, DRUGS, AND COSMETICS Public Health Service in going through the pantry of a hotel smelt the odor of bitter almond, the odor of cyanide. He followed this up and found that the cases of poisoning were due to the silver polish. It contained potassium cyanide, an excellent substance to clean silver forks and spoons but also one of the most deadly poisons. There is nothing in the present Food and Drugs Act, nor in the proposed revised act, to prevent an enterprising manufacturer from putting cyanide silver polish on the market under a succession of fancy names. Dr. Campbell spoke of beans that produced cyanide. I submit that it is not only important to avoid beans from which one can get cyanide, but it is equally important that one should not get cyanide from the fork with which one eats the bean. There is one other point in connection with the discussion this morning on which I would like to touch; that is the question of presumption of innocence. Certainly the inw will always presume an individual innocent until he is proved guilty. But I want to protest against assuming innocence in a ketchup containing a poison until it is proved guilty by killing some one. I protest against a silver polish containing cyanide being assured to be innocent until it is proved that that polish has caused a death. Cyanides should be presumed guilty oven before they have taken a life. The same general statement is true of another substance, sodium fluoride, which is commonly sold to be scattered about the pantry or kitchen if there happen to be some ants in the floor or some water bugs around the sink. Sodium fluoride is a powerful poison. It has caused deaths. Senator COPELAND. I remember some sodium fluoride being sold as roach powder. A distinguished citizen sent out for somo headache powder, and for some reason they sent him roach powder and he died. We found that there was no provision made for labeling that package as poisonous or indicating how dangerous it might be. So I know of one case where death has occurred from the use of that substance. Professor HENDERSON. I am delighted to have my statement confirmed by the Senator. I might mention that I found sodium fluoride in my own kitchen some months ago. The control of sodium fluoride insect powder to be used in the home is not covered either by the present law or in the proposed bill. This is true also of floor wax containing carbon tetrachloride and related substances. Children playing on the floor have been overcome by the fumes which are poisonous. Against none of these and many similar health hazards to the American home does the present law or the proposed law afford protection. Yet all these household preparations are bought from the same store and are delivered in the same market basket as the food preparations that are covered by the present law and which will be even better safeguarded under the proposed law. I shall not take your time to discuss other examples of household health hazards. I offer for the record, a talk that I gave on the radio a short time ago on household health hazards that deals with these matters. Senator CorELAND. That will be included in the record. FOOD, DRUGS, AND COSMETICS 49 Professor HENDERSON. I would like also to call attention to a hearing before a committee of the Senate a couple of years ago on a bill to control volatile poisons. I am not going to bring up the details of that bill. 1 merely want to ca!! attention to the fact that it was shown by experts and authorities like Dr. Aline Hamilton, of Harvard; Dr. H. Gideon Wells, of Chicago; Dr. C. E. A. Winslow; Dr. Leach, director of the American Medical Association Chemical Laboratory; and Dr. Cary McCord, that the type of hazard to the American home I am speaking of does exist and the home has no protection. Senator COPELAND. Let the record show the reference to this particular document, so that it may be referred to in the future. Professor HENDERSON. I have here the report of the hearing before the Committee on Agriculture and Forestry, United States Senate, Seventy-second Congress, first session, on S. 3853, a bill to regulate interstate and foreign commerce in poisonous and volatile substances intended for household consumption. I might mention that the scientific basis of that proposed law was drawn by me and it was put in shape by the legislative counsel of the Senate and was introduced by Senator Bingham. I am now only calling attention to that part of the testimony which dwells on risks to the American home which are not now covered. All that is necessary to bring these household preparations within the terms of the revised Food and Drugs Act is a paragraph to be inserted on page 2 between lines 17 and 18 to the effect that the term "household preparation" means all substances and preparations for the cleansing, polishing, preservation or improvement of the appearance of the home or any of its equipment, or the closing of its occupants, or any other use about the home. In addition, in line 9, on page 3 and elsewhere, the words "household preparation", and then on page 12, before the words “false advertisement" the insertion of a section defining the misbranding of household preparations in terms almost exactly identical with those applied to foods in section 7 and to drugs in section 8. If this addition is made, the revised act will cover practically the whole field of the protection of the American home from drug and food preparations, cosmetics, and these household preparations that I have been speaking of; but until this is done, the protection afforded to the home will remain incomplete. There are just one or two other points on which I would like to touch. On page 10, line 15 to 18, require that the amount of alcohol contained in any drug should be stated on the label. I did not catch the discussion of that this morning. I do not suppose that as it stands this requirement applies to beer or wines or cordials or spirits; but, in my judgment, it would be extremely advantageous if the requirement of the percentage of alcohol were extended to include all beverages as well as all drugs. It is time that the American people learned the difference between 50-percent alcohol and 4-percent alcohol, or 3.2 percent, and that the effects of alcoholic beverages are determined by the amount of alcohol and not by the color of the beverage. Then, finally, there is one other point that I picked up during Dr. Campbell's testimony, and that is the fact that the new bill is to include physical-therapy appliances. 1 can speak with heartfelt earnestness on that inatter because I happened a few months ago to have been appointed on the Council of Physical Therapy of the American 50 FOOD, DRUGS, AND COSMETICS Medical Association, and we constantly have referred to us all sorts of physical therapy appliances. All we can do is to approve those that are really good and then they may be advertised in the journal of the American Medical Association. Those that are not useful, or those that are distinctly harmful, we can merely reject. The Food and Drug Administration will be able to go much further and discredit the marketing of those that are distinctly harmful, and it will relieve the Council of Physical Therapy of the American Medical Association of a duty or a function which it now tries to fulfill. We do the best we can, but we are certain that the Food and Drug Administration can do it much better. To sum up, my experience with those matters that are not covered by the present law, but that should be covered by the revised law, shows how immensely important and how necessary protection is in those matters that are covered, and how much needed in those that are not covered. On these grounds I strongly support and urge the passago and approval of the revised Act, and the additional features that I have here discussed. SCIENCE SERVICE RADIO TALKS PRESENTED OVER THE COLUMBIA BROADCASTING System HOUSE LD HEALTH HAZARDS BY DR. YANDELL HENDERSON But They are I am going to talk over with you some of the dangers that we are all exposed to nowadays. We all realize the hazards to life and health that the automobile has introduced, for many people are killed even in trying to cross the street. the dangers that we are going to consider now are not so well known. quite largely hazards to health and dangers to life that occur in our homes. Nearly all these dangers have developed rather recently. They are nearly all due to advances in science. You know that the advances in medical science have greatly decreased the deaths and illness from infectious diseases. The applications of inedical science have made life much healthier and the average life much longer. A generation ago diseases like typhoid fever and diphtheria caused a heavy death rate, while now in a town or city with a good health department a year may go by with few or no deaths from these disenses. To a large extent this advance has been made by the health departments of our cities, our States, and the National Government. It is the fashion just now to criticize the Government for costing so much and for requiring high taxes to support it. But the truth is that the service that the National, State, and local governments render us simply in protecting our health is worth every cent we ever pay in taxes. It would be a disaster, if the effort to decrease the expenses of our various governments resulted in crippling the public health services. We know that the police protect our property and our lives from criminale; that the fire departments protect our homes from fire; and that the United States Army and Navy protect us from foreign enemies. But we seldom think of the protection that the Government gives us in regard to the food that we eat and that it should give us in regard to certain hazards to which our homes are now exposed. The most important protection of this sort is that afforded by the Federal pure food law, and similar laws in the States together with the arrangements that the Government maintains to see that the pure food laws are obeyed. The agricultural experiment stations in many States are every day analyzing samples of foods that are being sold on the open market and these results are published in the reports of these stations. Impure foods are confiscated and destroyed. You can get one of these reports by writing to your State government. Before the pure food law was passed any food producer could sell nearly anything that he could persuade the public to buy, no matter how much his product was misrepresented. I remember some strawberry jam that was highly adver tised as a superior product, but it was found to consist of apple buttersweetened with corn syrup, flavored with a synthetic chemical flavoring, colored with a coal-tar dye, with artificial wooden seeds scattered through the jar. The one |