Pure Food and Drug Act
From Drug Rehab Wiki
Millions of Americans who use prescription medicines and enjoy the security of reading labels printed with accurate drug contents and dosage information can thank early social activists. Now more than 100 years old, the Pure Food and Drug Act, established in 1906, may be considered one of the most influential and impactful statutes in U.S. history, especially for the pharmaceutical industry. Signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt, the act was the forerunner of the modern day Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and created a new government regulatory arm to ensure safety and consumer education toward products, including medicine. Also known as the Wiley Act, the Pure Food and Drug Act emerged from nearly 20 years of debate.
Influence from consumer groups, women’s activist groups, and early journalists – including Upton Sinclair and Samuel Collins Adams – helped urge the creation of this regulatory force over the U.S. medicine, food and pharmaceutical sectors. Most influential in its creation was Harvey Washington Wiley, who became leader of the USDA in 1883 and built a coalition to urge regulation of the food and drug industries.
Prior to the act, however, early medicinal formulas could contain harmful or poisonous drugs, such as morphine, cocaine or heroin, without revealing their contents on the label. The 1906 act required product labels for items containing these drugs, which were often the active ingredients in emerging patent medicines of the time. The drugs remained legal, as long as their contents and amounts were clearly printed on the label – but the Pure Food and Drug Act regulations may have decreased the sale of drugs containing opiates in the early 1900s by more than 30 percent.
Perhaps one of the most famous regulatory cases that emerged from the Pure Food and Drug Act is Coca-Cola, whose makers replaced cocaine with caffeine as the active ingredient in 1903. However, in 1909, Coca-Cola manufacturers were taken to court on accusations of excessive amounts of caffeine in the formula.
Interestingly, the Pure Food and Drug Act passed at the same time as the Meat Inspection Act of 1906, which required inspection of livestock before and after slaughter to ensure safety, as well as inspection of meat processing plants. These acts gave power to the USDA to monitor not only the manufacturing and sale process of food and drug products, but also their marketing efforts.
In 1938, the impact of the Pure Food and Drug Act was strengthened by an act that further prevented the distribution of drugs, foods, cosmetics or medical devices that may be hazardous to people’s health. Then in 1960, the Kefouver-Horris Drug Amendments continued this momentum toward regulation, providing new systems of control over emerging pharmaceuticals. In 1972, drug companies were required by the Drug Listing Act to inform the government of all the drugs they produce and manufacture.
The Pure Food and Drug Act enables the government to regulate one-fourth of the nation’s gross domestic product, and today continues to control drugs for both humans and animals, vaccines, biological products and the preservative chemicals placed in foods.
More than a century later, safeguards from the Pure Food and Drug Act placed on the development of new pharmaceuticals and their advertising campaigns continue to ensure Americans know exactly what’s in the drugs they’re taking, and the proper dosage recommendations.
