The Elixir Tragedy Of 1937

Before the Pure Food and Drug Act, companies could add whatever they wanted to their products and consumers did not know what is was. “They use everything about the hog except the squeal.” (Sinclair 35) There was false advertising, false claims and most of the time food was adulterated and had dangerously unsafe preservatives. “Borax compounds...were used to make old butter seem like new...the effects of borax included nausea and loss of appetite, symptoms resembling those of influenza and overburdened kidneys”(Carson 1) In addition to borax, common

Frequently, consumers like you and I buy items everyday not knowing chemicals or harsh byproducts that they are made with. We trust that cosmetic products we buy everyday will be safe, but there are ingredients in our daily products that could or has caused some health or skin conditions. In 1820, the U.S gathered physicians to create, The FDA and regulations on drugs in the United States. The general purpose of The Food and Drug Act was to have a standard on the specific food and drugs that were being imported into the United States. It was not until 1848 the Drug Importation Act was passed by Congress. It required U.S. Customs Service Inspection to stop entry of adulterated drugs from outside our border. In the middle of 1906, fifty-eight years later the food and drugs act was passed. The original Food and Drugs Act was passed by Congress on the 30th of June and signed by President Theodore Roosevelt. The Food and Drug Act prohibits interstate commerce in misbranded and adulterated foods, drinks and drugs (FDA). The Food and Drug establishes standards and regulations ensuring that general public is safe from harmful domestically and internationally produced products.

The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) is best known for its role on protecting the health of the public by making sure that food, medications are safe and effective. Especially when it comes to the pharmaceutical industry, its mission is to regulate pharmaceutical manufacturers, as well as the drug approval process. However, in the recent years, many arguments and controversy regarding drug development and regulation have risen. Drug advertisements make false and misleading claims, products are being put out on the market without any proof of safety, causing many unwanted incidents such as the Avandia incident and Vioxx incident, which could have been prevented in the first place.

The Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938: Sulfonamide tested for flavor and fragrance but not safety, children died and 350 more were poisoned. This act made it so the sale of unsafe drugs could be stopped, that toxic drugs could be seized, and the burden of proof was given to the manufactures to show data of safety experiments.

Due to execrable food preparation prior to June 30, 1906, the United States established the Pure Food and Drug Act to ban the preparation, sale, and shipment of contaminated food and drugs. The act also banned mis-labelling and false claims of food and drugs. On June 30, 1906, The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) was also established to ensure the safety of the goods and the safety of the consumer.

In the eighteen hundred too much unsafe chemical are used to process consumer’s food and drugs in America 1. Thousands of so-called "patent" medicines to cure all kind of sickness with no scientific prove. 2. The United States was the world's dumping ground for counterfeit, contaminated, diluted, and decomposed drug materials. 3.

In the past, no regulations existed to protect the public from dangerous drugs. To obtain permission to market a drug, the manufacturer must satisfy the Food and Drug Administration that the drug is both safe and effective. FDA approval requires clinical trials to determine both safety and efficacy and can take a decade or more.

I think the reason the U.S. government opposed the REACH bill in 2007 and has not made a program to regulate their chemicals and their safe use is because it offers few advantages. By passing this bill it would have created many considerable problems and unjustified administrative burdens. A lot of these huge company's that use chemicals help the economy and if they stopped making their products the competition would be rough. Not to mention, it would cost billions of dollars to complete the required technical studies and related work. Generally, if this bill did go through, it would force companies to share confidential business information, and it would effect trade, global competition and businesses that are investing/developing new

There are many entrepreneurs in this world, or so they say. Many people strive to be successful, great and rich. A lot take risks and many fail; yet few succeed, if you happen to be one of the succeeding then chances are more than likely you’re very rich and successful sitting on a throne of a simple mindless idea that once popped into your head. Take Gary Dahl for example, he created the Pet Rock as funny as it seems in the 1970’s this funky idea had over 1.5 million in sales. He sold these pet rocks at only 3.95$; obviously this man was a rock hard millionaire over a rocking idea.

In the medical journal Animal Testing and Medicine, the article outlined an incident in 1937, in which a pharmaceutical company released a drug containing a harmful chemical compound known as “diethylene glycol,” which was marketed to the public (Hajar). The scientist had failed to acknowledge the potential of poisoning by the compound to the public, and upon its release there was mass poisoning. This frivolity of the scientists led to massive public outcry, and in turn lead for the movement of the passing of the “1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act requiring the safety testing of drugs on animals before they could be marketed”(Hajar). More incidents following these lead scientists into the belief that animal testing was necessary as a safety net to prevent such tragedies from occurring again in the

Making medications safe, efficacious and affordable have been a long lime pursuit by the US government, pharmaceutical industries and advocacy groups and ordinary citizens of the US. This responsibility started with regulations of vaccines in early 19th century by the government. At the time infectious disease was a major killer in the whole world and vaccines have been proven to be effective in combating infectious. However, the techniques and standards available today were not available then but some sort of regulation still needed to be put in place to ensure safety.

From as early as 1937, untested products were sold to the public causing the death of more than hundred people. This product was a cough syrup which was supposed to heal anyone from a cold but instead, it contained toxins which ended up killing many. Since products as strong as drugs, cosmetics and house products contain such strong chemical ingredients, U.S. congress passed the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act in 1938 after incidents including untested products came into the picture. The FFDCA is a set of laws that provide the safety in food, medicine and

In 1937, a pharmaceutical company in the USA created a preparation of sulfanilamide, using diethylene glycol (DEG) as a solvent, and called the preparation ‘Elixir Sulfanilamide’. DEG was poisonous to humans, but the company’s chief pharmacist and chemist was not aware of this, He simply added raspberry flavoring to the sulfa drug, which he had dissolved in DEG, and the company marketed the product. The preparation led to mass poisoning causing the deaths of more than a hundred people. No animal testing was done (Hajar 2011.).

Whilst there are many different acts inside the pharmaceutical industry, for the sake of this essay, I have decided to talk about only the major acts involved. Soon different laws started being formulated and enforced on drug development and distribution. The Import Drug act of 1848 was issued to limit the number of entry of poor quality drugs from overseas into the country. In 1906 another act was issued, it was called the Food and Drug Act of 1906. However this act only came into effect around 1930. The act stated that there should be clear labels of what the product is, on all food and drug items[4]. After this act came the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act of 1938, this act focused on labelling products

Should the FDA be able to control what manufacturers put into cosmetic products? I believe that the FDA and the FDCA should be able to determine what ingredients are being put into cosmetic products. I believe this because it can become very dangerous in the future if the FDA doesn't control what is being put into these products. Over the years, makeup and cosmetic brands have been putting more and more synthetic and dangerous chemicals in their products to make them better quality. This can become an overall bigger problem if it is not addressed and changed. In a statement from the FDA, they claimed that the FDA is not allowed to change the ingredients that are put into the products. They are only allowed to request that the ingredient is taken away. There are many chemicals that have been proven to be dangerous to the human body, but are still not being take away from the product by the FDA. There has also been proof that manufactures put these chemicals to make the products smell and last longer, but don’t help the consumers skin or body in any way. I believe that the FDA should be allowed to remove chemicals from certain products if they are proven to be dangerous. If the FDA doesn't do something about the problem then something else needs to be done to stop these