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The Twentieth Century and Beyond
Published in Scott M. Jackson, Skin Disease and the History of Dermatology, 2023
Caustics were used to deal with indurated or embedded skin diseases, such as lupus vulgaris and various types of skin cancer. Mild caustics included salicylic acid, iodine, mustard, and cantharidin, while the stronger caustics included potash, arsenic, zinc chloride, caustic lime, and silver nitrate. Whether to destroy skin cancers with caustics versus excise them with the knife was a great debate among surgeons throughout history.Patients took these prescribed medications with little more than the trust in their physician that it was the right thing to do at the time of their illness. However, there was zero regulation of the contents of these medications or the claims of their manufacturers. After the turn of the 20th century, the US government intervened to establish safe and effective treatments for the American consumer. In 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt signed into law the Pure Food and Drug Act, a law aiming to prevent the adulteration of drugs by making it the business of the Bureau of Chemistry (renamed the FDA in 1930) to examine foods and drugs for additives. In 1938, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act into law, banning false therapeutic claims and mandating a pre-market review of the safety of new drugs. These laws were critical final steps in the modernization of healthcare in the 20th century.
Manufacture of Ayurvedic Medicines – Regulatory Aspects
Published in D. Suresh Kumar, Ayurveda in the New Millennium, 2020
V. Remya, Alex Thomas, D. Induchoodan
Manufacture of medicinal products was not a regulated activity in the developed world in the early days. Then industrial-scale production and mass transportation were applied to medicine manufacturing, and customers could no longer be assured of the quality of products. Consequently, the adulteration of food and drugs became a problem. During the Mexican War (1846–1848) it was found that American troops were supplied with substandard imported medicinal products. This resulted in the passing of the first federal law dealing with medicinal products – the Drug Importation Act of 1848. The unhygienic conditions prevailing in the meat packing industry gave rise to public outcry about the safety of food, and also of the quality of medicinal substances. The death of a dozen children in 1902 from contaminated vaccines forced legislators to pass the Biologics Control Act of 1902, which called for the licensing of biological products and their production in licensed facilities. The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 prohibited the mislabeling and adulteration of medicinal products and introduced the U.S. Pharmacopeia and the National Formulary as official standards. This ushered in an era of regulated industrial manufacture of medicines (Dumitriu 1997).
Authority and Gatekeeping: 1900 to c. 1950
Published in John K. Crellin, A Social History of Medicines in the Twentieth Century, 2020
Leading the way in this trend was the intense public pressure that helped to precipitate the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act in the United States, and the 1908 Proprietary or Patent Medicines Act in Canada, both of which affected Newfoundland imports since no distinction was made between the home and island markets. Even so, an intriguing number of medicines escaped anticipated controls. For example, the 1906 U.S. Pure Food and Drug Act—federal legislation to control adulteration and safety on an interstate basis—was undermined by a court challenge that found the sanctions on false and misleading labeling did not apply to therapeutic claims. Despite a 1912 amendment to the act, enforcement problems remained. Voluntary changes were precipitated, such as companies making marked reductions of narcotic and alcohol content in many medicines; however, scores of other medicines with high narcotic or alcohol content took the place of those that disappeared.139 Moreover, the role of the FDA in public education in the 1930s was perhaps not without significance.140 It is noteworthy that in Britain, in the absence of specific legislation to control over-the-counter medicines, various factors—for example, public and medical concerns with existing products, the influence of the National Health Insurance Act (facilitating access to physicians by the less affluent), the Dangerous Drugs Act (reducing the amount of morphine available in nonprescription medicines), and controls of labeling—contributed to some reform.141
If It’s Not Broken, Don’t Fix It: A Call to Amend the Definitions Provided by the Food and Drug Administration to Include the Newly Developed Meal-Kit Delivery Industry
Published in Journal of Legal Medicine, 2018
Food safety regulations have evolved and become more stringent as the food industry has developed over the last 2 centuries.35 In 1862, President Abraham Lincoln appointed Charles M. Wetherill to head the Bureau of Chemistry in the U.S. Department of Agriculture.36 In June 1906, President Theodore Roosevelt was inspired by “the slaughterhouse horrors” of Upton Sinclair’s novel, The Jungle, which became the motivation for new food safety laws by the passing of the Meat Inspection Act37 and the Pure Food and Drug Act (Wiley Act).38 More recently, in 1990, Congress passed the Nutrition Labeling and Education Act, requiring food manufacturers to provide a list of ingredients and nutritional values on the labels affixed to the outside of product packaging.39
Safe and Responsible Use of Marijuana in California
Published in Journal of Legal Medicine, 2020
Michelle Gutierrez Harris, Robert A. Bitonte
The 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act started the process of informing consumers about the active ingredients in products they were ingesting. Also, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, on May 20, 2016, announced the new nutrition facts label to enlighten consumers about the contents of foods and to help them make better-informed decisions regarding food choices as it affects physical health.