SEC. 23. (a) The Secretary of Agriculture is authorized to prescribe such regulations as he may deem necessary for the efficient enforcement of the functions vested in him by the provisions of this Act) other than the provisions of sec. 20), including regulations with the force and effect of law as to notice and conduct of hearings by the Secretary. The Secretary of the Treasury and the Secretary of Agriculture shall jointly prescribe such regulations as they may deem necessary for the efficient enforcement of the provisions of Section 20. Regulations prescribed under this Act shall be promulgated in such manner and take effect at such time as the Secretary of Agriculture (and, in appropriate cases, the Secretary of the Treasury) shall determine.

(b) For the efficient administration of the provisions of this Act, the provisions, including penalties, of sections 9 and 10 of the Federal Trade Commission Act, approved September 26, 1914 (U.S.C., title 49, secs. 49 and 50), are made applicable to the jurisdiction, powers, and duties of the Secretary under this Act and to any person subject to the provisions of this Act, whether or not a corporation.

(c) Hearings authorized or required by this Act shall be conducted by the Secretary or such officer or employee as he may designate for the purpose. The findings of fact by the Secretary shall be conclusive if in accordance with law.

LIABILITY FOR PERSONAL INJURIES

SEC. 24. A right of action for damages shall accrue to any person for injury or death proximately caused by a violation of this Act.

SEPARABILITY CLAUSE

SEC. 25. If any provision of this Act is declared unconstitutional, or the applicability thereof to any person or circumstances is held invalid, the constitutionality of the remainder of the Act and the applicability thereof to other persons and circumstances shall not be affected thereby.

EFFECTIVE DATE AND REPEALS

SEC. 26. (a) This Act shall take effect six months after the date of approval. The Federal Food and Drugs Act of June 30, 1906, as amended (U.S.C., title 21, secs. 1-15), shall remain in force until such effective date, and is hereby repealed effective upon such date: Provided, That upon the approval of this Act and before its effective date the Secretary is authorized to conduct hearings and to promulgate regulations, definitions, and standards under the provisions hereof which shall become effective on or after the effective date of this Act as the Secretary shall direct.

(b) The provisions of this Act shall not be held to modify or repeal but shall be held in addition to the provisions of the following Acts, as amended: The Tea Import Act, approved March 2, 1897 (U.S.C., title 21, secs. 41-50); the Virus Act, approved March 4, 1913 (U.S.C., title 21, secs. 151-158); the United States Grain Standards Act, approved August 11, 1916 (U.S.C., title 7, secs. 70-87); the Insecticide Act, approved April 26, 1910 (U.S.C., title 7, secs. 121-134); the Import Milk Act, approved February 13, 1927 (U.S.C., title 21, secs. 141-149); the Caustic Poison Act, approved March 4, 1927 (U.S.C., title 15, secs. 401-511); the Virus, Serum, Toxin, and Antitoxin Act, approved July 1, 1902 (U.S.C., title 42, secs. 141-148).

We wish first to call upon the Secretary of Agriculture, Mr. Wallace, who will present the views of the Department of Agriculture which has in charge the particular work of the Food and Drugs Bureau. Mr. Wallace, we shall be glad to hear from you.

STATEMENT OF HON. HENRY A. WALLACE, SECRETARY OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. WALLACE. I regret that owing to an engagement made several weeks ago, before I knew of this hearing, I must be across town by 11 o'clock, which will necessitate my reading this prepared statement rather rapidly and making my informal remarks very short.

The Department of Agriculture officially endorses the bill, S. 1944, which you are considering. I personally give approval.

I must say candidly that I am not prepared to discuss its detailed provisions. I shall leave that responsibility to officials of the Food and Drug Administration.

My own time has been taken up so exclusively with emergency matters in the field of agricultural and national recovery that I have not had an opportunity to give this measure the degree of study and active support it deserves. I am none the less interested in its broad purposes. I have kept constantly in touch with it through the Assistant Secretary and the Solicitor of the Department. Along with these officials, I wish to express my unqualified approval of the public-spirited work that has been done for years by Mr. Walter G. Campbell, Chief of the Food and Drug Administration, and by his associates, and that has resulted in the bill you are now considering. You no doubt know that Mr. Campbell and many of his associates have been engaged in guarding the food and drug supply of this country almost since Federal regulation started in 1906. They have written into this revision the needs that have become apparent during that time. There is nothing new or startling about most of the changes. Most of them have been recommended time and again by responsible officials charged with the duty of protecting the public health.

The Food and Drugs Act of 1906 was something of an innovation in Federal legislation. It was bitterly opposed at the time by many interests which subsequently became some of its strongest supporters. The 1906 law, as far as it goes, has been effective in controlling adulterated and misbranded foods and drugs; it has served to correct many of the abuses that existed at the time of its enactment. But presentday conditions in the food and drug businesses are very different from what they were more than a quarter of a century ago.

There is a greatly increased traffic in foods and drugs today as compared to 1906. The cosmetic industry has become of first importance, whereas when the present law was written the cosmetic industry was in its infancy. The effectiveness with which a worthless or dangerous product can be sold today through modern advertising methods was not an acute problem in 1906. New narcotic and habit-forming drugs have appeared on the market. Totally new food constituents and important nutrition elements like the vitamins have been discovered.

These developments call for new methods of control. Then, too, during the past 27 years of enforcement, officials have had driven home to them many weaknesses and loopholes in the present law. For example, the necessity of the Government's proving that a drug product is both falsely and fraudulently represented has proved a great hindrance to effective enforcement.

I doubt that anyone will wish to appear before this committee in defense of the many abuses which cannot be remedied under existing legislation; there is too much grim evidence of the tragic effects that almost daily result from the Government's inability to prevent the shipment and sale of dangerous and worthless products. The Department will place some of this evidence before you, because only through a clear recognition of the abuses can we secure the right kind of remedial legislation.

The Department has not submitted to you an idealistic measure. On the contrary, we are convinced that we have presented for consideration a thoroughly practical, enforceable measure that is essential if we are to be expected to afford real consumer protection. The bill has been drawn, I understand, in such a way as to preserve to the greatest extent possible the language of the present statute and the effect of appellate decisions made during the past quarter of a century. In addition to preserving the worthy features of the present law, the bill proposes a number of changes in enforcement powers and policies, including these:

Cosmetics are brought within the scope of the statute;

Mechanical devices, offered for curative purposes, and devices and preparations claimed to bring about changes in the structure of the body are included within the purview of the bill;

False advertising of foods, drugs, and cosmetics is prohibited;
Definitely informative labeling is required;

A drug which is, or may be, dangerous to health under the conditions of use prescribed in its labeling is classed as adulterated;

The promulgation of definitions and standards for foods, which will have the force and effect of law, subject, of course, to court review, is prescribed;

The prohibition of added poisons in foods or the establishment of safe tolerances therefor is provided for;

The operation of factories under Federal permit is prescribed where protection of the public health cannot otherwise be effected;

More effective methods for the control of false labeling and advertising of drug products are provided; and

More severe penalties, as well as injunctions in the case of repeated offenses, are prescribed.

I think it is generally understood that this bill is intended primarily to protect consumers. At the same time it should operate in the interest of all honest manufacturers.

Agriculture has special reasons for favoring it. Farmers are interested as producers and users of food, as extensive users of package medicines, and as almost exclusive users of veterinary medicines and stock feeds. Agriculture is interested in any measure that helps the consumer obtain food which is unadulterated and honestly represented. Since this bill was introduced in the closing days of the last session of Congress, the Department has received thousands of letters about it some from consumers who approved it as it now stands; some from physicians and others who feel that it does not go nearly far enough in providing protection; and some from interested manufacturers who have much fault to find with specific provisions. But if the Department has received a single communication that disagrees with the intent of the bill, with its broad principles, I have not seen it. I should like to repeat that I endorse this bill for the Department. I know that our representatives who are familiar with its every aspect will be glad to give you any information which may be useful to you. Mr. Campbell and others of the Food and Drug Administration will remain here for whatever testimony you wish to receive from them. I would like to offer these general observations growing out of my previous connection with the publishing and advertising business: It is my observation, based on past experience, and to some extent on more recent contact with the broader minded advertising and pub

lishing people, that they take the view that there is so much consumer purchasing power centering around a given publication; that is, so much purchasing power possessed by the readers of a given publication, if that purchasing power is soaked up by expenditures for things which are harmful to the readers, there is that much less money to be spent for the things that are worthwhile to the readers, and there is that much less efficiency on the part of the readers of that publication.

I say that the broader minded people in the field of publication and advertising, in my opinion, are ready to take that broad general fundamentally sound social point of view. I am not speaking, as you can well understand, in any representative capacity for these people. I want that to be clearly understood. But because of my previous contact before coming to Washington on March 4 last, I want to give that as my impression of the attitude of the broader gaged people of the publishing and advertising business. One gentleman particularly has informed me that that was his attitude.

Now, that does not mean-for fear I may represent these peoplethat they are in complete harmony with every detail of the bill. They have suggested certain things that they would like to see changed; but it does mean that they stand on that broad, social principle to which it seems to me no broad-gaged person can take exception, that advertising should be safeguarded.

Now, it is true that as long as advertising is allowed to go as it is, with even the people in the advertising business who have the highest ideals in the world, seeing this "chiseling" coming in from a great many sources, that that tends to lower their standards; and for that reason it seems to me that the advertising people themselves should be most happy to have some standard to which advertising can be referred.

Senator COPELAND. We are very much obliged to you, Mr. Secretary.

Secretary Wallace has suggested that Mr. Walter G. Campbell, Chief of the Food and Drug Administration of the Department of Agriculture, be permitted to present an explanation of the pending bill in detail. Mr. Campbell.

STATEMENT OF WALTER G. CAMPBELL, CHIEF, FOOD AND DRUG ADMINISTRATION, DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE

Mr. CAMPBELL. Mr. Chairman, we in the Department of Agriculture would have preferred, for sentimental and other reasons, to have had this bill appear as an amendment to the Food and Drugs Act instead of a measure to supplant that law.

May I say that in the framing of this bill there was no sense of abandonment at all of the present act. There is an ample realization of the benefits that the present Food and Drugs Act has conferred upon society. It is a statute that was passed for the protection of the consumer. As the Secretary of Agriculture has said, it incidentally protects the honest manuacturer; but that bill, like most legislation, was a compromise measure; it represented not everything that the proponents of the law wanted, and carried more than the opponents of the measure were willing to give.

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Twenty-seven years of experience in the enforcement of that act has demonstrated adequately and emphatically its limitations for proper protectoin of the public. In the draft of the pending bill there has been an attempt made to preserve all of the worthy qualities and features of the existing law and to supplement it in those instances where weaknesses have been indicated by court decisions and by actual experience.

As an illustration of one of the most pronounced limitations of the existing act, I call your attention, Mr. Chairman, to section 8 of the law, which states that no product shall be deemed to be adulterated, or misbranded, if it does not contain an added poisonous, deleterious ingredient; provided it is plainly labeled, branded, or tagged, so as to indicate that it is a compound, imitation, or blend.

It also makes an exemption, in the case of articles which may be from time to time sold under their own distinctive names.

Here is a product labeled "Bred Spred", which has the appearance of a preserve. Investigation of the retail market showed that it was actually sold as a preserve or as a jam, but it contains less than one half the amount of fruit required by the standard recognized by the Department for such products. The sale to the public of an article of this sort, bearing in mind that the most expensive ingredient in jams and preserves is the fruit content, is obviously a fraud upon the public. To the extent that such products can be prepared and sold, containing less than one half the amount of fruit expected by the purchaser, used by manufacturers generally and established as a trade custom, it likewise deprives the farmer of a legitimate market for his fruit.

Compare the article marked as "Bred Spred" with this standard jam or preserve, which contains the full 45 percent of fruit required. Their appearance is identical. They are sold in glass containers which characterize this class of products; and I submit to you that the consumer, even though a discriminating buyer, in almost every instance would be perfectly willing to accept either as a pure preserve. As a matter of fact, the price for which the article known under the distinctive name "Bred Spred" was sold, was only slightly less than that of the product sold under the label of pure preserves.

This bill S. 1944 as framed eliminates that objectionable provision of the act which makes it possible, by the employment of some fanciful designation like the term "Bred Spred" to market a product under the legal assurance that it will be subject to none of the prohibitions of the act as applied to all types of foods and drugs, with the single exception that it must contain no added poisonous ingredients.

The article sold as "Bred Spred" under the distinctive name, therefore, could be composed of moldy, decomposed, and decayed fruits, and still there would be no power accruing to the Government by which its sale could be prevented, since such decomposed material could not be shown to be injurious to health.

In drafting this measure we have undertaken, as far as it was possible to do so, to preserve the general scheme of the original act. There has been a definition of adulteration and of misbranding. There has been a more orderly arrangement of both the substantive and the implementing provisions.