Regulating Medicine

The Pure Food and Drug Act.

The Pure Food and Drug Act passed by Congress in 1906, in part as a response to muckraking reporter Samuel Hopkins Adams's exposés in Collier's Weekly, did not have as great an effect as was hoped on the patent medicine market that Adams estimated to be worth $75 million a year. While the law discouraged the adulteration of foods and drugs and the misrepresentation of claims on labels and also led to somewhat improved sanitary conditions, it directly affected only the most brazen abuses. It did not call for the reporting of all ingredients, except in the case of narcotics; it only banned statements on the label of a drug about its composition that were "false and fraudulent." The 1906 act also did not apply at first to claims about the effectiveness of drugs or to statements made in newspaper advertisements. Unintimidated nostrum manufacturers believed the existence of the act would lead...

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