<%@LANGUAGE="JAVASCRIPT" CODEPAGE="1252"%> Legislation on Pharmaceuticals: Brief timeline and notes

Selected Legislation regulating drugs and pharmaceuticals in the US

1902 - "The BIOLOGICS CONTROL ACT is passed to ensure purity and safety of serums, vaccines, and similar products used to prevent or treat diseases in humans." (FDA website)

1905 - Pure Food and Drug Act (from full text)

For preventing the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated or misbranded or poisonous or deleterious foods, drugs, medicines, and liquors, and for regulating traffic therein, and for other purposes.

Provisions for drugs:

  • That the term "drug," as used in this Act, shall include all medicines and preparations recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary for internal or external use, and any substance or mixture of substances intended to be used for the cure, mitigation, or prevention of disease of either man or other animals.
  • That for the purposes of this Act an article shall be deemed to be adulterated: In case of drugs:
    • First. If, when a drug is sold under or by a name recognized in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary, it differs from the standard of strength, quality, or purity, as determined by the test laid down in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary official at the time of investigation: Provided, That no drug defined in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary shall be deemed to be adulterated under this provision if the standard of strength, quality, or purity be plainly stated upon the bottle, box, or other container thereof although the standard may differ from that determined by the test laid down in the United States Pharmacopoeia or National Formulary.
    • Second. If its strength or purity fall below the professed standard or quality under which it is sold.
  • That for the purposes of this Act an article shall also be deemed to be misbranded: In case of drugs:
    • First. If it be an imitation of or offered for sale under the name of another article.
    • Second. If the contents of the package as originally put up shall have been removed, in whole or in part, and other contents shall have been placed in such package, or if the package fail to bear a statement on the label of the quantity or proportion of any alcohol, morphine, opium, cocaine, heroin, alpha or beta eucaine, chloroform, cannabis indica, chloral hydrate, or acetanilide, or any derivative or preparation of any such substances contained therein.

Copied from the history section of the FDA website:

1912 - Congress enacts the SHERLEY AMENDMENT to over come the ruling in U.S. v. Johnson. It prohibits labeling medicines with false therapeutic claims intended to defraud the purchaser, a standard difficult to prove.

1938 - THE FEDERAL FOOD, DRUG, AND COSMETIC (FDC) ACT of 1938 is passed by Congress, containing new provisions:

  • Extending control to cosmetics and therapeutic devices.
  • Requiring new drugs to be shown safe before marketing-starting a new system of drug regulation.
  • Eliminating the Sherley Amendment requirement to prove intent to defraud in drug misbranding cases.
  • Providing that safe tolerances be set for unavoidable poisonous substances.
  • Authorizing standards of identity, quality, and fill-of-container for foods.
  • Authorizing factory inspections.
  • Adding the remedy of court injunctions to the previous penalties of seizures and prosecutions.

Under the WHEELER-LEA ACT, the Federal Trade Commission is charged with overseeing advertising associated with products otherwise regulated by FDA, with the exception of prescription drugs.

1962 - KEFAUVER-HARRIS DRUG AMENDMENTS passed to ensure drug efficacy and greater drug safety. For the first time, drug manufacturers are required to prove to FDA the effectiveness of their products before marketing them. The new law also exempts from the Delaney proviso animal drugs and animal feed additives shown to induce cancer but which leave no detectable levels of residue in the human food supply.

Lawrence: History of Medicine in Western Society


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