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The Bureau of Economics in the Federal Trade Commission has a three-part role in the Agency and the strength of its functions changed over time depending on the preferences and ideology of the FTC’s leaders, developments in the field of economics, and the tenor of the times. The over-riding current role is to provide well considered, unbiased economic advice regarding antitrust and consumer protection law enforcement cases to the legal staff and the Commission. The second role, which long ago was primary, is to provide reports on investigations of various industries to the public and public officials. This role was more recently called research or “policy R&D”. A third role is to advocate for competition and markets both domestically and internationally. As a practical matter, the provision of economic advice to the FTC and to the legal staff has required that the economists wear “two hats,” helping the legal staff investigate cases and provide evidence to support law enforcement cases while also providing advice to the legal bureaus and to the Commission on which cases to pursue (thus providing “a second set of eyes” to evaluate cases). There is sometimes a tension in those functions because building a case is not the same as evaluating a case. Economists and the Bureau of Economics have provided such services to the FTC for over 100 years proving that a sub-organization can survive while playing roles that sometimes conflict. Such a life is not, however, always easy or fun.

Returning now to the food and drug law itself, for an additional explanation of it. This law is broadly divided into two regulatory parts ; but they each have a common protective purpose, which has been defined. The first part of this law is a basic one just indicated. For it is a law to prohibit an injurious or deceitful adulteration, misbranding and false advertisement of all food and drugs ; and its last prohibition was added in the twentieth century, when the art of modern commercial advertising was developed. The major statute of this law is of course the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, which is practically administered by the United States Food and Drug Administration ; and it has the supreme importance of being our national law to outlaw any food or drug that may kill or harm.

This compilation of over 500 United States Government bibliographies is the second annual supplement to BIBLIOGRAPHY OF UNITED STATES GOVERNMENT BIBLIOGRAPHIES 1968–1973 (Pierian Press). Due to the Government Printing Office backlog during 1974, many 1973 and 1974 titles are included in this 1975 Supplement, which should have appeared earlier.

There are two main objectives of this paper. The first is to analyze household consumption pattern of soyfood products. The second is to investigate effect of the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) allowed health claims on consumption of soyfoods.

The objectives were accomplished in two stages. In the first stage, the role of consumers' perceived attributes of soy‐based foods such as convenience of preparation and consumption, health benefits, and taste in consumers' decisions to consume soy‐based food products was investigated. In the second stage, the study analyzed whether the decision of the Food and Drug Administration to allow food manufacturers to use health claims had influenced consumers' willingness to participate in soy‐based food market or willingness to increase consumption, if they are currently consuming such foods. Lancaster's characteristics model was combined with Fishbein's multi‐attribute model to develop a soybean demand function that included perceived attributes of soyfood. Zero‐inflated negative binomial model (ZINB) was used as an empirical specification to address zero consumption of soyfood products. Data were collected using a convenience sample drawn from a Midwest college town in the United States. Two questionnaires (i.e. one with information about the FDA's decision and the other without it) were given to students taking introductory marketing courses. In total 400 questionnaires were distributed and 315 respondents returned completed questionnaires.

Attributes of soy‐based food products such as convenience and tastefulness had statistically significant effect on the consumption pattern. Consumers who perceived beneficial health attributes in soyfood products were more likely to participate in the soyfood market as well as increase consumption frequency. The results indicated that frequent users of soyfood products who were exposed to the decision of the FDA would be more inclined to increase their consumption of soy‐based foods as compared to those who were not exposed to such information. Yet the information about FDA's decision did not influence the behavioral intentions of infrequent consumers or non‐consumers.

Research evaluating the impact of government allowed health claims on food consumption pattern is scarce. This paper sets up a platform for carrying out the evaluation of such health claims by other food products.

Whilst none would dispute the efficiency of present methods of sampling and analysis of foods—they extend elaborately to the widest range of edible commodities—they are few indeed who would agree that this applies to the sampling and testing, the quality control, of drugs. This has been a statutory duty of food and drugs authorities since the first of the Food and Drugs Acts and the measures have continued with little change down to the Food and Drugs Act, 1955. Annual Reports, however, show that rarely does the ratio of drug samples to those of food exceed 1 to 20 and more often is about 1 to 30. The range of drug samples is also limited to time‐worn household remedies, some of which are almost Victorian and have been supplanted by newer remedies. Samples of dispensed medicines are conspicuous by their almost complete absence. Obtaining samples from test prescriptions, however, has always been a great difficulty not only in food and drugs administration, but in other relevant fields.

This chapter focuses on the regulatory scheme used by the United States Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to approve medical products for commercial use in this country. After providing a brief introduction of the role of the FDA and the scope of the products regulated by the agency, the chapter outlines the common characteristics of premarket controls for drugs, medical devices, and biological products, including how clinical trials of these medical products are conducted with humans as part of the premarket approval process. The chapter then provides a detailed examination of the particular regulatory scheme for each product category. The chapter concludes with an analysis of how FDA regulates emerging medical technologies, such as cellular and tissue-engineered products. FDA regulates a variety of products intended to diagnose, cure, mitigate, treat, or prevent diseases or conditions under a legal scheme established in the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and the Public Health Service Act and regulations promulgated by FDA. How a product is classified (drug, device, or biologic) forecasts the regulatory approval pathway that must be followed to bring the product to market. This chapter provides education and direction regarding regulatory requirements that must be met to market medical products in the United States.

During the year the work of the Public Health Supervision Section continued upon the usual lines. The milk sampling and inspections in the Brisbane Metropolitan area were carried out by one inspector and an assistant. Two thousand one hundred and twenty‐nine samples of milk were obtained, and fifty‐six prosecutions were instituted for offences against the Health Acts, Milksellers' Regulations, and Food and Drug Regulations. Fines imposed amounted to £394 6s. 0d. and costs £66 16s. 6d. Of these prosecutions, twenty‐five were in respect of the sale of adulterated milk, two for milk deficient in fat, and twenty‐nine were for the selling of milk either containing excess bacteria, or under improper conditions, or without the necessary license. Samples of pasteurised milk were found, with few exceptions, to be satisfactory. During the year a further milk pasteurisation plant commenced to operate in Brisbane, bringing the number of such factories in the Metropolis to five. Up‐to‐date machinery for washing bottles has been installed in these factories, and fewer complaints of this milk being sold in dirty bottles were received.

These are the days of falling standards and sagging morale, nowhere more apparent than in the one‐time efficient public service. The division between management and workers in the field in the large public enterprises has grown wider and wider and we tend to blame the lower strata of the structure for most of the ills which beset us, mainly because its failures are more obvious; here, the falling standards of work and care speak for themselves. The massive reorganization of the National Health Service and local authorities has made evident, especially in the first, that the upper strata of the colossi which dominate our everyday lives have their ills too. Local authorities have been told “The party is over!” and the National Health Service has been told of the urgent need for the strictest economy in administration; that the taking over of personal health services from local authorities was wrongly attributed to “managerial growth” instead of a mere “transfer of functions”, but, nonetheless, new authorities were created, each with fast‐growing administrative organs operating services—doctors, nurses and patients—which had remained unchanged. Very large local authorities, with many functions lost to others, one would have expected to have resulted in economy of administration, has all‐too‐often been the opposite. Hardly surprising that those who pay for it all, distinct from those who receive of its largesse, are being stirred to rebellion, when they have been overtaxed, ill‐used and what is more important, ignored for so long.

The Annual Report of Mr. H. H. Bagnall, B.Sc, F.R.I.C, for 1954 contains, as always, a vast amount of valuable matter, often phrased with pungency and wit. Apart from the usual details of the work accomplished by Mr. Bagnall and his staff there are reflections on matters of general interest to administrators. For immediate purposes we offer to our readers the following extracts from this report.

Sir Ben Lockspeiser, Secretary of the Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, opening a Conference on Chemical Engineering Methods in the Food Industry at the Wellcome Research Institution, London, recently, said:—