The Wrong Way to Execute Drug Regulation

Join the Poison Squad and Swallow Dangerous Stuff

Reasonable people can disagree about the scope and methods that a government agency should employ to regulate the pharmaceutical industry. But I’m willing to bet that everyone would agree that the way the government did it previously was perversely wrong.

I’m referring to the approach used by Harvey Wiley, who headed the Federal Bureau of Chemistry in the late 19^th century. According to William Kennedy in Principles and Practice of Pharmaceutical Medicine, Dr. Wiley and his team documented and occasionally prosecuted the makers of fake and poisonous drugs. How did they test the questionable products?

“Unlike today’s FDA inspectors, the members of this squad were expected to sample the questionable product themselves, and then give first-hand evidence of the adverse effects that they experienced!”

I can imagine their reports. “I took Drug X, and my tongue turned purple.” “After taking Drug Y, all my hair fell out.” “Nothing untoward seemed to happen to me even after I consumed Drug Z for a few days.”

We can only imagine how difficult and awkward recruiting was for Dr. Wiley’s so-called “poison squad.”