9781422282540

14 PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

patent medicines were rarely unique and almost never patented. These homemade remedies usually contained large amounts of alcohol, cocaine, or some other mood-altering substance. For example, Dr. Fahrney’s Teething Syrup for babies contained morphine, an addictive painkiller. The active ingredient in Dr. Bull’s Cough Syrup was heroin. A cold remedy called Lungardia contained alcohol, turpentine, and kerosene. These patent medicines were packaged with colorful labels and wild claims about all the many ills they could cure. The entrepreneurs who sold them, often by traveling from town to town, came to be called “snake- oil salesmen.” And even though their products rarely worked, many of these hucksters made profits because of the addictive properties of their products. Users of Dr. Bull’s Cough Syrup, in other words, may not have had very bad coughs at all. From our 21st century perspective, it seems shocking that parents once soothed their babies with a tiny dose of morphine. How is it possible that these clearly dangerous patent medicines were available to anyone who could pay for them? Simply put, the strict regulations that now govern our access to drugs did not exist at the time. Regulation of the pharmaceutical industry began with the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. That law’s focus had less to do with prescriptions and more to do with labeling and transparency about ingredients. The act was replaced by the more far-reaching Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (FFDCA) of 1938. But it was the Durham-Humphrey Amendment of 1951 that clearly established a legal category of drugs that could only be sold with a doctor’s prescription. The act defined a prescription drug as any medication that “because of its toxicity or other potentiality for harmful effect . . . is not safe for use except under the supervision of a practitioner licensed by law to administer such drug.” The amendment was not without controversy. Pharmaceutical companies objected to the government’s attempt to limit the number of people who could buy their products. Others complained that the