[CTRL] [12] Treason's Peace

[Kris Millegan]

-Caveat Lector-   <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/">
</A> -Cui Bono?-

an excerpt from:
Treason's Peace
Howard Watson Armbruster©1947
A Crossroads Press Book
Beechurst Press
New York
438 pps.  -- First/Only Edition -- Out-of Print
--[12]--

CHAPTER XII
Patent Medicines—And Freedom of the Press

    IN MARCH, 1938 the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American
Medical Association announced that it was going to enforce a rule which
provided that the Council should not "accept" products of a concern which was
more largely engaged in selling patent medicines than in distributing ethical
preparations. The rule had existed for many years, but had never been applied
to the Winthrop, Alba, Metz and Cook subsidiaries of Sterling—not even after
the ghastly Sulfathiazole affair. Yet no firm had as many nationally
advertised patent medicines as Sterling, and it may appear that no firm had
made more dangerous false advertising claims than they.

An interesting light on the attitude of this company appears in its first
report to the stockholders, after its purchase of the Bayer company. This
read, in part:

Bayer aspirin was introduced throughout the United States by the medical
fraternity, and it is the object of Sterling Products to popularize this
product to the laity by means of newspaper advertising and other mediums of
publicity. Sterling Products is the largest advertiser in the world. We
believe we know more about proprietary advertising than anyone else, and as
far as aspirin is concerned, we know that the field has been merely scratched
on the surface ..... We intend to develop Bayer aspirin not only in this
country  but all over the world . . . .we estimate that the earnings of these
two companies will be at least $2,000,0.00 per year, and we know that the
future of the business is a bright one.

Mr. Weiss either underestimated his own capabilities or else he had not begun
to realize how far he would go with Farben's help. In the next twenty years
the gross profit was to increase to more than seven times that estimate. And
in those two decades Sterling spent many millions of dollars to popularize
the name Bayer, and to hold the price at a level which showed at least 1,000
percent spread between the cost of acetylsalicylic acid and the price that
the consumer paid when he specified Bayer.

As the Sterling position grew stronger, fantastic advertising claims were
made about the cure-all properties of Bayer aspirin. Salesmen for the company
alleged that their employers had ample medical opinion to support their
advertising, but somehow, those opinions were not broadcast with the
identifications of the physicians who allegedly gave them.

Throughout this period, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and
its Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry. were strangely silent. And the A. M.
A.'s widely heralded reform campaign contended itself mainly with exposing
little-known fake nostrums in which few of the public and none of the
physicians, could have had any possible interest. The fact that the Bayer
claims went uncontradicted by the spokesmen for the medical profession was
the strongest argument in Sterling's favor, at least in the minds of the
public; and many professional men justified their own silence by that of the
A. M. A.

It was in this period that purchasers of the tablets were handed the little
tin box, or the bottle, enclosed in an envelope on which the utterly false
claim, "Genuine Bayer Aspirin Does Not Harm The Heart" appeared in
conspicuous lettering. This use of a false legend on an enclosure, or
circular accompanying the package, was criminal misbranding under the Wiley
law. And while Mr. Campbell of the Food and Drug Administration steadfastly
refrained from taking any action to restrain Bayer, another maker of
aspirin—a small concern in Little Rock, Ark., was taken into court in 1933
for precisely that offense—for claiming that his aspirin would not depress
the heart.

The Bayer advertising was national advertising on a huge scale, and it served
a double purpose; it sold enormous quantities of aspirin at a tremendous
profit, and it served to legitimatize a huge subsidy to the press of the
United States at a time when the friendship of the publishers was highly
essential to the purpose of Farben. Such leading newspapers as The New York
Times held their noses, and accepted the account.

The following are a few examples of the countless indecencies published as
legitimate advertising by American publications:

    Bayer Aspirin . . . quick complete relief—and no harm done . . .    no
effect on the heart; nothing in a Bayer tablet could hurt any one . . . .it
can head-off the pain altogether;  even those pains many women have thought
must be en-dured.
Hearst’s Cosmopolitan, Jan. 1929.

    The fastest possible relief . . .   the sure safe way is to see that the
name Bayer is . . .     on any tablet that you take . . . carry in mind too
that Genuine Bayer Aspirin Does Not Harm the Heart.
        Collier's, Sept. 24,1929.

Headaches come at the most inconvenient times . . . . often it's the time of
the month . . . why wait . . . Bayer Aspirin can't harm you because there is
nothing harmful in it.
N. Y. Daily News, Nov. 11, 1930.

    Sick headache . . . the modem woman feels a headache coming on . . .
systematic pains . . . . Bayer won't fail you and can't harm you. They don't
depress the heart . . . and take enough to stop the pain.
N. Y. Journal, Nov. 5,1931.

They don't depress the heart and may be taken freely. That is medical opinion.
N. Y. Sun, Oct., 15, 1931.

Genuine Bayer Aspirin will not harm you. Your doctor will tell you it does
not harm the heart.
Saturday Evening Post, Nov. 26,1932.

Don't take chances with "cold killers" and nostrums . . . . . the quickest,
safest, surest way . . . . . get the real Bayer Aspirin tablets.
Capper's Weekly, Dec. 24,1932.

    Quicker relief . . . the fastest, safe results, it is said, ever known to
pain . . .  Genuine Bayer Aspirin does not harm the heart.
McCall's, Nov. 1933.

Of course the Bayer advertising was not the only instance of false claims by
Sterling; it was merely the most extensive and the most obvious. At the same
time, because of its utter disregard for truth and legality, it appeared to
be the most vulnerable point of attack upon Farben's American-drug front.

Accordingly, in 1929, I decided to force the matter to an issue. Sterling, I
knew, was wide open under both the Federal Trade Commission Act, and state
laws. My campaign got under way with an open letter to Dr. Fishbein, which
included the following queries:

Why is it that in your "exposure" of fake influenza cures (A. M. A. Journal, J
an. 19, 1929, page 253) you failed to mention any of the products of the one
large group of brands and trademarks under a single unified financial
control, despite the fact that this group was among the most flagrant
violators of all the canons of medical ethics in the advertising it published
at that time?

Was this suppression because this same unified patent-medicine group,
unbeknown to the rank and file of the medical profession, also controls about
one out of every five retail pharmacies in the country along with a number of
the largest and supposedly most ethical pharmaceutical manufacturers, whose
constant advertising in the A. M. A. publications must be very profitable
financially?

Will you or will you not list the brands, trademarks and company names of
this gigantic monopolistic group or "comer" of patent and ethical medicines
and pharmacies, and indicate which are financial supporters of the A. M. A. Jo
urnal and of Hygeia together with the extent of their existing control of the
medicine industry and of its advertising expenditures?

As an ethical medical question, what is your opinion of patent and
proprietary-medicine advertising which teaches materia medica,
self-medication and home treatments by the legends on the bottles, and
glowing advertisements in the lay and popular press?

Then in 1930, before a. Senate Committee on the enforcement of the Wiley Food
and Drugs Act, I took the opportunity afforded by a rebuttal statement to
force the issue of the Bayer advertising into the official records of the
Senate. One of my statements in these bearings was as follows:

To those of your committee who may now say that I am going far afield from
the enforcement of the Federal Food and Drugs law permit me to point out that
a situation such as I have attempted to disclose has always two general
motives . . . greed and power.

So in this presentation I deem it my duty to point in one direction where
your committee may, if it follows through, discover a part of the
responsibility for the flooding of this country with impure drugs; and-far
more important and menacing—a long arm reaching out in an attempt to control
by devious ways not only our health but some of our vital resources for
national defense and our channels of public information and editorial opinion.

I repeated this same statement several times over the air-in the fall of
1930, when for a few short weeks I was given broadcasting privileges by a
small station owned by a brother Bernard Baruch. Then one evening the
engineer in charge of the

station greeted me with, "Better give 'em hell tonight, mister, this is your
last chance."

"How come?" I asked, "My time isn't up."

"Your time may not be," was the answer' "but the station's is."

I just got my orders to tear 'er down, and down she comes tomorrow."

So ended that! I might add here that when I asked permission to speak on the
subject over the National Broadcasting Company chain, I was informed that it
would not be ethical, and that the management feared that what I had to say
might alarm some of its audience. There was much truth in that latter
conclusion.

Not long after the 1930 Senate hearings appeared in print, and my
broadcasting had met its sudden demise, I wrote to the presidents of all the
state medical societies calling their attention to the abominable character
of the Bayer aspirin broadcasting and advertising as:

    . . . .absolutely contrary to the truth as regards legitimate medical
opinion, and a distinct menace to the public health

. . . .I am writing you this letter to ask what the medical profession, and
the organization of which you are the head, proposes to do about this.

For good measure, I added this postscript:

. . . as I stated over the air last fall, the man who wrote this aspirin
advertising, and the executives of Drug Inc., re-sponsible for it, ought to
be in jail.

Copies of this letter were sent to various publishers; one went to the late
Louis Wiley, business manager of The New York Times; and to my gratification
Mr. Wiley replied promptly, as follows:

Dear Mr. Ambruster:

We acknowledge your letter of November 17th, and a copy of your letter
concerning the advertising of a medical preparation.

The New York Times regularly takes up with various scientific authorities any
advertising which is offered to us.

We have recently been looking into this specific statement concerning which
you write. Originally the statement was made to us by more than one physician
that this preparation did not depress the heart. Our physicians now inform us
that in certain cardiac cases there may be a depressive effect. We have
already taken up the matter with the advertiser. Very truly yours

Louis Wiley.

 And for a period the Times did not carry Bayer aspirin advertising. Then it
backslid. I had several heated discussions with that paper's advertising
censor, who described himself as a high churchman, although what that had to
do with false advertising I did not entirely comprehend. He never appeared to
get my point of view, and I confess I never got his.

However, immediately after receipt of Mr. Wiley's encouraging letter, I put
the matter up to the Federal Trade Commission by sending them copies of the
correspondence with Mr. Wiley, with a statement that I assumed the Commission
would immediately institute proceedings to stop that kind of advertising. I
also offered to submit additional data. My assumption of immediate action was
incorrect. All that the Commission instituted, so far as Bayer was concerned,
was two-and-a-half years of procrastination and evasion.

Meanwhile my letters to the state medical societies had brought a few
responses. In one of them, a president of the Kansas Medical Society, Dr. L.
F. Barney, assured me that he was wholly in accord with my reference to
criminal advertising, and that due to such advertising, far too much aspirin
was being taken.

Another state society president, Dr. Arthur S. Fort, of Atlanta, Ga., advised
me that there were regularly organized agencies of the Government, and the
American Medical Association, to handle such matters and that he would await
their instructions before acting. Apparently these agencies instructed the
good doctor to forget it.

In December 1931, I began needling the National Broadcasting Company stations
that carried the Bayer Program, and, for good measure, threw in some pointed
comments about Dr. Fishbein and Dr. Copeland. The latter at that time was on
the air for Sterling's Milk of Magnesia which was sold to the public as
Phillips, the name of its original producer. My first letters to the stations
concluded with the following:

Won't you also advise me whether you are handling the N.B.C. hookup for the
women in the week-day morning hours when that Senatorial medical faker, Royal
S. Copeland, is handing out propaganda for this same Drug, Inc., concealed
under the title "Health Clinics"?

You are at liberty to read this letter over your station if you so desire.

Those stations that did not reply promptly to my first letter received a
follow up which repeated my challenge to Drug, Inc., to produce a single
reputable member of the medical profession who would publicly defend the
allegations made on behalf of Bayer.

With the first of these letters the fun began in earnest, with the honors
undoubtedly going to one Clarence G. Cosby of Station KWK, St. Louis, Mo.,
who headed his letter:

Re Criminal Aspirin Broadcasting

This station does not broadcast the Bayer aspirin account or Senatorial
medical faker, Royal S. Copeland.

One other station, KGA, of Spokane, Wash., indicated that the matter had been
taken up with NBC and, for the time being, Bayer advertising was not being
released over that station.

Others, however, were critical or querulous of my intrusion, and my motive in
the matter gave them more concern than the falsehoods they were sponsoring.
Some of the replies were intriguing, and a few are worthy of brief note here:

The Secretary of the Maine Medical Association (advises) that your claim as
regards the ethics of aspirin advertising from a medical standpoint, do not
hold in this territory at least. Eastland Station, Portland, Me.

See nothing criminal about either the aspirin or the programs in which
Copeland is featured. WEBC, Superior, Wis.

 Suggest that you take the matter up with the proper medical authorities . .
. Until you do something about what you plainly call a criminal situation, I
doubt that I'll have time to conduct any more correspondence. WDAY, Fargo, N.
D.

The Bayer's Aspirin program and Dr. Royal S. Copeland's   Health Clinic
program are
very well received and we regard them as praiseworthy. WJDX, Jackson, Miss.

    .....   interested to know just what your connection is which would make
these programs so objectionable to you.
WKY, Oklahoma City, Okla.

I cannot see anything in the credit lines of the Bayer's aspirin copy that
could be considered harmful. WMAQ, Chicago, Ill.

We do not hesitate to accept any program which the N.B.C.   send us . . . .
We feel that the complaint you make is their problem, not ours. WRVA,
Richmond, Va.

I continued to badger the stations as long as any of them would reply. Only
one answered more than two letters, and apparently all that any of them did,
save those at St. Louis and Spokane, was to pass the buck to NBC or to Dr.
Fishbein.

Men the Crosley stations WLW and WSAI of Cincinnati demanded to know my
identity and business connections I sent them the information, and added a
suggestion that they notify NBC that they would discontinue broadcasting the
Bayer program unless NBC and Drug, Inc., brought immediate criminal action
against me for libel. That ended the correspondence with Crosley.

KOMO, of Seattle, Wash., sent me a copy of a letter signed by the executive
secretary of the Public Health League of Washington which stated that from a
purely health standpoint the Bayer advertising was not objectionable. My
correspondence with the Public Health League brought no response except a
rebuke for my reference to Dr. Fishbein which, they wrote, "seems entirely
unjustifiable." Apparently, the members of the league were indifferent to
positive proof of injury to the public health. But they went all out to
defend the professional standing of the medical editor whose prolonged
silence on the subject was the one chief reason why Sterling was able to
avoid prosecution for the false and dangerous claims.

Another set of letters went to more publishers, and W. L. Chenery, Editor of C
ollier's, responded in one instance with the emphatic statement that "Collier'
s does not publish patent-medicine advertising." I wrote back asking how he
classified Bayer aspirin. And that ended that.

Throughout this one-man campaign, governors and attorney generals were
receiving my demands that they prosecute the Bayer company under their rigid
state laws. The Governors usually stalled or referred the matter to their
health officials. In not one instance was any action taken, but some amusing
replies were received.

Governor Pinchot's Deputy Attorney General naively referred to the Bayer
broadcasting as originating not in Pennsylvania but in New York, and wrote
that be would be pleased to hear from me as to what action, if any, New York
State had taken in connection with the alleged misrepresentation. My reply
called attention to the fact that several NBC stations in Pennsylvania
carried the Bayer advertising, and that newspapers circulated in his state
did likewise.

The Governor of New York, Franklin D. Roosevelt, referred the Bayer hot
potato to John J. Bennett, the State Attorney General. And Mr. Bennett,
through a subordinate, advised me that his "unofficial answer" was that the
matter was one for the local district attorneys.

Governor John G. Pollard of Virginia wrote me graciously if plaintively, that:

It is a national question, and there is no legislation in Virginia that will
allow us to deal with the question adequately.

I replied quoting chapter and verse of the Virginia statute which penalizes
false advertising, and reminded the governor of the ancient and honorable
doctrine of States Rights. No response.

The Indiana State Board of Health also had a good excuse; its secretary
advised me that that Board "is not charged with the responsibility of
enforcing any statute either specific or general on this subject."

Governor Albert C. Ritchie of Maryland, referred me to the State's Attorney
at Baltimore, one Herbert P. O'Coner, who in 1939 was also to begin a long
career as Governor. Mr. O'Coner advised me that no action condemning the
Bayer advertising had been taken by either state or city medical
organizations, and that:

 . . . if criminal action is to be taken it should be as a result of some
action taken by the American Medical Association.

So here again the evidence of criminal advertising, which was broadcast to
millions over the air, and circulated in millions of printed pages, was
officially weighed in the balance against the silence of Dr. Fishbein; and as
usual the silence won.

Finally, in April 1933, John A. Renoe, an able and earnest attorney for the
Federal Trade Commission, paid me a visit, and informed me very frankly that
more than sufficient evidence was available to sustain a complaint against
Bayer, -which he said would be filed very soon. Mr. Renoe evidently meant
business, and I rejoiced-but too soon. Several weeks later I called at the
New York office of the Federal Trade Commission and was advised that Mr.
Renoe had been transferred to another "highly important" Investigation. His
successor on the Bayer case indicated that the subject bored him, and
demanded to know what my motive was in persisting in the matter. The "highly
important" investigation to which Mr. Renoe had been transferred I was later
informed, concerned the possible injurious effect of the iodine content of
seaweed, when used as cattle feed, upon the digestive processes of cows!

About that time a shakeup took place in the Federal Trade Commission. Former
chairman W. E. Humphrey was booted out by the President, and a new
Commissioner, former Congressman Ewin L. Davis of Tennessee, came in. Judge
Davis was one of the very few members of the House of Representatives who had
acknowledged receipt of my chart and proposed resolution and, as Chairman of
the House Committee in charge of Radio legislation he proposed to do
something about it.

He did what was probably the most useful thing a man of his high character
could do; he accepted the appointment to the Federal Trade Commission, and,
in 1934, forced through a complaint against Bayer, and compelled Sterling to
accept a cease and desist order, without defense, and thus admit on the
official record of the case that every single therapeutic claim they had made
for the safety, and curative powers of Bayer Aspirin, was false, misleading,
and illegal; and would not be repeated. The complaint also required that
Bayer cease to claim that only Bayer was true aspirin, and that competitive
brands were spurious.

However, Sterling did not give in immediately or graciously, and for some
time the illegal advertising continued. It must have been impossible for the
Sterling-Farben regime to believe that such an affront to its power and
prestige could persist. Finally, one Sunday evening, my wife and I were
listening to the radio to find out if Howard Claney would repeat his unctuous
statement, "It cannot harm the heart." The program ended, and Mrs. Ambruster
turned to me with, "Daddy, he didn't say it. You've actually done it at
last!" But it was Judge Ewin L. Davis who had done it. For once Farben and
Sterling had met their match.

The significance of this Bayer aspirin story, as it serves to
illusminate[sic] the Farben pattern, is twofold; the criminal violations of
the law were publicly committed over a long period of years and, as these
facts reveal, hundreds of respectable citizens, many of them prominent, were
involved directly or indirectly. Some of them knew that such advertising was
dangerously false and illegal, yet would make no move to help put a stop to
it. Call it fear, call it corruption, call it indifference—this long period
of inaction by so many goes right to the crux of the pattern of Farben's
intrusion on the affairs of the American people.

In March 1935, nine months after the Federal Trade Commission had started its
proceedings against Bayer, and members of the Medical Society of New Jersey
were publicly criticising the advestising[sic] policies of the A. M. A. Journa
l, the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry issued its first report on the
Commission's action, and Dr. Fishbein, in an editorial, made the first
comment on Bayer aspirin that had appeared in the Journal since May 14, 1921,
save for praise of Sterling advertising.

 At this late date, the Council and Dr. Fishbein approved the action of the
Federal Trade Commission, and summarized the voluminous medical data long
available which proved the falsity and the danger to public health of the
various Bayer claims. The final paragraph of the Council's 1935 report
included the following:

The indiscriminate use of Bayer aspirin, as urged in the advertising, is
inimical to public and individual health, both directly and indirectly.
Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid) is potentially a dangerous drug and its
unqualified use as a home remedy should be undertaken, originally in any
case, under the guidance of the family physician, whose knowledge of the
personal characteristics of the individual patient can alone render such use
safe and advisable.

It is of course impossible even to estimate how many individuals in the
United States were injured by the unwise use of aspirin in those years of
silence on the part of the A. M. A. It is quite possible, however, to reach
the very definite conclusion that that silence contributed in several ways to
the consummation of Farben's plans for the present war.

After its squelching by the Federal Trade Commission, Sterling continued to
advertise Bayer aspirin on a lavish scale, but did not repeat the forbidden
claims. Its revised appeal rested upon the fact that the aspirin dissolved
quickly in a glass of water; price reductions also received constant mention.
The ads did not explain that the quick dissolving was due to the addition of
cornstarch or some other harmless ingredient.

    More recently Sterling started a new series of full-page adver-tisements
depicting famous discoveries of serums and medical remedies (with which
Sterling has no connection). Only the lower section of the page mentions
Bayer—"The Famous Name in Aspirin." In view of the history of the company the
choice of the word, "famous," seems an unfortunate one. Bayer would hardly
appear a name to brag about—in the United States.

Finally resorting to claims, in radio advertising, that the druggists of
America were sponsoring a national advertising campaign for "Bayer" aspirin,
and that the price had "recently" been reduced to fifteen cents per dozen;
the Federal Trade Commission again jumped on Sterling, in June 1946, charging
that the druggists were not sponsoring and the price had been fifteen cents
for years.

Then, shortly after this unfortunate incident Harvey M. Manss, Sterling's
Vice President in charge of Bayer, was announced as the new Chairman of the
Proprietary Association Committee on Advertising, to set up rules for decency
in advertising copy.

The period of time required to induce action against Bayer, overlapped the
span of existence of Drug, Inc., which had planned to continue its expansion
and become the American counterpart of Farben as a drug and patent-medicine
cartel. Among those tied in with Sterling in Drug, Inc., it will be recalled,
was The Bristol Myers Company.

The Bristol Myers advertising presented a number of fine targets for the
Federal Trade Commission sharpshooters. Much of it was so fat with absurdity
and glamorous untruth that, when the Commission finally went to work on it,
it was like shooting ducks in a barrel. Five of the best-known products of
the firm were brought down with cease and desist orders; another has been
shot at, but is still on the wing as this is written.

Those to feel the corrective action of the Commission's stoplying orders
were, Sal Hepatica, Ingram's Shave Cream, Ingram's Milkweed Cream, Minit-Rub
and Vitalis. Action against the claims for Ipana Toothpaste was still pending
over three years after it was started.

Early in 1931, before the start of the all-out fight on Bayer aspirin,
Sterling had started an advertising campaign for its Phillips' Milk of
Magnesia in which mothers were warned of children having been made ill by
"bad" milk of magnesia. Therefore only Genuine Phillips' should be specified,
etc. The resentment of competing manufacturers, and threats of retaliation,
finally caused Sterling to withdraw this type of copy.

Some years later, Phillips started advertising two milk of magnesia cosmetic
creams with the fantastic claim that they would overcome a disease called "aci
d skin" (which is non-existent). Again the Federal Trade Commission called a
halt. And in 1946 another action was begun on claims for Phillips Milk of
Magnesia facial creams.

 One of the earliest Sterling remedies was Cascarets, long advertised as safe
for children. The advertising, and the label, displayed claims that the
preparation was essentially a harmless candy, and that physicians declare
cascara (a botanical drug) an ideal laxative. However, it finally leaked out
that a habit-forming coal-tar derivative, phenolphthalein, was being added to
the pills without any change in the label or warning that cascarets were no
longer harmless.

In 1933, various uncontested actions resulted in condemnation of these
new-style Cascarets, and, two years later, criminal prosecution was begun
(after complaints of lax-enforcement of the Wiley law). This was the first
time that Sterling Products had ever been taken into court in a prosecution
of this kind. However, it caused Sterling only slight inconvenience; their att
orneys alleged that the complaint was so vague they could not answer the
charges intelligently. A West Virginia judge appeared to agree with them, and
dismissed the case. Why the government never amended the complaint so as to
remove the alleged vagueness does not appear on the record.

Another patent medicine of a Sterling subsidiary on which the formula was
changed, and which got into serious trouble, was, Midol, sold originally by
the General Drug Co. Midol was extensively advertised as a harmless remedy
for the ills of women: "Midol is the discovery of specialists"; "Midol means
complete comfort for women"; "No need to suffer, no need to be inactive"; "It
is not a narcotic"; "It is safe," etc., etc. These statements were grossly
false. The label did not say so, but Midol was a powerful compound containing
aminopyrine (or amidopyrine).

In 1936 and 1937, Mr. Campbell seized shipments of Midol in several states,
alleging that it was misbranded as a safe remedy for women. In all of these
cases Sterling chose not to enter any denial of the accusations of dangerous
fraud. As these proceedings were libels directed merely at this highly
dangerous nostrum itself and not against the maker, the responsibility of the
Sterling-General Drug people for it was never explored in a court action. Mr.
Campbell chose not to prosecute.

    Some interesting inside information about the Midol affair was uncovered
in the material assembled from Sterling's files in prep-aration for the 1942
hearings before the Senate Patents Committee. A record of the minutes of a
conference held at Leverkusen in 1935 between Dr. Weiss, his son, and Farben
officials, stated that
the 1934 turnover on Midol had been $629,000 with sales increas- ing in 1935.


The amidopyrine scare has therefore not had any effect on this preparation,
as its composition is not made known popularly.

The minutes went on to indicate that Midol was being sold in the Argentine as
Evanol.

Another memorandum, which was represented as prepared in Mr. McClintock's
office in 1936, referred to the fact that amidopyrine had been placed on the
poison list in England. And, on September 2. 1937, according to a file copy,
the Weiss Secretary wrote to Mr. McClintock:

I have just received from Mr. Weiss your telegram of August 31st (re Midol
seizures), on which he has made the following notation, for your attention:
"this is serious; can you use your influence in Washington to get this
settled"?

A strange request to make to one of the financial pillars of the Democratic
National Committee which was appealing for the support of the feminine voters
of the nation.

The upshot of the impasse on MidoI, according to these records, was a
determination to salvage the stock already made up by shipping it out of the
United States. One memorandum indicated that Mr. McClintock would discuss
with Mr. Wojahn, his export manager, the possibility of getting rid of the
nasty stuff in the Argentine and Cuba. Another indicated that Argentine
health authorities were already aware of the dangerous ingredient in Evanol,
and objected to its sale; so the McClintock influence was again called for.
This time McClintock was instructed by Weiss to

. . . . use every possible means to get pressure from Washington which will
allow us to import these old Midol stocks into Argentine. Please keep me
informed.

That kind of international team play might be called the Bad Neighbor policy
of Sterling-under Farben direction.

 And at the very time all this was going on, Sterling's Frank Blair made a
speech about overseas drug markets before the Export Managers Club. Said Mr.
Blair:

. . . . a single racketeering concocter of a fake cure can bring discredit on
the entire industry, and when the law catches up with him he frequently flees
with speed to the export markets.

Which, coming from a Sterling executive, was about as neat a bit of irony as
one could ask.

In 1937 the Federal Trade Commission also closed down on Midol, and Sterling
was compelled to admit the falsity, and agree to discontinue all claims that
Midol was a special medicine, or that it was recommended by specialists, or
that it was safe. Those women readers who may have wondered what became of
the old style Midol now know the story.

Among the well known remedies which many do not realize is owned by Sterling,
Ironized Yeast ran afoul of the Food and Drug people in 1941 for misbranding
claims that this preparation would add to the user's weight, vigor, charm,
and other blessings. Notwithstanding this official rebuke Ironized Yeast was
in trouble again in 1944 for press and radio claims that its vitamin content
builds rich red blood and cures low spirits, jitters, and lack of energy.
These allegations the Federal Trade Commission rudely denied as fiction.

And, curiously, a seizure of misbranded "Special" pills, and of "Formerly
Madam Dean" pills, occurred on July 6, 1944, less than a week after Sterling
had taken over Frederick Steams & Co. of Detroit, a company which had been
making both ethical and trademarked preparations. In this case the "Formerly
Madam's" pills and the "Specials" lacked label warnings of dangers if used',
under certain conditions. However the new proprietors should not be blamed
for these oversights; and this was not the first time that Stearns
preparations had been in trouble with the puke drug laws.

    Another huge group of home remedies was acquired by Sterling when it
purchased the R. L. Watkins Company in 1934, and soon thereafter the
advertising of Dr. Lyon's tooth powder, a Watkins product, drew the fire of
the Commission, and received a cease and desist order on the claim that it
would correct acid mouth.

Watkins products taken to court in numerous actions for misbranding or
adul[t]eration, or both; included Aspirol tablets, two Watkins headache and
cold remedies; vitamin pills; cod liver oil tablets; and tonic for hogs and
chickens. Quite a range.

Among other showpieces of this assortment of Sterling exhibits the parent
company was caught in 1943 shipping adulterated senna, a U.S.P. product; and
two of its other subsidiaries were in double trouble with both the Drug
Administration and the Trade Commission. These were the Vita Ray Company
which Sterling took over in 1938 and let go of in 1943; and the W. B.
Caldwell Company which is one of the oldest Sterling possessions.

In 1941 Vita Ray Vitamin Cream, another vitamin product for which the label
claimed power to produce soft, radiant smooth skin, was decreed misbranded
under the Food, Drug & Cosmetic law; as was a Caldwell vitamin product
labeled for pale underweight females. Despite these warnings the companies
did not reform; so in 1942 and '43, the Commission ordered Sterling to stop
advertising that Vita Ray Vitamin Cream cured wrinkles and coarse pores, made
its user radiantly happy, and that its discoverer was honored in the Hall of
Science. The Commission also decreed, in abrupt legal language, that no more
claims should be made that the pepsin in one of old Doc. Caldwell's compounds
had any effect on its therapeutic qualities.

Before closing this grim and incredible tale of deceit and lying in
advertising, mention might be made of a Standard Oil (N. J.) product called
Mistol put out in different forms which have been in trouble with the Food
and Drug Administration over a little matter of misbranding, and with the
Federal Trade Commission for advertising which did not sufficiently warn
prospective users that these nose drops were not safe for feeble infants nor
for various types of adults.

It should be stated here that evidences of many more violations of the Food
and Drugs Act are concealed in the secret files of the enforcement officials
then ever become public in court proceedings. However, sufficient evidence is
available in the cases which have been mentioned here to illustrate the
indifference and contempt with which Farben's patent-medicine partners have
regarded public health, the professions of pharmacy and medicine and the
governmental agencies charged with law enforcement.

In September 1934 a few weeks after the cease and desist order in the Bayer
aspirin case was issued, Dr. Weiss announced Sterling's advertising. plans
for the following year. For Bayer aspirin these plans included 1200
newspapers, leading magazines, and, radio programs on both national networks.
Phillips' Milk of Magnesia; Dr. Caldwell's Syrup of Pepsin; General Drug's
Midol; California Syrup of Figs; and Fletcher's Castoria were among the
numerous subsidiary products for which advertising was then announced-to be
placed in 3,500 newspapers, in magazines, in radio and in drug store display
material.

    Advertising expenditures of the Sterling group alone, can only' be
guessed at. In 1935 the total for twenty years was given as  not less than
150 million dollars. In 1940, Sterling's radio bin alone was just under six
million dollars. And in 1941 it was reported, that its advertising in Latin
America ran to about two million
dollars.

We know the sales formula of the patent medicine industry: one third for produ
ction and distribution, one third for advertising, and one third for profit.
Examine Sterling's 1942 financial statements: gross sales approximately
$53,400,000, and gross profit (before taxes) approximately $16,000,000. The
one-third-profit formula about checks, and it can be accepted that Sterling
is one of the half-dozen largest advertisers in this country. We are
confronted with staggering totals if we add to Sterling's the advertising
expenditures of Farben's other industrial partners in the United States.

Here then, is a tremendous sum of money which conceivably might have been
used to exert pressure on publishers to suppress or color news, and to modify
editorial opinion. That the same procedure operates for radio stations has
been made apparent.

In 1932, when Bristol Myers was a Farben affiliate through Drug Inc., its
vice-president, Lee H. Bristol, was also president of the Association of
National Advertisers, of which the Farben-Sterling affiliates were important
members. The Association attempted to put the heat on publishers who were
expecting to share the advertising budgets of its members by threatening to
reduce their expenditures unless the publishers acceded to their wishes.
Moreover, the threat was publicly made.

Pointed comment on this came from Editor and Publisher, leading journal of
the newspaper fraternity, whose forceful editor at that time Arthur T. Robb,
was always at his best when castigating any suggestion of 'censorship.

In an editorial on May 11, 1929, Editor and Publisher commented on conditions
in the drug industry, and then declared:

If a pharmaceutical trust can use its advertising appropriation as a screen
to cloak the unlawful manufacture of preparations which aggravate rather than
ease the pains of illness . . . . The scandal involved makes the power
trust's iniquities virtues by comparison.

More revealing was the radio debate between Secretary of the Interior Harold
L. Ickes and Frank Gannett, in January 1939. The celebrated curmudgeon
sustained his argument that the press was not free by the charge that the
patent-medicine and cosmetic industries, through their advertising agencies,
had directed the newspapers to kill the original Tugwell Food and Drug Bill.

A few days later the Philadelphia Record, suffering from an overdose of
remorse, or from a desire to please Mr. Ickes, stated editorially that much
he had said was true, adding:

We are ready to confess that along with the rest of the newspapers we deserve
criticism for the shameful part the press played under pressure from
patent-medicine advertisers in fighting the so-called Tugwell Bill in 1933.

The accusation and the admission were clean cut enough to sustain our thesis
that the German I.G. Farben, through Sterling was in a position to put
pressure on the publishers of this country. Mr. Ickes, however, appeared to
weaken his own case in this respect when he picked the Gannett newspapers and
New York World Telegram of the Scripps-Howard chain as two of his targets.

It so happens that Mr. Chauncey F. Stout, publisher of the Plainfield, New
Jersey, Courier-News, a Gannett paper, has opened his news columns time and
again to my battle with Farben's affiliates when the story was being
ruthlessly suppressed elsewhere. And no newspaper editor in America has been
more willing to publish news and editorial expressions which have dealt
severely with Farben and the Sterling patent-medicine group than Lee B. Wood,
Executive Editor of the World-Telegram, while Thomas L. Stokes, as a
Scripps-Howard feature writer, contributed by far the most powerful series of
exposures on the Farben influence in official Washington of any writer in the
country.

Nor did the World-Telegram's gentle and fair-minded premier columnist, the
late Raymond Clapper, ever pull his punches in comment about Farben's lobby.

However as to publishers in general, and especially as to certain very
conspicuous ones, I accept Mr. Ickes' accusation, and the Records confession,
that they all got kissed—and some kissed back.

On May 15, 1943, the Journal of the American Medical Association reported on
another defective preparation, Fletcher's Castoria, put out by one of
Sterling's companies, with the statement that:

At the time The Journal goes to press there seem to have been three deaths in
which physicians reporting the incidents feel that the toxicity of the
product were responsible.

In this instance Dr. Fishbein's journal was much more prompt (the news was
out already) in informing his professional readers of a medical calamity than
he had been during the long period of silence while the Winthrop
Sulfathiazole was causing death and injury. In this case it was a Sterling
patent medicine that was in serious trouble, and that kind of stuff could not
be advertised in the Journal, even under Dr. Fishbein's elastic code,

On May 3, 1943, announcements in the press had made public the fact that one
of the oldest and best known of Sterling's patent medicines was in serious
trouble. Fletcher's Castoria, that age-old remedy, advertised since the dawn
of time as, "Babies Cry for It" had suddenly been found to make babies cry at
it. And adults who tried a spoonful of the stuff very promptly lost their
dinners. It was announced by an official Sterling statement that all
outstanding Castoria in the United States, estimated at 3,000,000 bottles, was
 being recalled. Next day, advertisements appeared in all leading newspapers
announcing that some of the supposedly gentle cathartic contained a foreign
ingredient which caused nausea and vomiting, and as consumers could not tell
the difference between the good and the bad, it was necessary to recover it
all. Much mystery surrounded the incident; both the company and Commissioner
Campbell announced that it had not been possible to determine the cause of
the adulteration or the nature of the injurious ingredient.

Some years before, the label on the Castoria bottles indicated that its
contents—"Recipe of Old Dr. Samuel Fletcher"—included Rochelle salts
(potassium and sodium tartrate), in addition to bicarbonate of soda and
various vegetable drugs and flavoring matter. However, it was advertised as a
"Pure Vegetable Compound" for babies and children, and in later years the
Rochelle salts were not mentioned on the bottle, although it was still
labeled and advertised as, "Original Chas. H. Fletcher's Castoria."

The advertising, especially in the women's magazines, usually pictured a
series of touching family incidents which ended with mother inserting a spoon
in her smiling infant's mouth.

Sterling, with a blaze of publicity, proceeded to make a virtue of necessity,
and the Food and Drug Commissioner joined in with a public statement praising
that company for having gone to "unusual and very commendable lengths" in
calling in the adulterated material (Each shipment of which was a criminal
violation of the law), The Commissioner also stated:

It is inevitable that instances of this kind will occur even in the best
regulated plants.

If Mr. Campbell is correct about this, then it is no longer safe to take any
medical preparation without testing it first. However, I can assure the
former Food and Drug Commissioner, and so can a great many others, that his
statement was untrue; because it is a complete and utter impossibility for an
incident of this kind to occur in a "best regulated plant." If proper tests
are made to check each step in the compounding of the product, such a defect
would be detected before the product was bottled. And if sufficient controls
are instituted on the finished product, it surely
 would be detected before shipment. No properly managed chemical plant or
pharmaceutical plant is operated without both of these types of tests.

Mr. Campbell, in issuing this apology for Sterling, evidently forgot his
comment on the adulterated Sulfathiazole—when he finally admitted that his
belated investigation of the SterlingWinthrop plant disclosed sufficient
evidence of inadequacy of controls in the process by which the Sulfathiazole
was manufactured, to warrant revocation of the Winthrop license to
manufacture this product.

In excusing Sterling's Castoria offense as unavoidable, Mr. Campbell also
appears to have forgotten the criminal prosecution which he caused to be
instituted in 1940 against a chemical company for shipping tartar emetic, a
poisonous substance, which a shipping clerk had labeled by mistake, "Tartaric
Acid U. S. P.," a nonpoisonous substance. The distinction which Mr. Campbell
appears to have made between the misbranded tartar emetic and the adulterated
Castoria—with error the defense in each instance -indicated either an undue
harshness in the one case or a strange gentleness, toward Sterling, in the
other.

Mr. Campbell likewise must have forgotten that in 1941 he caused another
brand of Castoria (Pitcher's) to be condemned in court for misbranding
because the label created a false "impression" and the "active ingredients"
were not properly listed.

However, this is somewhat aside from the story. More than a year before the
discovery of the contaminated Castoria, Sterling had announced what it was
pleased to call a national defense drive in Latin America, the purpose of
which seems to have been to bring the war to a victorious conclusion by means
of hair tonics and bellyache cures. Unhappily, though, it was our allies who
got the nostrums instead of our enemies. Of which more later.

Because Castoria was sold extensively throughout Latin America, and because
the blaze of publicity about recalling all Castoria made no mention of what
had been exported, I determined to try and find out how much of the
adulterated product had been inflicted upon our good neighbors to the south.

The replies from Government departments which might be supposed to have such
information, State, Treasury, and Board of Economic Warfare, were polite but
highly uninformative. One paragraph, however, in a letter from the
Coordinator of InterAmerican Affairs, bears quoting:

I am informed that a complete investigation has been made in connection with
Fletcher's Castoria that has been exported to the other American republics.
This investigation proved that none of the exported Castoria contained the
unfortunate toxic ingredient.

Thank you for calling this to our attention.

Sincerely,
Harry W. Frantz
Acting Director

Press Division.

My reply was, in part, as follows:

Statements issued by the Sterling Executives, and by Food and Drug
Commissioner Walter G. Campbell, are to the effect that it had not been
possible to determine the identity of the toxic ingredient in the Castoria
which caused the trouble. Obviously if they have not been able to identify
the ingredient which was added to the Castoria by some one then it is
impossible for anyone to say that none of the exported product contained this
toxic ingredient. Either they know what it is and how it got there, or they
don't know anything.

One of the Sterling Company's statements also said . . . . "It is necessary
to recover all Fletcher's Castoria outstanding-" "All" means everywhere.

If you will be so kind as to advise me promptly of the identity of the
individual who made the statement to you which your letter referred to, I am
inclined to believe that I can be of further assistance to you in this
fantastic affair.

And then, while waiting for further word from Mr. Frantz, the great mystery
of the nauseous nostrum was abruptly solved. For seven weeks, according to
the official Sterling statement, twenty Castoria chemists had worked on the
strange case of the cathartic that had suddenly become an emetic, and at last
had made known
 their findings—it was sugar and water. Under war-time conditions, the sugar
content had been reduced, and the water; well, it seems that, "a chemical
change—harmless in itself—occurred in the characteristics of the water used
in making Castoria," and that this change, "in combination with the reduced
sugar, increased the degree and rate of normal fermentation." And that was
that.

Sterling announced that in future their Castoria carton would state that the
product was "Laboratory Controlled" and would have a green band around it.
The old carton stated that it was "Chemically Controlled." It had a yellow
band around it. Great is science!

In theory, at least, all of Sterling's Latin American advertising had been
subject to scrutiny and approval of Government officials. And in this
connection it is of interest that among the Sterling documents which the
Senate Patents Committee had available, and which presumably the justice
Department staff had access to in 1941, when the Sterling investigation was
stopped, were a number which revealed that the sales agencies of the
FarbenSterling partnership in South America used the blackjacking technic of
withholding advertising from newspapers which refused to be friendly to the
Nazi cause.

Max Wojahn, head of Sterling's Bayer Export Department prior to the alleged
house-cleaning, was a brother of one Kurt Wojahn, of Farben's South American
staff, (as mentioned in Chapter v). In January 1938 Kurt Wojahn was informed
by Farben that one of the Argentine newspapers, La Razon, which was friendly
to the Nazis, was not getting its share of the Sterling advertising, and that
an anti-German paper, "Critica," was getting much advertising. So Farben
demanded of Sterling that this situation be corrected at once, saying:

. . . . . for us Germans it is intolerable that this newspaper should be
aided by being given such important advertising orders, while the pro-German
newspapers either gets no orders or very modest ones.

Max Wojahn, according to these records, replied to this Farben complaint by
stating that:

Naturally, we are quite inclined, everything else being equal, to give
preferences in our advertising schedules to newspapers which are fair minded
in their editorial policy.

The exhibits bearing upon the cooperative blackjacking of Latin American
newspapers for propaganda purposes, included the report of a conference
between Farben and Sterling officials at which Mr. Weiss is recorded as
undertaking to issue whatever instruction might be necessary so that proper
attention would be given to requests made by the German Government concerning
Kurt Wojahn—as conveyed to Weiss by Farben's Counsel General, Mann. It was
team work all right-Hitler to Farben to Weiss to McClintock to Wojahn—and
smack went a blackjack on the pocketbook of an Anti-Nazi newspaper. Shall we
believe that none of these smacks are ever directed at pocketbooks nearer
home?

pps. 228-253
-----
Aloha, He'Ping,
Om, Shalom, Salaam.
Em Hotep, Peace Be,
All My Relations.
Omnia Bona Bonis,
Adieu, Adios, Aloha.
Amen.
Roads End

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