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would have supported S. 580, or the Mead bill, or this suggested bill, or any other bill. I honestly do not believe that 98 or 99 percent of the members of organizations that have sent representatives here to approve S. 5 could pass an examination on any bill that has been introduced into the last or this session of Congress as to many of their points. I really respect the consuming public that come here asking for legislation, but that public is not in a position to carefully analyze and interpret the provisions of any of these measures and say definitely just what a court will decide as to their practicability, as to their legality, or as to what we will have. I feel very keenly, Mr. Chairman, that we are considering probably one of the most important bills that is before Congress. And I still feel that instead of rewriting the law we should amend the law, and by amending the law we are going to protect the consuming public more, and we are going to have a better law. We must not forget that the Pure Food and Drugs Act has over 22,000 judgments in its favor. It has suffered comparatively few defeats. It has done a great deal to bring about a better condition as to foods and drugs. And I may differ with some witnesses in this belief. I believe that all industry has helped in being willing to accept the department's interpretations and being willing through their associations to make better conditions for the consumer, because it must be self-evident that the least consumer resistance there is to a preparation the better opportunity for a sale.

May I say in closing as to my personal qualifications for presince 1900, that I have operated a drug store, and still operate it as a co-partner, before the original Food and Drugs Act was passed, and that I have probably handled from ten to twenty thousand preparations that must be labeled or prepared under the Food and Drugs Act. As a counsel I have had cases before both the State and the Federal departments in reference to labeling and adulteration, and that I have served on the legislative committee of both State and national associations during almost this whole period of time.

May I also state in this matter that you must consider we have 48 States, and these 48 States have State Food and Drugs Act, and they must be changed each time the Federal act is changed if we have a uniform enforcement system. And therein lies a danger. If you rewrite the Federal act you are going to have State acts not amended, but rewritten, and there you will have every political power and all the controversies coming in and all the freak legislation that is often adopted when you have a radical change. Therefore, when you amend the Federal Food and Drugs Act you are going to stand the greatest chance of amending in the same way these State Food and Drugs Acts, and you will have a far more uniform and better law, because it is also quite evident that no matter what kind of a Federal Food and Drugs Act you make in the States, we will say, of California, or Texas, or Pennsylvania, or New York, large States, persons can manufacture preparations and sell them within the State without any supervision from interstate

commerce.

Senator GIBSON. Is Mr. Harry Noonan here! (No response.)

STATEMENT OF W. P. JOHNSON, REPRESENTING THE NATIONAL AMERICAN WHOLESALE GROCERS' ASSOCIATION

Mr. JOHNSON. My name is W. P. Johnson, the Washington representative of the National American Wholesale Grocers' Association. We represent something near two thousand wholesale grocers_scattered throughout the United States. We just want to file a letter stating that we are in full accord with this bill as offered under the committee print no. 3.

(The letter referred to is as follows:)

Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, my name is W. P. Johnson, and I am the Washington representative of National American Wholesale Grocers' Association, the headquarters of which is located at No. 99 Hudson Street, New York City.

Our Association is the result of a union of the old National Wholesale Grocers' Association and the American Wholesale Grocers' Association.

The first official act of the National Wholesale Grocers' Association, which was organized in 1906, was to send to President Theodore Roosevelt, and to Members of Congress its approval of the bill which now is the Federal Food and Drugs Act. For 27 years our association has advocated and promoted the enactment of State food laws prohibiting adulteration and misbranding of foods uniform with the Federal statute. In behalf of National American Wholesale Grocers' Association, representing 1,700 wholesale grocers scattered throughout the United States, I wish to endorse Senator Copeland's bill, known as "Senate 5" in its present form.

Very truly yours,

STATEMENT OF HENRY STEVENS

Mr. STEVENS. My name is Henry Stevens. Mr. Chairman, I will take not more than 5 minutes. I am representing myself. As an allergic individual, I wish to comment particularly on section 302, paragraph (i). There has been quite a little loose talk about allergy and the protection of the allergic individual, and I can speak with great conviction on that. Although I am not an allergist, I have

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given the subject considerable study in the past several years, and have been so unfortunate as to have an allergy clinic in my own home.

This provision exempts from the statement on the label, spices, flavorings, and colors. I would like to call attention to the fact that in the extensive literature on allergy, spices, flavors, and colors are recorded, that is the individual members of spices, flavors, and colors are all recorded as allergens.

Senator COPELAND. As possible allergens?

Mr. STEVENS. AS possible allergens, and the individual ones are different. I have a brief list of them, which is as follows: Cinnamon, pepper, caraway seed, ginger, horseradish, paprika, poppyseed, vanilla, mint, garlic, nutmeg, and mustard. This particular author states that in any complete examination of an allergic individual certainly cinnamon, pepper, and mustard should be tested.

Senator COPELAND. Did he limit it to those three?

Mr. STEVENS. That particular allergist did.

Senator COPELAND. Who is the authority for that?

Mr. STEVENS. S. M. Feinberg. I do not believe that any blanket provision can be made such as is given here which will give protection, that this is presumed to give, to the allergic individual. The great proportion of those who are sensitive to foods do not know the exact identity of the food which is offensive. Furthermore, the matter of traces of those individual components of foods often becomes of great importance. There is also the matter of tolerance to be considered. I would illustrate that merely by one example of a baker's product in which the oil or fat used on the tins becomes as much an ingredient of the product, for the allergic, as the shortening or the yeast or the flour.

Not long ago an allergist called-and I wish to explain that I Occupy a fellowship in the Department of Agriculture, provided by the cotton-seed industry, but I am not representing the cotton-seed industry or any other individual or manufacturer--and he wished to know whether there was possibly a fluid milk available in Washington from cows that had not been fed cotton-seed meal. He was recognizing the fact that milk may contain the allergenic ingredients of the feed of the cow. Any logical extension or interpretation of an effective labeling procedure for the protection of the health of the allergic individual must go far beyond the statement of the common names of the components.

Senator COPELAND. You would not want it to include the statement that the cow would not get cotton seed?

Mr. STEVENS. It would be necessary for the protection of that particular individual to label milk with the ingredients as to the cow's diet. which is obviously impractical.

Senator COPELAND. I just heard that the House had cut down the appropriation for the Agriculture Department. They would have to have a lot more money, wouldn't they, to do all of that? Mr. STEVENS. They certainly would.

I would suggest that in the case of labeling foods that the provision be made, as it is not now made, so that the public health and food standards committee might determine those products which should be labeled. In that section about describing the food standards committee this paragraph seems to have been omitted from consideration.

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Senator COPELAND. Your objection to page 8, subparagraph (i) relates to the exemption of spices, flavors, and colorings?

Mr. STEVENS. I submit that as an illustration. My suggestion is, and with your permission I shall file a memorandum on it, that the provisions be made for specifying on the labels of all foods, drugs, and cosmetics, the name and quantity of any one and/or all ingredients when there is involved a question of significant hazard to the health of the individual consumer as determined by the judgment of the Public Health and Food Standards Committee. Inhalants are more important than foods in the total number of allergic individuals.

I believe from my own experience that this subject of allergy is extremely important to the health of a certain number of individuals that are presumeed to be now unprotected, but I believe we are not now in a position to say exactly what items of any food or drug or cosmetic should be named on the label.

I have given this subject a great deal of study. I do not see how we would have been better off had we been able to read on the label the ingredients unless that label stated infinitesimal traces. Obviously that is not practical. The quantity of substance that sometimes does very grave damage is beyond chemical determination, and your allergic individual is the only test animal that you have.

I respectfully make the suggestion that consideration be given to this matter. I have referred to a few names of allergists; I am not an authority on it myself. I have not been able to stimulate enough interest in them to volunteer their opinions. One allergist here in town tells me it is not possible, in his view, to obtain protection, for the allergic individual, that many believe is possible by a statement of the composition.

Senator COPELAND. I have forgotten his name, but I think that doctor testified last year.

Mr. STEVENS. No. It was another one.

Senator COPELAND. It was another one? We had very full testimony I remember from some authority.

Mr. STEVENS. And I would like to ask for my own information with respect to those standard foods. Is it contemplated that a food that has a standard of quality where it is a mixed food such as a salad dressing, would that bear on the label the identity of every ingredient?

Senator COPELAND. I suppose no standard of quality would be fixed.

Mr. STEVENS. You see there is a reasonable clrance for the use of several optional ingredients, the fats or oils in a food for instance, those may be capable of producing an allergy, although there is no effective means of controlling that from the Federal standpoint because of the difficulty involved in identifying those fats and oils. Senator COPELAND. Of course, this bill as it is written permits a definition and standard of identity, and so forth. And then if it varies from that, the ingredients would have to be named. Mr. STEVENS. They would have to be named?

Senator COPELAND. Of course, when you get into the subject of allergy, you know from your own experience how extremely difficult it is to deal with it.

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Mr. STEVENS. I believe that is right, that is the reason I feel this provision on labeling should be extended to foods and drugs and cosmetics. But let us use the expert opinion that is available in these public health and food committees and determine on the basis of their judgment when and to what degree of

Senator COPELAND. Would your doctor be willing to prepare for you a statement which you might send forward for the record?

Mr. STEVENS. I asked him if he would testify. That is H. S. Bernton. I have also talked to Dr. Warren T. Vaughn, of Richmond, whom you no doubt know.

Senator COPELAND. I think, Mr. Chairman, we would be glad, if it was promptly sent forward, to include that testimony as part of the testimony of this witness.

Senator GIBSON. Is it to be submitted in the form of a statement? Senator COPELAND. Yes.

Mr. STEVENS. I would like to submit this brief in connection with my testimony.

(The brief referred to is as follows:)

There are presented in this memorandum some facts believed to be pertinent to the formulation of labeling provisions for foods wherein the purpose is to provide protection for those hypersensitive or allergic individuals whose health is impaired by eating foods of a character considered wholesome for the normal or nouallergic individual.

Reference is made to S. 5 Committee Print 31, section 302, paragraph (1), on page 8, subdivision (2). This paragraph has been represented as providing protection for that portion of the allergic population whose health may be endangered by consuming foods of unknown composition. It is my belief that the provisions of subdivision (2) of this paragraph (1) cannot be reconciled with certain established scientific principles relating to the cause, occurrence, and prevention of those disease entities due to individual and specific hypersensitiveness to common ingredients of foods usually regarded as wholesome in the amounts usually consumed. This group of diseases is called allergic diseases and the substances causing them are referred to as allergens or allergenic substances.

The facts and views here presented are intended to supplement the_testimony recorded in the hearings on S. 2800 with respect to allergy and with respect to the benefits expected to accrue to the allergic individual through the statement of composition on the label of mixed foods. The information presented, I believe, faithfully represents the results of a thorough, unbiased, and competent evaluation of the major portion of published and otherwise available evidence concerning food allergy.

except

1. The exception provided in subdivision (2) of paragraph (1) that spices, flavors, and colorings, other than those sold as such, may be designated as spices, flavors, and colorings without naming each fails to recognize that these are capable of inducing disease reactions in some allergic persons.

The fact that normally wholesome, nutritious foods may be for some individuals poisons of high potency is not a recent discovery. However, the systematic study of allergic reactions to foods, in progress only since 1910, has established beyond doubt that nearly every food, with the possible exception of highly purified carbohydrates, is capable of causing allergic disease in some group of the allergic population. A review of the clinical evidence which has led to the recognition of an ever-increasing number of foods known to be contributory factors in allergic disturbances will show that there is not a sound basis for the exception noted.

This exception, applicable only to spices, flavors, and colorings, in effect classifies these food ingredients as being ever innocent of offense against allergic individuals. There is in the medical literature adequate evidence to prove that certain spices and certain essential oils used as flavorings are not infrequently, or, according to some, are rarely, capable of producing allergic symptoms in the same manner and by the same routes of absorption as are