WARTIME FOOD AND DRUG RACKETS
Sheridan, Mary
your Money's Worth Wartime Food And Drug Rackets By MARY SHERIDAN IF I HAVE a Constant Reader, says I wistfully, he'll remember that back in July I wrote a few words about the case of the...
...The shortage has of course meant that any kind of cigarette is sold as soon as it nears a counter, and Chelsea, Rameses, Maplewood, and unknown cigarette manufacturers are making more than hay...
...Nor would it have overdrawn the Winthrop bank account...
...Signs of the times, with money flowing freely, are Ward's bracelets priced up to $295 and Sears' diamond rings up to $426.95_____ Of all the true and apocryphal stories going the rounds on the cigarette famine, my favorite is the one about the girl in Dallas who gets a carton of Luckies every month from her serviceman brother in India...
...Wharton's point, if I understand him correctly, is the double-header that food and drug protection for consumers is a matter of constant vigilance and that the small fines levied by the courts against the food and drug racketeers are almost an encouragement for other racketeering ventures...
...Too Small Fines...
...Mineral oils are used in chocolate ice cream and for coating candy...
...Who was at fault...
...Greedy Food And Drug Racketeers While Winthrop got off easily, other drug and food manufacturers are getting away with mild murder...
...The new Montgomery Ward and Sears Roebuck catalogs are larger than last year, but there are still many, many things "not available...
...Both cigarette production and consumption are at an^ all-time high, and while a civilian shortage may continue through the Winter, Department of Agriculture officials say the current shortage is at its peak...
...Wharton claims are being made and sold by unscrupulous food manufacturers...
...Ground coca shells and other scraps appear in some candy and cake as cocoa...
...Grated carrot masquerades, as fruit in certain fruit preserves...
...Dressed up to look like shredded coconut, a cereal is being used to top certain candy bars...
...What do fines of $18,000 and $3,000 and other small amounts mean to concerns making profits many times that amount ? * * * Miscellany One poll of 15,000 women on what they would like in their houses of tomorrow showed that many of them want glass doors on ovens, kitchen cabinets, and refrigerators...
...Under the guise of "pure olive oil," which is scarce and expensive, cottonseed and other inexpensive vege...
...Those three substitutes are by no means all of the things which Mr...
...He disclosed that asafetida is being substituted for garlic, ground pecan shells flavored with oils for "pure spices," shelled pumpkin seeds for almonds...
...Those charges come straight from the horse's mouth...
...The manufacturer was fined only $3,000...
...Puffed wheat and soybeans are passed off for peanut brittle...
...Because of our food and drug laws and first-class enforcements we can buy canned goods, pills, and bottles without qualms about their impurity...
...My guess is that Wharton didn't make these charges against the food and drug racketeers to scare the public...
...Because the Food and Drug Administration was on the job, the deadly product was taken off the market before anyone was killed...
...And most of them want more transparent and washable surfaces...
...A lot of stomach linings would have been cut otherwise, for the stuff contained glass slivers...
...Wharton, chief of the eastern district of the Food and Drug Administration, recently revealed that the public is being sold a lot of ersatz food and drugs, most of it marketed illegally...
...Some customers who bought a brand of supposed sulfathiazone tables were put to sleep for a week because the pills were really phenobarbital...
...W.R.M...
...table oils are bottled...
...The manufacturer blamed "careless employes," and escaped without a fine...
...Recently the Winthrop firm pleaded guilty to the charges, and while the faulty drugs had seriously affected the health of 30 hospital patients before the Food and Drug G-men discovered the cause, the drug manufacturers escaped with the mild penalty of $18,000...
...Lucky Strikes are comfortably in the lead as the best sailing weed, with Chesterfields and Camels in second and third place...
...In the drug field, the fakes are even more serious., "Enough disthylene glucol to kill 2,000,000 people a year was offered by a manufacturer as a substitute for glycerine in drugs, medicines, foods, cosmetics, and lotions," Wharton said...
...Winthrop, which has raked in handsome profits on its war contracts, could have been fined up to $120,000, and that fine, if the punishment fit the crime, would have been mild...
...Stainless steel cutlery, one of the earliest war casualties, is back, though...
...your Money's Worth Wartime Food And Drug Rackets By MARY SHERIDAN IF I HAVE a Constant Reader, says I wistfully, he'll remember that back in July I wrote a few words about the case of the Winthrop Chemical Company, on trial in Federal court on charges of distributing adulterated drugs...
...That's a list of some of the charges the Food and Drug executive levels against food racketeers...
...Fortunately, we caught it before harm was done...
...The Food and Drug Administration men have a 24-hour-a-day assignment to keep up with the products dangerous to consumers that are being dumped on the civilian market by racketeering firms...
...Food and Drug investigators recently grabbed 1,000,-000 cases of Spanish and Portuguese brandy...
Vol. 8 • November 1944 • No. 46
