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Several pharmaceutical trade magazines addressed the incident after its outbreak, with most of the articles deflecting blame onto either physicians or manufacturers. One article in American Druggist <\/em>rebuts a claim made by Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace that \u201cpharmacists prayed God\u2019s forgiveness on a bended knee\u201d, stating that it was a physician who prescribed the substance and not a pharmacist. Another article which appeared in The Apothecary<\/em> in November of 1937 states there is \u201cno excuse for the use of Drethylene Glycol [sic]\u201d except to give the manufacturer a competitive advantage. The author then goes on to defend the use of unadulterated sulfanilamide, which he describes as \u201cone of our great discoveries in medicine\u201d. Despite the scale and publicity of the crisis, it did not seem to seriously affect the day-to-day operations of American pharmacies and the pharmaceutical publications which were directed at store managers generally made little mention of it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n On the other hand, the general press got into a heated back-and-forth with S. E. Massengill. Most notably, Time<\/em> magazine published an article in November of 1937 which quoted a federal agent saying \u201cthey [S. E. Massengill] just throw drugs together, and if they don\u2019t explode they are placed on sale\u201d. They also implied that S. E. Massengill was primarily a veterinarian drug manufacturer rather than human drug manufacturer, and that diethylene glycol was never before used in medicine but was a common ingredient in antifreeze. In response, S. E. Massengill accused Time<\/em> of spreading misinformation and claimed they had the best track record of any pharmaceutical company in America. They then go on to cite an unspecified \u201cbody of scientists\u201d who hold the belief that \u201cit is probable that no chemist or pharmacologist will ever be able to determine exactly what happened\u201d. Finally, they denied that diethylene glycol was used in antifreeze, claiming that the author of the article must have been thinking of ethylene glycol.<\/p>\n\n\n\n After an investigation which lasted several months, the FDA seemed to agree that the fault lay mainly with the manufacturers. However, since drug laws were still enforced under the 1906 Pure Food and Drug Act, the most serious charge that could be pressed against S. E. Massengill was mislabelling. This spurred Congress\u2013which had been considering passing food and drug legislation since Franklin Delano Roosevelt had been inaugurated\u2013to pass the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act in 1938. This mandated that manufacturers prove the safety of their drugs before they go to market, and essentially set up the FDA as the gatekeeper of which drugs were and were not considered safe, dramatically changing the power dynamics of the pharmaceutical industry. Today, an amended version of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act is still in effect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n This Dose of History <\/strong>was brought to you by AIHP Intern, Leo Ryan.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Bibliography:<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n Ballentine, Carol. \u201cSulfanilamide Disaster.\u201d FDA Consumer Magazine<\/em>, June, 1981. https:\/\/www.fda.gov\/files\/about%20fda\/published\/The-Sulfanilamide-Disaster.pdf.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Cooper, Dale E. \u201cAdequate Controls for New Drugs: Good Manufacturing Practice and the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act.\u201d Pharmacy in History<\/em> 44, no. 1 (2002): 12\u201323. http:\/\/www.jstor.org\/stable\/41112093.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cThe Facts About Elixir Sulfanilamide.\u201d Press statement released by S. E. Massengill, December, 1937. Accessed through the American Institute for the History of Pharmacy\u2019s archives. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Hutchinson, Herbert R. \u201cLethal Elixir.\u201d The Apothecary<\/em>, November, 1937, 52. Accessed through the American Institute for the History of Pharmacy\u2019s archives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cLethal Remedy.\u201d Time Magazine<\/em>, November, 1937. https:\/\/time.com\/archive\/6820167\/medicine-fatal-remedy\/. <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cNot Guilty.\u201d American Druggist<\/em> 97, no. 1 (1938): 50. Accessed through the American Institute for the History of Pharmacy\u2019s archives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n Wax, Paul M. \u201cElixirs, Diluents, and the Passage of the 1938 Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.\u201d Annals of Internal Medicine<\/em> 122, no. 6 (1995): 456-461.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" In the fall of 1937, over 100 people died from consuming an antibiotic called \u201celixir of sulfanilamide\u201d. This prompted a protracted scandal which would implicate drug manufacturers, pharmacists, and the federal government, eventually resulting in a fundamental shift in how drugs were regulated in the United States. Although it was discovered in 1908, sulfanilamide did […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[25,27,17,16,23,26],"class_list":["post-9493","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-dose-of-history","tag-food-drug-and-cosmetic-act","tag-labels","tag-pharmaceuticals","tag-pharmacy-history","tag-pure-food-drug-act"],"yoast_head":"\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/sandbox2.foxtrotdev.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/Sulfanilamide-pictures_Page_2.jpg\")
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