Regulations that work.

AuthorClaybrook, Joan
PositionTen rules that have made our lives better

REGULATIONS THAT WORK

When Jonas Salk discovered a vaccine for polio, the news was welcomed by The New York Times as "one of the greatest triumphs in the history of medicine.' The serum's widespread use lowered the incidence of polio from 21,000 cases in 1952 to fewer than 900 in 1962. Thanks to Salk, proclaimed the cover of Time magazine, "generations will grow up free.'

Salk's considerable achievement drew praise because it was the work of one easily identifiable hero against a disease that was widely known and feared. We are not so quick to support great potential strides in public health when they are made by the federal government and when they take on not bacterial but man-made killers. In 1984, for example, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed a new rule to reduce the amount of lead in regular gasoline. The rule, which went into effect in March 1985, will protect an estimated 50,000 children from brain damage due to airborne lead. But because those responsible for this regulation were anonymous bureaucrats, and because the hazard being fought was not an identifiable "disease,' there were no brass bands--only a quick blip on the evening news.

Regulators have not always been quick to respond to health and safety hazards, and when they have, the results often have been disappointing. In many cases, however, the federal government has made great strides toward removing or at least reducing dangers that affect us all. These success stories have gone unsung, particularly in the present conservative climate, where it has become fashionable to denounce all regulation as inherently meddlesome. With a president in office who has shown himself unabashedly hostile to regulation and a Congress entering the tightfisted era of Gramm-Rudman, it's worth considering instances where federal regulators, no less than Dr. Salk, have saved American lives. Herewith, we submit ten regulations that have made a difference.

  1. Safe Drugs: Pre-Market Testing

    There's a reason why you cannot buy "Hamlin's Wizard Oil' or "Warner's Safe Cure for Diabetes' at your corner drug store. Nearly 50 years ago, the Food and Drug Administration determined that these once-popular "medicines' were worthless and banned their sale. Ever since, consumers have been spared costly frauds and, more importantly, serious illness, drug addiction, blindness, and death caused by quack medicines.

    In 1938, 100 people, many of them children, experienced slow, agonizing deaths from a special elixir used to treat streptococcal infection. The next year Congress gave the FDA authority to review and approve drugs before they go on the market. The FDA now requires the pharmaceutical companies to perform rigorous tests, the results of which the FDA scientists review. Although drug companies often complain about the lengthy process, the FDA's drug approval system has saved thousands of lives and prevented millions of adverse drug reactions.

    Between 1959 and 1961, for example, approximately 10,000 babies in more than 20 countries were born with serious deformities because their mothers had taken a new sedative, thalidomide, during pregnancy. American women who obtained the medicine from Canada and Europe or participated in investigational tests were affected as well. A skeptical FDA medical officer withheld full approval, preventing tens of thousands of birth defects in the U.S. The FDA has screened out other medications that have caused deaths and injuries overseas. For example, it refused to approve isoproterenol inhalers--used to relieve asthma--which caused the death of 3,500 children in England and Wales in the 1960s. It also banned Stalinon, an ineffective treatment for boils that killed more than a hundred patients in a small French town in 1954, and Aminorex, an appetite suppressant marketed in Europe, which caused an epidemic of primary pulmonary hypertension and 26 deaths.

  2. Safe Food: Slaughterhouse Inspections

    The serious problems with meat slaughterhouses and packinghouses first came to public attention in the early 1900s when Upton Sinclair's muckraking novel, The Jungle, and subsequent congressional hearings revealed revolting conditions: filth on meat, standing water that could breed disease, inadequate toilet facilities for workers, and meat-borne diseases. Much of the burden for preventing such conditions falls on the Department of Agriculture (USDA) slaughterhouse inspection program. First, the department must approve the blueprints of a new plant to ensure that it meets sanitation standards. Water supplies, for example, must be safe from contamination, and slaughterhouses no longer may have wooden floors, which can rot, spawning disease. USDA inspectors check cattle, sheep, swine, goats, and other livestock for diseases that may be difficult to detect after slaughter, like rabies and listeriosis. For the slaughter, the USDA stipulates methods that are both sanitary and humane. Don Houston, administrator of the Food Safety and Inspection Service, notes, "We have very specific procedures that a company must follow to make sure that manure is not released on the carcass. For certain cuts, you have to tie off certain body orifices, etc.' To be sure that the standards are adhered to, USDA inspects carcasses after the slaughter.

    Data on diseased carcasses is collected daily and fed into the USDA's Livestock Disease Reporting System, which monitors disease patterns and checks how thoroughly inspections are being performed. With this specific information, inspectors can identify diseases that are confined to certain parts of the country or breeds of livestock.

    Budget cuts have reduced the Food Safety and Inspection Service inspector corps by 300 to roughly 7,300, while the number of plants they need to inspect has gone up by 200.

  3. Safe Cars: Auto Recalls

    Before 1966, auto manufacturers who produced defective cars had nothing to fear from the federal government. Only state product liability...

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