The Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association is a department of our national organization that has not received the plaudits and encomiums of a wildly joyous medical profession nor the grateful praises of the enthusiastic manufacturer of pharmaceuticals. The Council seems indeed to be the unloved child of the entire family of subsidiary bodies of the association. Perhaps the reason for this may be found in the character of its duties, for the Council must expose fraud, sometimes in high places, and protect the physician from being duped by avaricious persons and by persons who are themselves sometimes the victims of their own credulity. It thus happens that the sale of some proprietary article previously held in high esteem by the practitioner proves valueless, perhaps even fraudulent. The practitioner, however, may have credited much of his success in treating certain conditions to that preparation and the maker has had success in accumulating dollars from its sale and both parties emit a loud and vicious roar against the Council, because they both lose money. Nobody wants to be “protected” against making money—make it honestly, if possible, but make it—but this black sheep among the Councils of the American Medical Association insists on their making their money honestly!
Despite many obstacles thrown into its path, the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry has serenely pursued its allotted tasks, corrected its mistakes, improved its methods, and today stands as the only medium to which the honest physician may turn for information—not misinformation—regarding proprietary articles. During the war the Council and the chemical laboratory were in close cooperation with the Surgeon-General’s Office, testing and investigating every article offered to the government for the treatment of sick soldiers. The variety and the number of fakish and fraudulent stuff offered to the Surgeon-General was a pitiable exhibit of the mental gymnastics of some people. Just now the Council and the laboratory have a new and important field before them, i. e., to protect the physicians against worthless and useless serums, vaccines and synthetics. It will be the Council’s unpleasant duty to expose the fraudulent and useless among these articles and stamp truth on those found worthy.
We seem to have wandered from the topic in our caption, but not so in reality, because the burden of our thought is to lend our influence to the spread of the motto of the Advertising Clubs of the World, namely, “Truth in Advertising.” It is our purpose to stimulate a larger degree of enthusiasm for the work of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry and the Chemical Laboratory, a more generous flow of inquiries concerning articles unfamiliar to the physician, and particularly to urge that the words “Accepted by the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association” be printed on the label and on all advertising circulars of proprietary articles that have been admitted to New and Nonofficial Remedies. Then, when pamphlets and circulars are received by physicians they will read the statements of manufacturers with sympathetic understanding and with full confidence in the verity of the declarations. The importance of creating just that sort of receptivity in the mind of the prospective buyer is so well known to the astute publicity expert that it is needless for us to dwell on its advantages. Every proprietary article advertised in our journal, in The Journal of the American Medical Association, and in the other state association journals, as well as in several well-edited privately owned journals, does in effect say to the reader that the articles so advertised are accepted by the Council because only proprietary articles so accepted are accepted by us. The fact is further acknowledged when these firms are permitted to exhibit their goods at our annual sessions for again the rule is enforced that only proprietary articles which have been approved by the Council may be placed on display.
Why not complete the circle of ideas—it would not be a “vicious circle”—by printing on labels, in advertisements and circulars, the words: “Accepted by the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry”?—(From The Journal A. M. A., Aug. 2, 1919.)
HELPING THE COUNCIL
If they were built that way, the members of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association might become discouraged at the apparent indifference of many members of the medical profession to their efforts. There are many physicians who, while figuratively patting the Council on the back, actually do nothing to aid its efforts. On the other hand, there are men in the profession who give the Council active support instead of merely passive appreciation. The letter that follows was written by such a man to a pharmaceutical concern:
I am receiving circular advertising from you concerning —— —— solution, and I am writing to suggest that until these products have been approved by the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association, you are wasting your postage on the practice. Aside from the fact that these products do not appeal to me personally, I feel that I am not in a position to judge the value of such products and I depend entirely on the large clinical opportunities of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry of the American Medical Association in addition to their laboratory facilities, in such matters as these. I may, therefore, with all due respect, suggest that ... it will pay you to eliminate my name from your mailing list.
The members of the Council on Pharmacy and Chemistry are working week in and week out without remuneration. Few appreciate how much these scientific men are doing for rational therapeutics; fewer still realize how much has been accomplished through their efforts, or how much more could be accomplished if every physician who at least believes in the work of the Council would give it his full support.—(Editorial from The Journal A. M. A., Nov. 6, 1920.)