Proclamation 5894 --
50th Anniversary Year of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, 1988
By
the President of the
of
A
Proclamation
Half
a century ago, in 1938, the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act was signed
into law by President Franklin Delano Roosevelt. This legislation was the start
of modern food and drug regulation. That this year is the 50th anniversary of
that legislation reminds each of us to be grateful for our American legacy of
concern for protecting the public health.
The
1938 Act covered cosmetics, medical devices, food additives, and pesticides,
but made its strongest impact by giving the Food and Drug Administration the
authority and responsibility for approving new drugs for safety before they
could be sold. These drug review provisions came just at the beginning of the
``first therapeutic revolution,'' when penicillin and sulfa drugs were being
discovered. Wave after wave of new drug classes were discovered in the 1940's
and 1950's, and the new drug review system enabled patients and physicians to
have a level of confidence in medications that had never before existed.
To
this day, the Food and Drug Administration uses the provisions of the 1938 Act,
as amended over the years, to establish rigorous standards for food and drug
safety that are widely respected and emulated.
The
Congress, by House Joint Resolution 600, has recognized the 50th anniversary of
the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act and authorized and requested the
President to issue a proclamation in observance of this anniversary.
Now,
Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the
In
Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this second day of November, in
the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, and of the
Ronald
Reagan
[Filed with the Office
of the Federal Register,
Note: The proclamation
was released by the Office of the Press Secretary on November 3.