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[Fraud Fighters]
[Produced by Jay Bonafield, Directed and Photographed by Larry O'Reilly, Supervised by Phil Reisman, Jr.]
[...]
[Narrator:] Buried here is a man who died before his time,
his grave a monument to ignorance and fraud.
There was little to be done about John Martin's stupidity,
but ultimately there was an answer to another man's deceit.
John Martin, who clipped an ad and sent away for a bottle of medicine,
died of a common disease.
And yet you might also say he was murdered.
Murdered as surely as though the deed had been done by bullet or knife.
But, John Martin, deceased, was not the only one who had seen that ad.
It also came to the attention of some interested people in Food and Drug Administration,
operating under the Federal Security Agency.
Its aims: to combat filth and fraud in our food products
and to guarantee, as best it can, that medicines and cosmetics not only contain
what the makers say they contain, but do what the makers claim they'll do.
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And so, to a bureau official comes an ad clipped from a newspaper.
Relief at last, a remedy for diabetes, arthritis, kidney disorders,
and well, it was a suspiciously long list of guarantees, and a matter for the nearest regional office to check into.
A network of 16 district stations covers the country,
and from the New York office inspector Kennedy, starting out with only a small advertisement,
launches the chain of events which will determine how much validity, if any, there is in the claims of a preparation called Elixirex.
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In a small industrial city, Inspector Kennedy locates the manufacturer
but his wife says he is out of town.
Be gone two weeks, perhaps, maybe a month.
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Sure, she'll show him where the Elixirex is made.
It's right back in the garage.
The Food and Drug Administration, FDA, is constantly ferreting out products
manufactured under filthy and unsanitary conditions.
But at the moment, this is not Kennedy's primary objective.
He subsequently asks the woman for a list of her husband's customers,
but she insists that she knows nothing about any such list. Wouldn't even know where to look for one.
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But Inspector Kennedy doesn't wait for his man to return.
Like skinning a cat, there is more than one way to run down evidence,
so Kennedy sets out on some tedious legwork.
Starting with a local trucking company, he tries to uncover shipping orders to distributors, or even individual orders,
which, to avoid possible involvement, often are sent a bottle or two at a time by express.
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After going through mountains of records his patience is finally rewarded.
He finds half a dozen orders, three of which are in his own district.
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Now, begins the second phase of Inspector Kennedy's task:
the gathering of evidence that will stand up in court if necessary, proof that Elixirex
was bought and used.
Yes, she has used it regularly, this lady told him in another town.
Best thing she'd found, yet, for her arthritis.
Matter-of-fact, she just finished a bottle and has to send away for another.
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Two days later, Kennedy makes a real strike.
Her husband had been using Elixirex regularly,
said Mrs. John Martin.
But Mr. Martin had died three weeks ago.
He'd been taking Elixirex for diabetes,
had given up his insulin injections for this simplified sure shot cure-all.
Hadn't consulted his doctor, of course.
Kennedy, sealing the remnants as evidence,
assigns a sample number and identifies the seal with his initials.
But the word of the wife of the deceased is not enough.
The chain of evidence must then be linked to include a photostatic copy of the death certificate.
The official cause of death, diabetes.
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And now, the Food and Drug people want to know...what is Elixirex?
What's in it? In every district station is a battery of crack chemists and microanalysts who fight the battle against filth and fraud.
To one of these comes Elixirex.
The magic formula to relieve sickness and pain turns out to be nothing more
than a mixture of water and an alcoholic extract of certain herbaceous weeds that grow in profusion in the maker's back yard.
It is instantly clear to the district chief that Elixiex is a flagrant violation of the law.
But it must be decided officially.
Before he can issue a citation against the manufacturer, the evidence must be weighed by medical officers in Washington.
Here, food and drug physicians consider the matter from a purely medical view.
What, according to a consensus of the group, will this mixture do for any of the following;
diabetes, arthritis, or any of the aches and pains it guarantees to cure?
The answer is a flat, unequivocable, nothing.
The law moves swiftly. The maker has a chance to show cause why he should not be prosecuted,
but there is little he can do to refute the evidence.
The maker receives a year in jail and a stiff fine.
Too late to help John Martin, but not too late to protect the lives and health of others.
And so, another result of bureau vigilance rests among the Rogue's Gallery of typical frauds
brought to book.
To look at this display, you would think the nation is susceptible to anything.
Unfortunately, there is opportunity to prey on the ignorant and unsuspecting.
People who cannot afford or who spurn a doctor's advice
are easy marks for extravagant claims or weird devices that have as much effect as a spell cast by a witch doctor.
The inventor of this electrical gimmick claimed great healing qualities for colored lights.
Just bask in the glow your misery calls for and you're as good as new.
It's almost unbelievable that he sold thousands of these.
A cheese distributor did a brisk business in imported Swiss,
or at least the label said it was imported.
He wound up getting a longer trip than the cheese took.
Now, curbing violations takes a lot of coordination of department forces.
The planning division in Washington plots investigations on a geographical and time basis,
so that representative plants are checked regularly in every area.
Even, such things as economic trends play a part.
A crop failure due to weather, for example,
puts the agency on the alert against inferior products going into canned or bottled goods.
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Inspectors are authorized to enter, without advance notice, a food or drug plant doing interstate business.
Virtually all have college degrees in a science such as chemistry, bacteriology, or biology.
At fishing ports, a distributor never knows when his frozen fillet line will be tested.
A single whiff will tell the trained inspector if this is one that should have got away.
Nothing takes precedence over FDA deciding what shall enter the country from abroad.
A sample of every shipment is examined. Here, olives are being selected at random.
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If there's anything foreign besides the rum in these bottles,
this candling process will reveal it.
Expert tea testers, who have devoted a lifetime to their work, set minimum standards for all brands.
In Washington, meanwhile, is a tremendous laboratory,
which not only backs up the core of inspectors but constantly pursues projects of its own.
Here, in the division of microbiology are samples of virtually every growing thing known to man,
through which analysts can determine, to almost fantastic lengths, what foreign elements may be in a suspected product.
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Literally anything can be detected, from a microscopic fragment of a fly's wing,
down to a wispy minuscule of a dandelion puff.
Here too, they decide on standards for such things as surgical sutures and adhesive tape.
How sticky should sticky be?
Now, one of the marks of our so-called enlightened civilization has been the development and interest in vitamin products.
But big-time promotion has resulted in possible abuses,
which the vitamin division seeks to control.
It is important, therefore, to determine whether a product is what it alleges to be and will do the job it claims.
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Constant experiments are made, not only to certified commercial products,
but to probe theories of the department scientists.
Here is a test made on white mice from the same litter.
Those which have been getting a certain vitamin grow large and strong.
Those deprived of it are weak and puny.
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Consider now, the lifesaving drugs that deserve the label of wonder or miracle products.
Penicillin and the newer streptomycin.
These must never be allowed to waver from the knife-edged path of purity and potency.
Every pharmaceutical house that manufactures them must submit for analysis a sample of each batch made before they can be distributed.
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And it is almost a full-time concern of the Division of Food Control.
To what lengths? Well, there's a man who's interested in how tender a top-grade garden pea should be.
If his teeth won't tell him for sure, he's got a gadget that will.
If it's too hard, it isn't top grade and may not be sold as such.
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Because the war greatly advanced synthetic chemistry,
new compounds for crop or soil improvement are in wide use.
Department experts want to know if flavor and nutritional safety are affected.
With American women spending millions of dollars yearly on cosmetics,
FDA is intent on preventing the price of beauty from becoming tragically high.
The files in Washington offer new testimony and painful proof that despite
their lovely packaging and glowing claims, some of the bland and innocent-looking pastes and powders
not only are worthless, but health hazards.
There is no attempt to disclaim that a product will improve upon nature.
It is just that every beauty preparation in the interstate market must pass a rigid safety test.
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As long as their country cousins don't see them, these bunnies have nothing to worry about.
Seems someone has an idea for a hair curling preparation and FDA wants to study it.
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Of great importance is the work done by the Color Certification Division.
A large percentage of our food, drugs, and cosmetics are colored by dyes and it is vital to know their derivations.
Coal tar dyes and certain mixtures can be extremely dangerous if not pure or used properly.
Every manufacturer must submit samples for certifications before using them.
Here then, is where the real ingredients of satisfaction are determined.
Where men of science provide fact or fallacy for claims and labels that read ''Best by Test'' or ''Finest Available''.
Not a day goes by when we do not profit by their zeal and watchfulness,
our standard of living, waving higher and higher.
For certainly, it can be said that nowhere in the world can people buy with more confidence,
or use with greater safety, the thousand and one products which go into their daily lives.
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So, let these tireless feet be a symbol.
A symbol of a nation's concern for its consumers.
An assurance that all its ramparts of safety are ably defended.
For this, too, is part of our heritage.
This, too, is a battle that must be waged and won.
A battle against deceit and fraud and, sometimes, nature.
This Is vigilance at its attentive best,
safeguarding the health and welfare of a nation.
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