100,000,000 Guinea Pigs by Arthur Kallet
"100,000,000 Guinea Pigs" is a critical examination of food, drug, and cosmetic safety published in 1932 by Arthur Kallet and Frederick John Schlink. The authors argue that many products marketed to consumers contained toxic chemicals and unhealthy additives, often tested on an unsuspecting public, akin to guinea pigs. The book contends that the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) had become overly influenced by commercial interests, leading to lax regulations and inadequate consumer protection during a time marked by increased processed food consumption and economic challenges.
Comprising information from the Consumers' Research testing bureau and incorporating data from medical journals, the text is notable for its dramatic language and sensational claims, which have drawn criticism from scientific and medical professionals for potential misinterpretations of research. Despite this, the book gained significant popularity, with numerous printings in its first year, and became a bestseller of the 1930s.
Its publication helped catalyze the consumer advocacy movement, prompting greater scrutiny of product safety and contributing to the enactment of the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. The enduring legacy of "100,000,000 Guinea Pigs" lies in its role in raising public awareness about health risks associated with toxic substances, ultimately advocating for stronger consumer protections against potentially harmful products.
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100,000,000 Guinea Pigs by Arthur Kallet
Identification Nonfiction, consumer-affairs book
Authors Arthur Kallet and Frederick John Schlink
Date Published in 1932
This pioneering book about hidden dangers in everyday foods, drugs, and cosmetics exposed numerous commercial enterprises that placed profit ahead of human values, safety, and health.
During the 1920’s and 1930’s, there was a large increase in the consumption of canned and processed foods and the use of cosmetics. Manufacturers, advertisers, and marketing professionals could make outlandish claims concerning their products in an effort to boost sales. While the existing Federal Food and Drug Act forbade false labeling of drugs shipped across state lines, if no claims or ingredients were listed on the product label, the act did not apply. The same act prohibited adding poisonous ingredients to foods, but because manufacturers were not required to prove additives were safe, only when consumers suffered severe illness in large numbers did the U.S. government intervene. During the Depression years of the 1930’s, the government was often reluctant to act if investigating a product could interfere with business interests and profits.
In 1932, Arthur Kallet and Frederick John Schlink, both of the independent Consumers’ Research testing bureau, published 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs. The book asserts that many foods, drugs, and cosmetics contained toxic chemicals and unhealthy additives and that products were clandestinely tested on an unknowing “guinea pig” American population; the result was an increase in illnesses and deaths. The book further asserts the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), established in 1906, had allowed itself to be unduly influenced into lax supervision by big business interests and untested science.
One Hundred Million Guinea Pigs is essentially a compilation of information from the Consumers’ Research testing bureau, with individual chapters dedicated to food, drugs, cosmetics, farm-chemical usage, advertising, and government unresponsiveness to consumer protection. About one-third of the book is information and examples gleaned from past issues of the Journal of the American Medical Association, but rather than providing critical analysis of the journal information regarding possible illnesses and deaths attributed to food, drug, and cosmetic additives, the authors tend to use dramatic and sensational language to describe anecdotal evidence in an effort to shock readers. Besides manufacturers and farmers, members of scientific and medical specialties actively criticized 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs for exploiting and misinterpreting much of the published research cited and for presenting unscientific conclusions. The authors’ writing styles also tended to hold farmers, advertisers, drug and cosmetics manufacturers, and government regulators all of equal culpability for perceived health hazards in the marketplace. The reality was that many of the foods and cosmetics were laced with extremely toxic chemicals and residues, including arsenic, lead, radium, strychnine, and thallium, and that many drugs, such as ether and ergot derivatives, were known to be of substandard quality yet marketed to hospitals nonetheless.
One Hundred Million Guinea Pigs had thirteen printings in the first six months of its release, twenty-seven printings in twelve months, and thirty-three printings overall, making it one of the best-selling books of the 1930’s. Even though the authors were labeled “guinea-pig muckrakers,” their book argued that the common good is best served when consumers force the government to protect citizen rights in the open marketplace. The book spawned the writing of numerous other consumer advocacy books, including Skin Deep: The Truth About Beauty Aids—Safe and Harmful (1934); Paying Through the Teeth (1935); Eat, Drink and Be Wary (1935); Facts and Frauds in Woman’s Hygiene: A Medical Guide Against Misleading Claims and Dangerous Products (1936); 40,000,000 Guinea Pig Children (1937); and Our Master’s Voice: Advertising (1934). These books struck a chord with consumers and spurred them to change national policy, pressuring the FDA to rectify omissions in existing regulations and establish national consumer protections.
Impact
The “guinea-pig muckraker” books and the consumer movement they inspired were catalysts in convincing the federal government to increase regulations by passing the 1938 Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. One Hundred Million Guinea Pigs also helped bring to light and promote the fact that while exposure to small amounts of certain toxic substances may not be harmful in the short term, continual exposure and ingestion of even small amounts of toxins over time have a cumulative negative effect and result in catastrophic and often deadly health risks.
Bibliography
Fuller, John G. Two Hundred Million Guinea Pigs: New Dangers in Everyday Foods, Drugs, and Cosmetics. New York: Putnam’s Sons, 1972.
Levenstein, Harvey. Paradox of Plenty: A Social History of Eating in Modern America. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003.
Palmer, Rachel Lynn, and Isadore M. Alpher. Forty Million Guinea Pig Children. New York: Vanguard Press, 1937.