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THE WEEK in Wi^SHINGTON
AS VIEWED BY OUR WASHINGTON NEWS BUREAU
consumer" myth. Consumer variety includes; the rushed young family-vrLthchildren buyers; the low, medium and high income bracketers; the illiterate and the foreign language speakers who can't read labels; the 18 million in the 65-and-over age group; the young 20-and-unders who make up kO percent of today's American population.
Different approaches have to be devised to meet differing needs.
The Food and Drug Administration in I963 set up a brand new Bureau of Education and Voluntary Compliance to educate consumers and teach industry the need for voluntary compliance with the law. FDA commissioner George P. Larrick told the conference he was there to ask what more can be done to promote "an even higher level of voluntary compliance..."
Answering Larrick was Franklin M. Depew, president of the Food Law Institute, founded 15 years ago by Grocery Manufacturers of America. Depew was a bit tart about the new FDA bureau.
He said industry welcomes government cooperation — but he took the FDA to task for past failures in enlightening the food and drug manufacturers. Depew hopes industry will get a better break in the new advisory bureau, which is equal to, but separate from the Bureau of Regulatory Conpliance charged with regular law enforcement.
The FLI president said industry leaders have in the past found some of FDA's advisory opinions so strict that the conpany following them was outpaced by non-complying competition. Competitors went ahead and interpreted the law differently, without incurring FDA action.
Another trouble spot is FDA past refusals to approve a permissable additive unless the product label is also approved — which means the label must be changed. The innovating company is thus penalized, although there has been no question on its previous labeling or on that of non-innovating conpetitors.
Depew says FDA has neglected to assure industry that if it seeks advice from the new bureau, disclosures will not constitute self-incrimination. Depew reminded the federal representatives that individual states give industry this kind of assurance, and in return get full disclosure based on mutual confidence.
Depew also scolded food and drug manufacturers for not giving enough financial and moral support to the FLI to assure partnership with government in the increasing bent toward consumer protection.
The best idea to come out of the conference seemed to be the setting up of a cooperative government-industry-consumer central office. Here, all information could be pooled and accessible. At the same time, the central office could mobilize the overlapping and separate industry-government information programs, fanning them out to industry members and consumers.
14 SPONSOH