I had a request for information on the late Senator Estes Kefauver recently and came across some interesting items on Wikipedia about him. We know he ran with Adlai Stevenson for vice president as a democrat in 1956; they lost to DDE. He was also known as the "chief enemy of crooked businessman in the Senate" (Wikipedia is not clear on this point. Does that mean senators for were crooked businessmen or speaking as a senator was EK the enemy of such businessmen?). In 1962-in his last year in the senate-he sponsored what may be his signature legislation in the Kefauver-Harris Drug Control Act. This piece of consumer protection did the following. First, put "controls on pharmaceutical industry that required that drug companies disclose to doctors the side-effects of their products". Second, allowed for the selling of generic drugs. Third, required the drug companies "...to be able to prove on demand that their products were effective and safe".
Wikipedia also notes that in 1962 Kefauver died of a heart attack after "...eating some apple pie given to him"-by whom they do not say. (For those given to conspiracies, well never mind)
(Source: Wikipedia on 10/16/09)
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