Mr. HARVEY. No; he cannot.

Mr. REIDY. He cannot stop that?

Mr. HARVEY. No; he has no quarantine power, or power to embargo vested in him. He would have to take due legal process in order to restrain.

Mr. REIDY. But the legal process is available to him and it is his responsibility to see that it is invoked.

Mr. HARVEY. It is his responsibility in the range of his supervisors, and the latitude that may be given him.

Mr. REIDY. Can you tell us what was the reason given for transferring the Food and Drug Administration from the Department of Agriculture to the Federal Security Administration?

Mr. HARVEY. The reasons given generally were that there was a measure of incompatibility between the administration of a regulatory inspection law such as the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act, and the fostering and sponsoring and promoting of production and marketing of the commodities that were involved in a regulatory act, that is the food items.

Mr. REIDY. It was felt, was it not, that there might be a potential conflict of interest in having regulation administered by the same people whose primary job was to promote sales?

Mr. HARVEY. Of course, that term "conflict of interest," had not been invented in 1940, or at least perhaps did not have exactly the same connotation that it has now. But I think that the answer to the question is "Yes.”

Mr. REIDY. I meant in the old-fashioned connotation, and not the modern.

Mr. HARVEY. Yes; that is right.

Mr. REIDY. Do your inspectors have the responsibility for inspecting vegetables moving into interstate commerce?

Mr. HARVEY. Yes, sir.

Mr. REIDY. Do you inspect vegetables even though they may have been graded by the United States Department of Agriculture?

Mr. HARVEY. Vegetables and other products that may have been graded. That is to say that the grading would not affect either jurisdiction or interest if there was any reason to be interested in it.

Mr. REIDY. The fact that a product has been graded by the Department of Agriculture is not accepted as evidence of its purity?

Mr. HARVEY. Not at all. My recollection is that the certificates issued by the Department of Agriculture carries a disclaimer as to such thing on its face.

Mr. REIDY. Your agents have, upon occasion, condemned vegetables and fruits after they have been graded by the Department of Agriculture?

Mr. HARVEY. Let us say that the district court has condemned. Mr. REIDY. Upon motion of your people?

Mr. HARVEY. Upon facts furnished by us.

Mr. REIDY. Is that true of chickens?

Mr. HARVEY. It has been true of chickens.

Mr. REIDY. Including chickens that have been not only graded but certified for wholesomeness?

Mr. HARVEY. Yes; I think that is correct.

Mr. REIDY. If I remember correctly, your Department put out a rather unusual press release a week or so ago, involving a so-called

cancer cure.

There are a good many people who invest what is for them a considerable amount of money in promoting various types of patented and unrecognized cancer cures, and there are people who have spent a good deal of money promoting green toothpaste, and things like that?

Mr. HARVEY. That is right; there are; yes, sir.

Mr. REIDY. Now, suppose the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare had the responsibility of promoting the sales of products and at the same time he was responsible for the proper operation of the Food and Drug Administration. Might there be difficulty between the divisions within the same agency if you found something objectionable from a health point of view in one of these operations and some other division charged with the promotion of the sales of drugs or green toothpaste or something were involved in the same agency? Mr. HARVEY. Well, it would be the conclusion of this witness that such a situation might call for a balancing of interest.

Mr. REIDY. Under the present setup of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, the Secretary of the Department is not apt to call you in just because some action you have taken to protect the public health has resulted in a great drop in the sales of a product.

Mr. HARVEY. Well, he might call me in to discuss the matter if the company or individual involved had seen its Senator and the Senator asked questions about it, and he would call me in to be sure he had all of the facts straight.

Mr. REIDY. And the only thing he would want to find out from you, I should imagine, was whether you were justified from a health point of view in taking the action that you took.

Mr. HARVEY. I am not sure that he would ask me my opinion on the justification. I think that he would assume it. He might be critical of it himself, but I think that is a decision that he could make.

Mr. REIDY. As far as you are concerned, the decisions that your Department makes when they condemn or approve a particular product are based solely upon the health interest of the public, is that a correct statement?

Mr. HARVEY. Yes, to the extent that the decision would involve a health question at all.

Mr. REIDY. Do you currently have the responsibility for assuring the public insofar as you can, that poultry is wholesome, that is, poultry that is sold?

Mr. HARVEY. Yes.

Mr. REIDY. I notice in your testimony you say that you feel that any adequate and effective inspection program must include an antemortem inspection?

Mr. HARVEY. That is right, yes.

Mr. REIDY. Is that on the basis that, if the bird is dead before it reaches the inspector, there are various diseases that might not be apparent to the inspector which would have been, had he seen the live bird?

Mr. HARVEY. I am so advised by competent veterinarians. That is a broad conclusion for a lawyer to make, but I rely on the veterinarian. Mr. REIDY. You say the Department which has the only mandatory inspection program for meats of any kind, that is the Department of Agriculture, has carried out the inspection of red meat in an excellent

fashion. Is there any other agency that you know of other than your own, and the red meat inspection division of the Department of Agriculture that has operated successfully in mandatory inspection programs?

Mr. HARVEY. No; I am aware of none.

Mr. REIDY. There is no other division of the Department of Agriculture that has?

Mr. HARVEY. Not that I am aware of.

Mr. REIDY. So, presumably, two agencies have had training and experience in this particular field and personnel who know how to conduct inspection programs without unduly interfering with the orderly marketing of a product, and they would be the red meat division of the Department of Agriculture, and your own Food and Drug Administration?

Mr. HARVEY. Mandatory and regulatory, yes.

Mr. REIDY. Those are all of the questions I have, Senator.
Senator MURRAY. Thank you, Mr. Harvey.

Senator MCNAMARA. Before Mr. Harvey leaves, does this colloquy indicate that there is already authority within the Food and Drug Administration?

Mr. REIDY. There is responsibility vested there. I have here a letter from the United States Department of Agriculture, which was sent people in response to a query as to whether they were not responsible for assuring the safety and purity of poultry. In it the Department of Agriculture says:

However, processed poultry moving in interstate commerce must meet requirements of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act which is administered by the Food and Drug Administration of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. This agency has the responsibility and the authority to prevent adulterated, unwholesome, and misbranded products from reaching the consuming public.

The Department of Agriculture feels it is the responsibility of the Food and Drug Administration, apparently.

Senator MCNAMARA. Do you disagree with that?

Mr. HARVEY. I do not disagree.

Senator MCNAMARA. There is nothing in the present legislation then, that would prohibit you for entering into this field, without any new legislation; is that correct?

Mr. HARVEY. I think, perhaps, Senator, since this proposal here is the stationing of inspectors, and a sufficient number of inspectors, in each individual plant, and providing inspectors for the inspection of live poultry, that is beyond the comprehension-this provides for an inspection of good birds, bad birds, and all birds. It makes it mandatory that such birds be inspected and marked before they can enter into interstate commerce.

That exceeds the provisions of the regulatory responsibility under the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act that is applicable to poultry and to all foods to insure its soundness and wholesomeness, but not with the machinery and the mechanics that are provided here.

Senator MCNAMARA. Well, then, you do not feel that you are prohibited under the existing legislation from doing this obvious job? Mr. HARVEY. Providing plant inspection, you mean?

Senator MCNAMARA. Yes, that is right.

Mr. HARVEY. I do not think we are prohibited; no, sir.

Senator MCNAMARA. If that is the logical conclusion, we need no additional legislation; is that correct?

Mr. REIDY. I would feel that since the Food and Drug Administration has not been inspecting plants, and apparently both producer and consumer groups have all agreed that there should be mandatory inspections, Mr. Harvey would like the authority spelled out, and certainly he needs something that would provide the funds and personnel with which to do it, although his position, as I gather from his statement, is that he feels under present circumstances, that the redmeat division of the Department of Agriculture is in a better position to take on the job.

Senator MCNAMARA. In any event, would not the same agencies be doing the inspection? It is usually left to local agencies in the redmeat field, and it is left to the Department of Health in the various States or subdivisions to do the job. Do we not visualize at this point that they would be the same people doing it, and they would all have to build up their staff to take care of this additional burden?

Mr. REIDY. Some people do, and some seem to visualize a new organization, an extension of the existing poultry inspection division taking on this responsibility. That would bring a third group into

the field.

Mr. HARVEY. That is not my information, Senator, that the inspection of red meat is carried on through delegation to local people, that is State or city officials. Rather, it is effected through specific employees of the Department of Agriculture under the direction of the Department and responsible solely to them.

Senator MCNAMARA. I have in mind an instance in my own city, where the city physician is in charge of the inspectors that go to the slaughterhouses and make the inspection. I do not know whether that is a general rule or an exception.

Mr. HARVEY. I think perhaps that is an intrastate or local law rather than a Federal Meat Inspection Act.

Senator MCNAMARA. With that in mind, I assumed that that was a general pattern, and perhaps it is not.

Mr. HARVEY. I think that is supplementation, sir, of the Federal act through local enactments rather than a part of the Federal act which, after all, does deal with interstate commerce. But perhaps subsequent witnesses can explain that better than I can.

Senator MCNAMARA. Does this proposed legislation visualize as in the red-meat department that the processor would pay the cost of inspection?

Mr. REIDY. The bill before us would put the inspection in the Food and Drug Administration, with the Federal Government paying for the cost of inspection. There are other bills which would put this in the Department of Agriculture, and I do not know of any one which specifies where in that Department, but here again I believe that they would provide for the Federal Government assuming the costs of the inspection.

Senator MCNAMARA. We do not in the red-meat field.

Mr. REIDY. We do in the red-meat field.

Senator MCNAMARA. We collect a fee, do we not, from the slaughterhouse? That is, for the inspection.

Mr. REIDY. We do in the voluntary poultry-inspection program, but not in the red-meat field.

Senator MCNAMARA. Does not the slaughterer pay a charge? He has to get a license in the first place.

Mr. REIDY. Perhaps our Department of Agriculture witnesses who come up next will clear this up.

Mr. REIDY. Mr. Harvey, it is not before this committee, but reference is made to it in the testimony of Mr. Butz which we are going to hear next. Have you examined the bill S. 3588, calling for mandatory inspection of poultry and placing it in the Agriculture Department? Mr. HARVEY. Is that the bill that Senator Aiken is one of the sponsors of?

Mr. REIDY. Yes.

Mr. HARVEY. I have seen that bill. I have read it over.

Mr. REIDY. Would you be prepared to tell us whether its provisions would give us an adequate compulsory inspection system?

Mr. HARVEY. Well, with the understanding, Mr. Reidy, that that bill has not received final consideration within my Department, I can make reference to it, I think, in the light of what I have said here. I believe that that bill does fail to include the substantive standards and guidelines of the Food, Drug, and Cosmetics Act which I have strongly recommended should be in any legislation of this kind.

I recall that apparent defect. I recall that rather forcefully. There are a number of items within the bill that a least, in my personal view, would need a great deal of clarifying. It would seem of doubtful propriety to me to hold a citizen criminally responsible for compliance with what that bill contemplates on a basis of the specificity or lack of it, of what his offense would be.

It is difficult to me in reading the bill to advise one as to what he has to do, in order to keep out of jail.

Mr. REIDY. Your Department has to give a report on that bill, does it not?

Mr. HARVEY. Yes, and it is under consideration now.

Mr. REIDY. Then I think we should not go into it any further, but should the Congress decide that the place for the compulsory meat inspection is in the Department of Agriculture, would a simple amendment to the Meat Inspection Act, so as to include poultry, take care of the job?

Mr. HARVEY. I should think it would be possible, yes.

Mr. REIDY. That is all.

Senator BENDER. I think, Mr. Chairman, that you think, Mr. Harvey, that the provisions of this bill obviously from your last statement are too drastic, that is in the penalties?

Mr. HARVEY. No, I hope I did not give that impression. My reference to the bill that is not before us, that Mr. Reidy called my attention to, was intended to mean simply that in my reading of it I found it difficult to determine what would be required of the citizen if that law were passed.

Senator BENDER. Is it your opinion, and this may be repetitious, but in any event, for the record, I think it is desirable that I ask the question again:

Do you think the present enforcement of the Food and Drug Act which includes poultry is adequate?

Mr. HARVEY. No, sir.