reorganization plan, the salary was set at the level of assistant secre tary. Secretary Ribicoff asked for a change in this particular job because it really operates, and should, at the level of an assistant secretary. It would provide more flexibility to him in his ability to assign administrative duties. He can do it now, but people do not understand what the title "Special Assistant" means. It can mean a whole lot of things. The title of assistant secretary does have meaning. This applies primarily to extra departmental activities. Within the Department, there is no question about what the title means. It can mean anything the Secretary wants to make it mean. Mr. NELSEN. In other words, there is no statutory authority granted to you other than the authority granted by the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare and the things he wants you to do, so when you speak here you really speak for him. Do you not? Mr. JONES. That is correct. Mr. ROBERTS. Mr. Nelsen, does that conclude your questioning? Mr. ROBERTS. Insofar as the Secretary is concerned, do you have greater responsibility for Food and Drug than for the Public Health Service? Mr. JONES. No, sir. Mr. ROBERTS. You have, you might say, a coequal status as far as your responsibilities are concerned? Mr. JONES. That is correct. Mr. ROBERTS. I would like you to give us an idea of the expansion of activities that have come about since you went to the Department. Could you do that? Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, I can do this in several ways, I think. One would be to show the growth of the Department's programs in terms of new programs, new appropriations, and new personnel. Mr. ROBERTS. I would like that because I know of some of these programs that we have given you by legislative action. You may want time to supply that for the record. Mr. JONES. I would like to do that. I can give you several examples of activity that have taken a great deal of our time. 1961. 1962. 1963. (The material follows:) Major legislation affecting the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, 1961-62 Brief description Date enacted 87th Cong.: Public Law No. 19. Public Law No. 22. Public Law No. 64.. Public Law No. 88... Public Law No. 274. Public Law No. 276.. Public Law No. 344. Public Law No. 395. Public Law No. 400... Public Law No. 415. Public Law No. 543. Public Law No. 715. Public Law No. 781. Public Law No. 786.. Public Law No. 838... Public Law No. 868. Food Additives Transitional Provisions Amendment Amends title II of the Vocational Education Act of 1946, Amends title IV of the Social Security Act to authorize Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of To make available teachers of the deaf and other special- ments. Extends for 2 additional years Public Law 815 and 874, Assists in expanding and improving community facill- Amends title II of the National Defense Education Act Manpower Development and Training Act of 1962 Public Welfare Amendments of 1962. Amends title III of the Public Health Service Act to Captioned films for the deaf. Air Pollution Act. Extends the existing legislation for Vaccination Assistance Act of 1962. Authorizes project Mr. ROBERTS. Certainly. Mr. JONES. One has been in managing the relations with professional groups interested in the health professions education assistance bill, which your committee reported out favorably and the House has adopted. You Mr. ROBERTS. I might say a lot of the motivation for that act came from the report which you made. I believe there were two. made one, I believe, the Bayne-Jones report, and then you made one on your own, did you not? Mr. JONES. Yes, sir; I made one. But I was not the Jones in the Bayne-Jones. Dr. Stanhope Bayne-Jones is a hyphenated Jones. Mr. NELSEN. Will the chairman yield? Is it true there is more than one Jones family in this area also? Mr. JONES. Yes; but there is only one Boisfeuilliet Jones. Mr. Chairman, there have been three reports that have been widely publicized that are of special interest to your committee. One was known as the Bayne-Jones report, which was the first in a series of three. This had to do with the general research responsibility in the health area. There was a Bane report under Mr. Frank Bane as chairman, which was entitled, "Physicians for a Growing America." This had to do with the physician and dentist supply problem. The third is the one that I chaired, known as the Jones report. I sometimes think I was selected as chairman only because my name was Jones, because we had a Bayne-Jones, a Bane, and then a Jones report. The Jones report had to do exclusively with medical research, primarily the effectiveness of the National Institutes of Health in its program. Mr. ROBERTS. You say you are going to mention some more of these acts. Would you rather supply it for the record? Mr. JONES. I will give you several examples if you would like. The problems of radioactive fallout became relatively acute shortly after this administration came into office. It has been a continuing problem. The Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare is Chairman of the Federal Radiation Council and I was asked to represent him on the Council in dealing with its operations. The problems of fallout, the biological effects, the possible preventive health measures, the countermeasures, the various considerations of balance of benefit and risk; all of these matters have been extremely sensitive to handle and have taken a great deal of time in our Department as well as in other pertinent agencies. The problem of pesticides in the environment has been of deep concern to us and has taken a great deal of time, beyond that which had been experienced prior to this administration. Miss Rachel Carson's book "Silent Spring" generated additional interest in this particular problem, although the Department had given much attention to this problem before her book. But certainly this instituted additional interest. The thalidomide incident led to a great deal of concern about our drug regulations from the standpoint of the management of protection in the use of new chemicals as therapeutic agents. Then the report of the Joint Commission on Mental Illness and Health required a response by the Federal Government. The President asked a committee of top governmental officials, the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare who served as chairman, the Administrator of Veterans' Administration and the Secretary of Labor, with the Council of Economic Advisers and the Bureau of the Budget participating as observers, to provide a position for the Federal Government through recommendations to the President. I was asked to chair the working group to develop this program. Mental retardation, however, was handled through a separate study group. These two programs were then factored together in our Department and the result was the President's message on mental health and mental retardation. Mr. ROGERS of Florida. Who was it who handled the mental retardation? Mr. JONES. Our Department established an intradepartmental committee on mental retardation. The President had appointed a panel on mental retardation which did an exhaustive study of mental retardation over a period of a year. That panel worked with our departmental committee and I was represented on this committee personally by my associate during this process. However, the point I was making, Mr. Chairman, was that the study of this Joint Commission report and the Federal Government's role in mental health took a great deal of time and many meetings. The result was the program that the President submitted to the Congress which has come before your committee. Mr. ROBERTS. Has there been an increase in air pollution activities? Do you have anything to do with that? Mr. JONES. Only in a general way. The Public Health Service has jurisdiction in this area and is working effectively in this field. Another basic concern of mine in the position that I hold has been to develop the environmental health concept as a part of the health protection responsibility of the Federal Government, as you have provided. The promotion of environmental health as a recognized area of activity of the Public Health Service, with the proper organization and facilities with which to carry this out, increasingly has occupied a considerable part of my personal time and interest. I think it is one of the most important things we have before us. It involves questions of environmental hazards, questions of pollution, questions of protecting the general public against the hazards which they themselves have no choice about at all. Mr. NELSEN. Would you yield? Mr. ROBERTS. I yield. Mr. NELSEN. You mentioned a moment ago pesticides and fallout. I just wondered whether to your knowledge there is much duplication of research in that field? It seems to me I have some bulletins coming across my desk from the Department of Agriculture dealing with that subject and it seems to me also out at the Department of Agriculture Experimental Farm, that they are doing a good deal of work on fallout. I wondered if there is a duplication of the same activity in several departments. Of course, we look with a great deal of concern as to the personnel involved. We want to be sure you have enough, but we want to be sure also that we are not duplicating. Do you have any observation relative to that? Mr. JONES. Mr. Nelsen, I think the agencies with parts of responsibility in this area have done a reasonably satisfactory job of coordinating their efforts to avoid unnecessary or unwarranted duplications. The missions are somewhat different under the Department of Agriculture than under the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare. Working relationships have been developed to avoid duplication and to encourage coordination. Our major problem is that we are not doing enough in the way of basic research to determine the biological effects of an accumulation of these substances which may be toxic or may not in varying amounts over a long period of time as they accumulate in the human body. One of our strong pleas is to develop an appropriate vehicle for the coordination of the basic research that involves interdisciplinary activity among the various scientific disciplines that should be brought to bear in an effort to determine toxicological and pharmacological effects. These form the scientific basis for the more specific activity involving air pollution control, water pollution control, the protection of food from residues and the like. They also form the basis for scientific judgment on new drugs, on food additives, and color additives. The whole gamut of what man does to himself in relationship to his environment either in the form of his voluntary acts as consumers, which would be the jurisdiction of the Food and Drug Administration, or his involuntary exposures such as is true of polluted air and polluted water. Mr. ROBERTS. One more question and then I will pass on to other members. We had Commissioner Larrick before us on another occasion and Mr. O'Brien, and I believe I asked some questions about whether or not he needed additional authority and personnel in connection with this problem of amphetamines, bennies, thrill pills, goof balls, and so forth, and we received a report from the Commissioner dated May 10, in which he outlined the survey that has been made. He says it is somewhat incomplete, but the best knowledge they have is that there are 102,000 pounds of amphetamines, and I can't pronounce this next one, but it is some type of benzedrine base in salts, were produced in calendar year 1962. This is enough basic material to produce over 4.5 billion 10-milligram tablets. He then says: In view of the tremendous quantities of these drugs which we have found diverted into illegal channels, we estimate that no more than one-half of such drugs produced are sold legally. This seems to point out a very bad situation in this field. I would like your comment on that. Mr. JONES. Mr. Chairman, the White House Conference on Narcotics included attention to this particular problem. I think the data brought out there and the survey within our Department to which you refer, make it abundantly clear that some new effort must be made, including, I think, legislative authorization to provide more effectively for control of these drugs that you mentioned here. They are not now being successfully controlled. There would be a question of whether this should be appropriately a function of the Bureau of Narcotics or a function of the Food and Drug Administration. Mr. ROBERTS. Do you anticipate that the Department may send up some legislation in this field? |