The Chemical World This Week WASHINGTON
DECEMBER
10, 1952
CONCENTRATES
• The quality of research on new drugs is under fire from Sen· Hubert Humphrey (D.-Minn.). His Subcommittee on Reorganization is gathering information for hearings early next year on drug research and regulation. Sen. Humphrey wants to know what the Food and Drug Administra tion has done or plans to do about a report pre pared October 1961 by FDA's Bureau of Pro gram Planning and Appraisal. The report alleges that research results submitted by drug firms in support of new drug applications are generally of low quality. According to Sen. Humphrey, the still-secret report charges that some results were fraudulent. Some investigators, it adds, were "subject to unconscious bias derived from the infinite capacity of the human mind for selfdeception." The report also says, according to Sen. Humphrey, "It has become clear that FDA's physicians cannot rely heavily on the drug industry to determine the proper efficacysafety relationship that should move a drug to market." • Effective date of the simplified tariff schedule has been postponed. The new schedule will not go into effect Jan. 1, as planned, because nations with which the U.S. has reciprocal trade agreements want more information about how the new classifications will mesh with the old ones, State Department officials say. Earlier this year, Congress passed a law to provide more logical tariff classifications, which had not been revised since the late 1920's (C&EN, April 30, page 21 ). No changes were made in tariff rates except those resulting from reclassification. • A second antitrust suit against 11 copper and brass firms has been filed by the Justice De partment. Companies named in the suit are Anaconda American Brass, Phelps Dodge, Chase Brass & Copper, Revere Copper and Brass, Cerro Corp., Bridgeport Brass (now a division of Na tional Distillers), Scovill Mfg., Calumet & Hecla, Mueller Brass, Triangle Conduit & Cable, and Progress Mfg. In the suit, the Justice Depart ment asks the federal court in Hartford, Conn., to enjoin the defendants from setting up any price-fixing or bid-rigging agreements or exchang ing price information in the sale of brass mill products. It also asks the court to order each defendant to issue new, independent price lists and to certify that any price changes in the next five years are arrived at independently. Earlier this year, a federal grand jury in Hartford
charged that the firms conspired to fix prices in the sale of copper and brass tubing and pipe (C&EN, Sept. 24, page 27). Trial on these charges is still pending. • Hearings on PRDC's fast breeder reactor have been postponed until Jan. 3, 1963. The hearings, originally scheduled to open this week at the Atomic Energy Commission's headquarters at Germantown, Md. (C&EN, Nov. 19, page 23), are to decide whether a provisional operating license should be issued to Power Reactor De velopment Corp. to operate the reactor at a power level of less than 1 thermal megawatt. The hearing was postponed to give three labor unions, who earlier charged that the reactor could not be operated without endangering pub lic health and safety, time to prepare their case. • Proposed rules on expense account record keeping are too complex, representatives of the Manufacturing Chemists' Association told an Internal Revenue Service hearing. The hearing was called to discuss proposals to require detailed records of spending so as to cut down on tax abuses related to expense accounts. MCA says that a proposal to supply documentary evidence for each individual expenditure of more than $10 is unrealistic; it urges that documentation be re quired only for hotel bills and transportation charges. In addition, MCA suggests that where a company maintains a careful system of expense account control, 1RS should accept the company's substantiation and documentation without re quiring employees to submit individual state ments. Faced with opposition from business executives, Commissioner of Internal Revenue Mortimer Caplin says the proposed rules will be changed to limit unnecessary bookkeeping. ί AEC has signed its first long-term sales con tract to supply fuel for a foreign reactor. The sale covers $29 million worth of enriched uranium for delivery over a 20-year period to the European Atomic Energy Community. It will be used to fuel the 150-electrical-megawatt SENN power reactor located near Rome. The Atomic Energy Commission is also negotiating a similar contract to supply fuel for the SENA reactor at Givet, France, and is considering a fuel contract for the proposed German KRB reactor to be built near Guenzburg. AEC estimates that at current prices fuel for these reactors would cost more than $100 million. DEC.
10.
1962
C&EN
19
