56 



of any area of Government operations reveals o])i)ortumties for tight- 

 ening of administration and procedures, and that close congressional 

 scrutiny compels agenc}' self-examination and sharpening of policies 

 responsive to statutes and congressional intent. 



8. Perhaps the most significant effect of the AD-X2 controversy 

 in the long run was that it turned the attention of Government science 

 away from the monitoring or policing function, and in the direction of 

 positive contributions to knowledge. In the hearings, Dr. Astin was 

 quizzed sharph^ on the role of NBS in the regulatory process and in- 

 sisted strongly that NBS was a scientific laboratory that conducted 

 research and made objective findings. It was not, he said, concerned 

 in any way with the application of its findings in the regulatory process. 

 Thus, the point was made by inference that science should not be 

 concerned with regulatory functions. But no testimony was oft'ered or 

 sought to shed light on the uses of science for this purpose. By rejecting 

 the findings of NBS, even though supported by the National Academy 

 of Sciences, the FTC may have contributed to a trend away from scien- 

 tifically supported regulation. ^^^ 



VIII. Lessons of the Controversy — The Kole of Scientific 



Information 



The effectiveness of the information acquisition process in con- 

 gressional management of the AD-X2 controversy cannot be assessed 

 without a first determination of the objectives sought. If the objective 

 was simply to win for Ritchie an easement of the regulatory arrange- 

 ments that impaired his market opportunities, the effort succeeded. 

 The main sources of information yielding this result were the evi- 

 dences of satisfied users and the apparent technical disagreement in 

 findings between MIT and NBS tests. 



If the purpose was to communicate to the business community the 

 intention to reduce the scale of government regulation of commerce, 

 that, too, was successful. Here, the information was primarily in the 

 form of declarations of polic}^ by Secretary Weeks and the tenor of 

 the questioning of Director Astin. But there seem to have been other 

 objectives. 



The oft-repeated assertion that the committee sought to determine 

 whether or not AD-X2 Avas anj good remained unsatisfied. The 

 Small Business Committee received more scientific and technological 

 information about AD-X2 tests than it could assimilate or evaluate. 

 Even so, when the Academy Committee on Battery AdditiA^es entered 

 the scene, it found this information inadequate. ^*^° It needed more 

 information about NBS personnel, more information about NBS test 

 procedures, data from additional tests, and more expert consultation 

 from "neutral" sources. ^^^ The problem of the Senate committee was 

 not in the acquisition of data, but in the specialized skills required to 

 use the data it received. Members of the committee were frank to ad- 



!69 Nevertheless, FTC did not itself emerge from the controversy unscathed. Lawrence reports: "The 

 editor of Consumer's Research Bulletin wrote in September 1956: "There is no doubt that the handling of 

 the AD-X2 case has severely damaged the [FTC's] prestige and ability to provide the American consumer 

 with effective protection against misleading advertising' " (p. 32.) Lawrence also notes that a study of 

 FTC procedures, made at the instigation of the Small Business Committee, led to a number of procedural 

 changes at the Commission. 



160 Report of the Committee on Battery Additives, op. cit., p. 19, Moreover, the Committee rejected the 

 MIT data as UTelevant, and providing "* * * no basis for an evaluation." (p. 22) 



161 Ibid., pp. 4-5. 



