I06 READINGS IN BIOLOGICAL SCIENCE 



This is only one example of dozens of similarly plain-spoken judgments 

 by the Committee, or the later Council. Among the products to be found 

 non-acceptable was Fleischman's yeast, distributed by Standard Brands, 

 Inc., New York.* Numerous reasons were given. I can quote only one 

 paragraph of the decision. It appeared in the issue of the Journal of the 

 Americmi Medical Associatio?i for January 24, 1937: "Illustrations of 

 athletes are presented, with the comment that 'their sturdy build shows 

 they are abundantly supplied with the four important health-building 

 vitamins' would seem to imply that nothing else need be considered in the 

 diet. No mention is made of vitamin C, nor is any mention made of 

 calories or protein, or other dietary essentials, or the countless other fac- 

 tors involved in the maintenance of good health in addition to the four 

 vitamins. A, B, D, and G." The objection in this case was to a sin of 

 omission, the omission involving deception. Much else was found in the 

 Fleischman advertising which was non-acceptable. The report continued: 

 "There are now available on the open market a number of fresh and 

 dehydrated yeast preparations which are advertised conservatively with 

 claims based on the actual composition of the product. Fleischman's yeast, 

 in contrast, is sold with grossly exaggerated or unwarranted claims." The 

 adverse decisions of the Council on Ovaltine and Fleischman's yeast, and 

 many other similar rejections, do not imply that the products in question 

 are not wholesome foods. The fault, in most cases of rejection, is in the 

 advertising. Another example cited by the Council was Welch's certified, 

 pure pasteurized grape juice. There are many nutritional advantages in 

 grape juice. It is a pleasant wholesome beverage, a good source of vitamin 

 C and of certain minerals, a very acceptable product. The Welch Grape 

 Juice Company, however, "leads the reader to believe that its product has 

 specific properties for reducing weight, which is untrue; it cannot 'bum 

 up fat' and its sugar chemically plays the same part in metabolism as does 

 any other available carbohydrate. Welch's is anything but 'the big ele- 

 ment in the build-up diet of the child, comparable to mother's milk,' as 

 claimed. Its advertising is manifestly an artfully designed piece of de- 

 ception to enmesh the credulous and those uninformed in nutrition and 

 physiology, a hodgepodge of nutritional and physiologic chicanery, falsi- 

 ties, vagaries, misrepresentations and claptrap, a revival of the nostrum 

 blurbs of the past." These pleasant phrases are quoted from the decision. 

 Perverse advertising of this character brings good advertising into dis- 

 repute and does harm to the majority of the food trade. The company, 

 when informed of the opinion, failed to express willingness to accept the 

 changes suggested, and therefore its product was rejected. 



This brings up the subject of foods with therapeutic claims. The 

 Council considers them separately, and beheving that treatment of exist- 

 ing disease is a subject in which only physicians are competent to act, it 



* Fleischman's yeast is now advertised in a much more acceptable manner. — Ed. 



