Orgone Energy Accumulators (FDA Notices of Judgment, Case No. 5391)

fda document · 1954

type:fda document

year:1954

citation:'5391. Orgone Energy Accumulators.' U.S. Food and Drug Administration, Notices of Judgment Under the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, Case No. 5391 (Inj. No. 261), Drugs and Devices Collection, 1940-1963. National Library of Medicine, FDA Notices of Judgment Collection.

LINK

https://fdanj.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/ddnj05391

SUMMARY

The National Library of Medicine's catalog record and OCR text of the FDA's own Notice of Judgment for the orgone energy accumulator case (fetched directly at https://fdanj.nlm.nih.gov/catalog/ddnj05391 and https://fdanj.nlm.nih.gov/ocr/nlm:fdanjid-ddnj05391-case; NLM states the item is in the public domain). Reproduces the complaint for injunction filed 2-10-54 in the District of Maine against the Wilhelm Reich Foundation, Wilhelm Reich, and Ilse Ollendorff; the full list of diseases the accumulator's labeling claimed to cure or prevent (including cancer, leukemia, and arteriosclerosis); Reich's own 2-25-54 letter to the court declining to answer the complaint; the 3-19-54 default decree of permanent injunction ordering destruction of the devices and most of the associated literature; and the subsequent, separate physicians'-intervention proceeding (denied 11-17-54, affirmed 5-11-55 at 221 F.2d 957, certiorari denied 10-10-55).

NOTES

The FDA’s own Notice of Judgment for Case No. 5391, “Orgone Energy Accumulators,” fetched directly from the National Library of Medicine’s digitized FDA Notices of Judgment Collection. This is the primary legal record of the civil injunction proceeding: the complaint filed February 10, 1954 in the U.S. District Court for the District of Maine, the device’s construction and claimed indications as alleged in the complaint, Wilhelm Reich’s own letter declining to defend the case on the merits, the default decree of permanent injunction entered March 19, 1954 ordering destruction of the accumulators and most Reich literature, and the separate proceeding in which fifteen physicians who used “Orgonomy” in their practices unsuccessfully petitioned to intervene. Used for the exact claimed indications quoted in the vague-mechanism section, the terms of the injunction decree, and the physicians’-intervention appellate history (221 F.2d 957; certiorari denied 10-10-55), which is distinct from the later criminal contempt appeal (239 F.2d 134).