Federal Trade Commission Cease-and-Desist Order against Bailey Radium Laboratories
regulatory notice · 1931
SUMMARY
The federal regulatory action that ended Bailey Radium Laboratories' marketing of Radithor and the principal regulatory disconfirmation event in the Byers case. The order followed personal testimony from Eben Byers, given shortly before his death on 31 March 1932. Bailey did not contest the charges. The order is the canonical period regulatory document for the case and is cited extensively in the modern medical-history and regulatory-history literature. The case (together with the Radium Girls litigation) was one of the precipitating events for the legislative changes that produced the modern FDA.
NOTES
The FTC’s December 1931 order is the principal contemporary regulatory document for the Radithor case. The Federal Trade Commission had clearer statutory authority over deceptive advertising than the contemporary FDA had over the radium-tonic category itself; the FTC’s action was the available regulatory instrument and was effective in shutting down Bailey’s commercial operation. The order is held in the FTC archive and is reproduced in the standard modern medical-history references (notably Macklis 1990). Together with the Radium Girls case, this regulatory action contributed to the legislative arc that produced the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938 and the modern FDA’s authority over radioactive consumer products.