DEVELOPMENTS IN FOOD STANDARD PROCEEDINGS UNDER FEDERAL FOOD, DRUG, AND COSMETIC ACT

There is a great temptation to accept Mr. Goodrich's invitation to talk about subpoenas. I have a notion who drafted the bill and I was the unhappily informed witness to whom he referred.' But any brief discussion of an evolving field of law must necessarily focus on a few mountain peaks of interest even though the valley trails conceal many inviting and intriguing bypaths. Since the terrain is generally familiar to this group, the location of each point in the legal topography will be readily visualized. With your permission, I shall concentration three emergent issues two procedural, and one substantive in food standard proceedings. The first is the increasing tendency of these proceedings to become unbelievably prolonged. At least one standard hearing now rivals a major antitrust trial in the time consumed the preparation and effort required the cost to those concerned the sharpness of controversy and the resulting record to be dealt with by Government and industry counsel as weil as by the Administrator and those who assist him in reaching his decision. Despite Dr. Dunbar's co-ed, cold statistics often are illuminating: The formal hearings on the proposed standards for bread were first held in 1941 and this first session lasted six weeks. There were 95 interested parties and the 26 days of hearing produced a not insubstantial record of over 4,000 pages with 119 exhibits comprising an additional 1,000 pages. After the unavoidable wartime interregnum, the hearings were resumed on November 30, 1948 and with brief intermissions ran to August 12, 1949, at which time they were recessed to begin again today. At these resumed hearings there are thus far 74 interested parties; the testimony of 151 witnesses has already required 107 days of hearing it occupies well over 11,000 additional pages of transcript and there are 342 additional exhibits which comprise about 3,000 more pages. Taking the two sessions together, the transcript of the bread hearing now occupies 15,572 pages and runs well over 3 million words. Even at the cheapest rate, the cost of a complete copy is $2,335.80. The 461 exhibits, filling 2 feet of shelf space, account for an additional 4,000 pages. There are now all told 169 interested parties. There have been 261 witnesses whose testimony has taken 333 days or more than 66 weeks of hearing and the end is not in sight. As a whole the record occupies 7y? feet of shelf space. But no statistics can reveal the inherent complexity of this record. It includes every type of chemical and medical jargon and the exhibits com-