The Accidental Poison That Founded the Modern FDA

In 1937, the antibiotic Elixir Sulfanilamide killed more than 100 Americans. “The first time I ever had occasion to call in a doctor for [Joan] ... she was given Elixir of Sulfanilamide,” wrote the mother of one of the drug’s many young victims, in a letter imploring President Franklin Delano Roosevelt to ban the medicine. “All that is left to us is the caring for her little grave.”

At the time, taking a new drug was like playing Russian roulette. It could bring patients back from the brink, or it could push them over. A year earlier, the president’s own son, Franklin Delano Roosevelt Jr., had been saved by a related but safe antibiotic, Prontosil. Only luck spared Franklin yet condemned Joan.

The scale of the Elixir Sulfanilamide tragedy prompted American lawmakers to ask what could be done to prevent, or FFDCA, which FDR signed into law June 25, 1938.