Evolution of U.S. Drug Laws - Vaccine Act of 1813/ Import Drug Acts of 1848

 

Vaccine Act of 1813

• First federal law concerning consumer protection and medicinal substances.
• Smallpox epidemics were a common occurrence throughout the 1700s and 1800s.
• Efforts were made to develop a vaccine for smallpox from cowpox scabs imported from England.
• The cowpox virus could not live very long in dried scabs.  
• As a result, the virus was transmitted by arm-to-arm contact in successive person-to person inoculations.  
• This means that an infected vaccination lesion on one person was scraped and used as material to inoculate the next person.
• This method is no longer used, as other infectious diseases were often transmitted along with the cowpox vaccine.
• The Vaccine Act mandated that a purer supply of the cowpox be sustained and be given to any citizen.
• Dr. James Smith was named as the first vaccine agent. 
• He had 20 years of experience in the transmission of the cowpox vaccine through arm-to-arm contact every 8 days.  
• However, in 1821 he accidentally sent smallpox crusts instead of the cowpox vaccine to North Carolina.  
• The inoculation of patients with live smallpox led to a smallpox epidemic as well as the repeal of the Vaccine Act of 1813.
  
  
  
                                           
  Import Drug Act of 1848

• Established customs laboratories
• Responded to counterfeit, contaminated or adulterated drugs being transported into the U.S.
• Prior to the passing of the act, American troops in Mexico had received counterfeit and ineffective medicines for malaria.