Under date of December 4, 1941, in a notice to manufacturers of glandular preparations, the Food and Drug Administration expressed the opinion that preparations of inert glandular materials intended for medicinal use should, in view of the requirement of section 201(n) of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act (52 Stat. 1041; 21 U.S.C. 321(n)), be labeled with a statement of the material fact that there is no scientific evidence that the articles contain any therapeutic or physiologically active constituents. Numerous preparations of such inert glandular materials were subsequently marketed with disclaimers of the type suggested. The term inert glandular materials means preparations incapable of exerting an action or effect of some significant or measurable benefit in one way or another, i.e., in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease, or in affecting the structure or any function of the body.

Manufacturers have heretofore taken advantage of § 201.100 permitting omission of directions for use when the label bears the prescription legend. Section 201.100(c) requires that the labeling of the drug, which may include brochures readily available to licensed practitioners, bear information as to the use of the drug by practitioners licensed by law to administer it. Obviously, information adequate for the use of an inert glandular preparation is not available to practitioners licensed by law.

The Department of Health and Human Services is of the opinion that inert glandular materials may not be exempted from the requirements of section 502(f)(1) of the act that they bear adequate directions for use; and, accordingly, that their labeling must include among other things, representations as to the conditions for which such articles are intended to be used or as to the structure or function of the human body that they are intended to affect. Since any such representations offering these articles for use as drugs would be false or misleading, such articles will be considered to be misbranded if they are distributed for use as drugs.

The amended regulations provide also that in the case of drugs intended for parenteral administration there shall be no exemption from the requirement that their labelings bear adequate directions for use. Such inert glandular materials for parenteral use are therefore subject to the same comment as applies to those intended for oral administration.