November/December 1979 Issue

Upjohn’s Shuck and Jive Routine

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Every once in a while an instance of product dumping comes along that is so blatant, you have to rub your eyes and look again. Consider the case of Panalba.

Panalba was an antibiotic made by the large, U.S.-based Upjohn Company. It was launched in 1957 and promoted heavily. By 1968, Panalba sales totaled $18 million, or 12 percent of Upjohn’s domestic gross income. Yet in that same year and the two that followed, strong scientific evidence of Panalba’s harm appeared:

  • In 1968, 30 experts from the National Academy of Sciences issued a unanimous report on Panalba and 49 other antibiotics of a similar nature. These drugs are harmful, the scientists said; they should be removed from the market.

  • On May 27, 1969, FDA Commissioner Herbert Ley Jr., himself a specialist in antibiotics, testified before a Senate committee about the effects of novobiocin, one of the two ingredients of Panalba. Roughly one out of every five patients who receives it, Ley said, has an allergic reaction.

  • Twelve patients receiving Panalba died as a result of its side effects (mostly from blood disorders).

  • FDA inspector Roy Sanberg, searching Upjohn files, discovered several ten-year-old company-sponsored studies showing that tetracycline, the other of Panalba’s two ingredients, was more effective than Panalba, when used alone.

    After much bureaucratic wrangling and resistance by Upjohn, the FDA finally forced Panalba off the market in 1970.

    If you think all this evidence against Panalba would make its manufacturer think twice before selling it elsewhere, think again. Under FDA regulations, antibiotics are not legally classified as “drugs.” Were Panalba considered a drug, it would undoubtedly have lost its FDA approval and, thus, been illegal for export. But because of this classic loophole in the law, it is now perfectly legal for Upjohn to export Panalba. (Actually, its two ingredients are exported separately and combined and packaged in Upjohn’s foreign plants.) Today, after being the target of one of the strongest cases against a drug in regulatory history, Panalba is sold in 33 countries under another name — Albamycin-T.

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    WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

    “Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

    That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

    That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

    Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

    This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

    “This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

    Wow.

    And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

    About that: It’s unfathomably hard in the news business right now, and we came up about $28,000 short during our recent fall fundraising campaign. We simply have to make that up soon to avoid falling further behind than can be made up for, or needing to somehow trim $1 million from our budget, like happened last year.

    If you can, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones—that exists to make a difference, not a profit—with a donation of any amount today. We need more donations than normal to come in from this specific blurb to help close our funding gap before it gets any bigger.

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