Truce

For three months, the Federal Trade Commission had been holding hearings to find out whether the federal fair trade laws had been violated by five big manufacturers of anti-cold drugs.-Last week in Washington, FTC abruptly announced that the hearings had been called off. Reason: the companies, which had ballyhooed across-the-drug-counter sales of anti-his-taminics into a potential $100-million-a-year business, had signed agreements to mend their advertising ways.

FTC, watchdog of U.S. business trade and advertising practices, announced that the companies had agreed to stop "misrepresentations" in their advertising. Said FTC sternly: "Unjustified claims for anti-histaminics in reference to the common cold will stop immediately."

Spokesmen for the companies, hastening to put in a commercial plug, were cheery and unchastened. As the Inhiston people saw it, the agreement meant that the FTC "now permits antihistamines to be advertised as a safe and effective treatment for symptoms of the common cold." Said Kenneth C. Royall, attorney for Ana-hist: "The stipulation permits the company to represent the efficacy of Anahist substantially as it has ... in the past. This includes the representation that when taken as directed Anahist is safe--as previously found by the Food & Drug Administration."

*Anahist Co. (Anahist); Bristol-Myers Co. (Resistab); Whitehall Pharmacal Co. (Krip-tin); Union Pharmaceutical Co. (Inhiston); Grove Laboratories (Antamine).

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