“Good Enough for America”:

Abstract

In the mid-nineteenth century, the term “good enough for America” was used to identify adulterated medicines destined for the American market.³ Adulterated and counterfeit drugs were pouring into the United States. Providing poor medicines was a growing business and the market was growing with the rapid expansion of the country itself. There seemed to be little that could be done to slow or stop it. The sophistication of the adulterations was superior to available tests, standards were lacking, and there were few trained pharmacists or physicians who could apply them. There were no laws that would prohibit the importation of these products nor limit their sale once ashore. This was the situation in the late 1840s when a small group of New York pharmacists took it upon themselves to convince other health professionals and legislators that there was a problem; they devised a solution that would establish patient safety as the core value of the emerging profession of pharmacy.