Arthur Kallet (December 15, 1902February 24, 1972) was an American consumer advocate.

Career

An engineer, Kallet co-authored a 1933 book entitled '' 100,000,000 Guinea Pigs: Dangers in Everyday Foods, Drugs and Cosmetics'' with fellow engineer Frederick Schlink. In 1936 he left as director of

Consumers Research Consumers' Research is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization established in 1929 by Stuart Chase and F. J. Schlink after the success of their book '' Your Money's Worth: a study in the waste of the Consumer's Dollar'' galvanized interest in testing ...

after its head, F.J. Schlink, fired three striking employees who had tried to form a union, and joined with

Amherst College Amherst College ( ) is a private liberal arts college in Amherst, Massachusetts. Founded in 1821 as an attempt to relocate Williams College by its then-president Zephaniah Swift Moore, Amherst is the third oldest institution of higher educatio ...

professor

Colston Warne Colston Estey Warne (August 14, 1900 – May 20, 1987) was a professor of economics and one of the founders of Consumers Union (along with Arthur Kallet), in 1936. He served as president of the board of directors from 1936 to 1979. He also ser ...

to found

Consumers Union A consumer is a person or a group who intends to order, or uses purchased goods, products, or services primarily for personal, social, family, household and similar needs, who is not directly related to entrepreneurial or business activities. T ...

and

Consumer Reports Consumer Reports (CR), formerly Consumers Union (CU), is an American nonprofit consumer organization dedicated to independent product testing, investigative journalism, consumer-oriented research, public education, and consumer advocacy. Founded ...

. The

House Un-American Activities Committee The House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA), popularly dubbed the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC), was an investigative committee of the United States House of Representatives, created in 1938 to investigate alleged disloy ...

cited Arthur Kallet as the communist head of Consumers Union, which it cited as a communist front. In 1957, Kallet broke with Warne and left Consumers Union to form

The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics ''The Medical Letter on Drugs and Therapeutics'' (commonly referred to as ''The Medical Letter'') is a peer-reviewed biweekly medical journal providing evaluations of pharmaceutical drugs. It is published in English, French, and Italian. The journ ...

, and in 1961,

Buyers Laboratory Inc Buyers Laboratory (a division of Keypoint Intelligence) is a company which provides information on the imaging industry. It was founded in 1961 by the late Arthur Kallet, the co-founder and 20-year head of Consumers Union, the publisher of Consume ...

References

Consumer rights activists 1902 births 1972 deaths Consumer Reports Activists from New Rochelle, New York {{US-activist-stub