| The Food and Drug Administration is the regulatory | | | | but it did highlight the need for an advisory board to |
| board which oversees all manner of food and | | | | oversee food production. People's greatest fear, it |
| beverages as well as drugs, vitamins, medical devices, | | | | seemed, was either eating human meat or meat |
| and dietary supplements used in the USA each year. | | | | which was infected by tuberculosis. While meat plant |
| It is charged with keeping the American people safe | | | | conditions would slowly improve with time, a public |
| from all manner of adulterants, toxins, and other | | | | outcry had been launched to clean up the meat itself. |
| unclean particles that may be found in our food or | | | | Congress passed The Pure Food and Drug Act of |
| medicine. It's a daunting task that grows ever more | | | | 1906, which would oversee these reforms. The |
| difficult as more and more drugs and foodstuffs | | | | Bureau of Chemistry was formed to administer the |
| flood the market. But how did this organization come | | | | changes and was headed by Harvey Washington |
| to be? What was the American food and Drug | | | | Wiley. Though they had no regulatory powers as yet |
| market like before the advent of the FDA? | | | | their findings, published as Food and Food |
| In 1906, Upton Sinclair wrote The Jungle detailing the | | | | Adulterants, helped them successfully lobby for |
| horrendous conditions in American meat packing | | | | change. In 1930, the Bureau of Chemistry was |
| plants. Not only were the facilities themselves highly | | | | officially renamed The Food and Drug Administration. |
| unsanitary, but the laborers in them were treated as | | | | Much has changed since that time over a century |
| little more than slaves, working long hours in filthy | | | | ago, when there was no regulation to speak of. Now |
| conditions with no safety regulations and very little | | | | the FDA closely monitors all our food and drugs in a |
| pay. It was not uncommon for workers to lose body | | | | concerted effort to keep people safe. Meat packing |
| parts in the meat or even for whole workers to fall | | | | plant conditions are now safe and sanitary and you |
| in the grinder without production halting. Sinclair hoped | | | | can rest assured that our meats and other foods |
| his novel would have a social impact by shedding light | | | | have a bare minimum of adulterants. Thanks in part |
| on the poor conditions of the workers to improve | | | | to men like Upton Sinclair and Harvey Washington |
| wages and benefits. | | | | Wiley. |
| Sadly, it did little to help the poor workers suffering, | | | | |