Upton Sinclair, seen in 1934 during his California gubernatorial campaign, wrote “The Jungle,” a muckracking novel that helped spark the Pure Food and Drug Act. | AP Photo
On this day in 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act cleared a key hurdle toward its passage when the House and Senate endorsed a joint conference committee report favoring the bill. The House vote was 240-17. President Theodore Roosevelt signed the landmark Progressive Era legislation into law on June 30.
For the first time in U.S. annals, the statute permitted the federal government to regulate food and drugs that moved in interstate commerce while forbidding the manufacture, sale, or transportation of poisonous patent medicines. It arose, with strong White House support, in the wake of exposés by such muckrakers as Upton Sinclair [“The Jungle”] and Samuel Hopkins Adams [“The Great American Fraud”]. In practice, the law chiefly guaranteed “truth in labeling.” It was initially aimed at raising standards in the food and drug industries while protecting the reputations of honest companies.
On the same day the law went into effect, Roosevelt also signed the Federal Meat Inspection Act. Enforcement of the Pure Food and Drug Act was assigned to the Bureau of Chemistry in the U.S. Department of Agriculture, which in 1930 was renamed the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. The Meat Inspection Act was assigned to what is now known as the Food Safety and Inspection Service, which remains within the Agriculture Department.
Sen. Weldon Heyburn [R-Idaho] introduced the Pure Food and Drug Act on Dec. 14, 1905. It sat unconsidered by the House for three months, causing some proponents to wonder whether Speaker Joe Cannon [R-Ill.] planned to squelch the legislation.
On June 21, with the congressional session soon to end, Rep. James Mann [R-Ill.] rose on the floor to speak about fruit that had been colored with poisonous red dye and liquor that had been distilled with chemical fillers. His speech made an impression on many members and was viewed by some reporters as a breakthrough event which guaranteed its subsequent passage by an overwhelming margin.
In 1909, efforts arose to outlaw Coca-Cola because of its alleged excessive caffeine content. [Caffeine had replaced cocaine as the active ingredient in Coca-Cola in 1903.] In United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola, the trial judge found that Coca-Cola had a right to use caffeine as it saw fit. However, Coca-Cola lost when the government appealed the verdict to the U.S. Supreme Court. Eventually, the company reached a settlement with the federal government that reduced the amount of caffeine in the beverage.
Deficiencies in the original statute had become increasingly apparent by the 1920s. They led to the replacement of the 1906 statute with the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act, which was enacted in 1938 and signed into law by President Franklin Roosevelt. This act, along with numerous amendments, remains to this day the statutory basis for regulation by the FDA on of nearly all foods, drugs, biological products, cosmetics, medical devices, tobacco and radiation-emitting devices.
SOURCE:
HISTORY.HOUSE.GOV
ARTICLE SUMMARY:
In 1906, amid public outcry over the uncontrolled use of poisonous preservatives and dyes in foods, cure-all claims for worthless and dangerous “remedies,” along with intense political opposition, the landmark precursor of today’s US Food and Drug Administration—the Pure Food and Drug Act—became law.
Significant political, social, and other shifts that were to have lasting consequences took place around the world at the beginning of the 20th Century. In 1906, Britain began sweeping social reforms after the landslide election of Liberal Henry Campbell-Bannerman as Prime Minister, Finland became the first European country to allow women to vote and run for office, and the German Reichstag passed new legislation to increase Germany's naval fleet in order to keep pace with Britain as a major naval power.
Also in 1906, prior to the hard-fought enactment of the first in a series of landmark US consumer protection laws, labels on so-called “remedies” could make claims like this:
- Is your baby keeping you up at night? Calm him down with this soothing syrup laced with moderate amounts of opium!
- Are you balding? Wipe on some of this special potion, and just like that you will be cured!
- Hamlin’s Wizard Oil: The Great Medical Wonder. There is no sore it will not heal, no pain it will not subdue. [see label image here]
Following more than 20 years of reform efforts and bitter opposition to federal regulation by congress as well as food and drug manufacturers, the landmark Pure Food and Drug Act—the precursor to today’s US Food and Drug Administration [FDA]—was signed into law by President Theodore Roosevelt on June 30, 1906. It provided, for the first time, federal regulation of adulterated, mislabeled, or harmful foods, liquors, drugs, and medicines [and many years later, medical devices]. The statute, enforced by the Bureau of Chemistry in the Department of Agriculture, went into effect January 1, 1907. It regulated food and drugs moving in interstate commerce, defined "misbranding" and "adulteration" for the first time, forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of poisonous patent medicines, and prescribed penalties for each.
The Act was introduced, with strong support from President Roosevelt, in the wake of shocking investigative journalist exposés by reporters [termed “muckrakers”] such as Samuel Hopkins Adams, author of The Great American Fraud series of articles for Collier's Weekly, in which he thoroughly documented how the pharmaceutical industry often put the general public's health at risk.
Harvey Washington Wiley, MD, Chief Chemist in the United States Department of Agriculture, also played a significant role in the passage of this
The Pure Food and Drug Act was renamed the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] in 1930, and then was largely replaced by the much more comprehensive Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938. This act, along with numerous amendments, remains to this day the basis for FDA regulation of nearly all foods, drugs, biological products, cosmetics, medical devices [which had its beginnings in 1966 with the Fair Packaging and Labeling Act], tobacco, and radiation-emitting devices. Today, the FDA regulates more than 190,000 different medical devices, manufactured by more than 18,000 firms in more than 21,000 facilities worldwide.
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