History of Food Regulation and the FDA

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History of Food Regulation and the FDA

• Food LawFSC-421

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Ancient Food Regulation

• 370-285 BC Enquiry Into Plants Theophrastus
• Treatise on plants as sources of food and
  medicine
• Noted that balsum gum was mixed with adulterants
  for economic reasons
• 234-149 BC Treatise On Agriculture Cato
• Noted use of boiled down musk, salt, marble dusk
  and resin in wines
• Method to determine if wine watered down

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Ancient Food Regulation

• 23-79 AD Natural History Pliny the Elder
• Adulteration of breads with chalk and peppers
  with juniper berries
• so many poisons are used to force wine to suit
  our taste and we are surprised that it is not
  wholesome
• Greatest aid to health is moderation in food
• Urged use of kitchen gardens

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Ancient Food Regulation

• 131-201 AD Galen Roman physician
• Warned against adulteration of pepper
• Stellionatus
• where anyone has substituted some articles for
  another or has put aside goods which he was
  obligated to deliver, or has spoiled them, he is
  liable for this offense

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Middle Ages

• England - government decided price of food
  should be determined by its quality
• 1266 - Sale of any corrupted wine, meat, fish,
  bread or water that is not wholesome for mans
  body prohibited
• 1844 - Trade Guilds were major regulatory body
• Searched and seized unwholesome products
• 1820 - Treatise of Adulteration of Food and
  Culinary Poisons Frederick Accum

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Early Food Regulation in the US

• Simple and local food production and distribution
  systems
• Consumer could exert substantial influence over
  purity or wholesomeness
• Most foods grown by users, neighbors or from
  local marketplace where handling and production
  of produce could be observed

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Early Food Regulation in the US

• English experience worked at first
• Population increased
• Growing urban communities
• Reliance upon food retailers for surveillance
  of handling and production
• Now retailer exerted the influence over suppliers

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Colonial Food Laws

• Food Law in US is 300 years old
• 1646 Massachusetts Bread Law set price for a
  loaf of bread at one penny and decree how much
  it should weigh
• Official inspectors could enter homes and seize
  light bread
• Baking of bread was first commercial food
  activity in new world

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Colonial Food Laws

• Profits increased if short short weights and
  used cheap ingredients like chalk and ground
  beans
• Mass, and NY enacted laws to inspect flour for
  worms
• 1641 inspection of exported fish, and meat to
  improve trade relationships

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General Food Law

• First State law applying to foods generally
  instead of a specific product
• 1785 Act Against Selling Unwholesome Provisions
• where some evilly disposed persons from motives
  of avarice and filthy lucre, have been induced to
  sell diseased, corrupted, contagious or
  unwholesome provisions to the great nuisance of
  public health and peace..
• Punished by fine, imprisonment, standing in
  pillory

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Early Food Laws

• Iowa 1838 Act to punish Vendors of Unwholesome
  Liquors and Provisions
• Oregon Territory 1848 adopted Iowa Act
• California 1850 regulated sale of unwholesome
  provision under Offenses Against Public Morality,
  Health and Police Law (exercise of police power?)

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State vs. Federal Laws

• Complications when foods crossed state boundaries
• Conflicts of Laws
• Imported product more suspicious than locality
  produced products (Turf) b/c of lack of ability
  of scrutinize handling
• States needed to cooperate to trade

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Early Federal Regulation

• 1789 Act for Laying a Duty on Goods, Wares and
  Merchandize Imported into the US
• Place duty of specific food items (booze,
  molasses, sugar, coffee, cheese) to control
  quantities coming into US (Imported)
• 1883 Impure Tea Act prevented importation of
  adulterated teas
• Provided for inspections for purity and fitness

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Prohibition

• Booze only food product which has been the
  subject of a Constitution Amendment
• 18th Amendment prohibited manufacture, sale or
  transportation, importation or exportation of
  intoxicating liquors
• Repealed December 18th 1933
• Followed by Alcohol Administration Act
• Protection from adulterated or misbranded articles

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Oleomargarine

• Subject of early food legislation b/c of
  competition between manufacturers and dairy
  farmers
• 1879 Act for Protection of Dairymen and to
  prevent deception in sales of butter and cheese
  in District of Columbia
• Margarine must be stamped Margarine

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Inflence of Economics

• Congress believed food supply was local matter
  and should be left to States
• 1880s American Dress beef, and bacon strong in
  export market to Europe
• Europe started to reject American beef b/c of
  encounters with diseased beef
• Congress acted to save US beef export market

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Influence of Economics

• 1889 Secretary of Agriculture called for national
  inspection of cattle and condemnation of unfit
  carcasses
• Prohibited importation of diseased cattle
• Congress took positive action to improve the
  quality of the food supply

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The Jungle

• Published February 1906
• Set in Chicago stockyards
• Upton Sinclair, novelist concerned with
  unsanitary conditions in meat packing plants
• President Theodore Roosevelt read book and called
  for investigation
• 4 months later, Meat Inspection Amendment was
  passed as small part of appropriations bill, not
  a separate act of Congress

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Harvey Wiley

• First Chief Chemist of Bureau of Chemistry of
  USDA
• Examined foods for evidence of adulteration
• Formed Poison Squad
• President of AOAC for 25 years
• Helped to develop sugar industry in US

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Pure Foods (1906)

• 1906 Senate Committee on Manufacturers
  recommended a Pure Food Law
• Dr. Wiley played big role lobbying
• Standards established for many imported foods
• Six new branch laboratories of Division of
  Chemistry established

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Cocaine

• Coca - aine ("Fruit of the Coca plant")
• Toot, snow, white powder, young girl, blow
• No laws prohibiting drug sales or use
• Cocaine used as Pep pills and prescribed to
  women for medicinal purposes
• Cocaine treatment centers treated addicts and
  Cocaine freely prescribed by doctors

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Cocaine

• Opium use prohibited in the west in the early
  1900s due to perception that it caused Asians to
  become violent
• Cocaine use prohibited in south due to perception
  that it caused cocaine crazed negroes that
  could not be stopped by regular bullets

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Cocaine

• Prior to 1906, cocaine freely used in food
  products, (coca cola), medicines
• Given freely to migrant and dock worker because
  increased their productivity
• Southern fears of violence from drug crazed
  minorities prompted call for some type of
  regulation of cocaine and opium

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Cocaine Regulation

• Result was congressional action to introduce
  control legislation
• Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was first attempt
  to regulate drugs and foods
• Doctors no longer prescribed cocaine and all
  Treatment centers were closed
• Patients became addicts / Doctors became pushers
  / Black market developed

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Pure Food and Drug Act 1906

• Passed June 22, 1906
• an act for preventing the manufacture, sale, or
  transportation of adulterated or misbranded or
  poisonous or deleterious food, drugs, medicines
  and liquors.

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Institutional History The FDA