How much do you know about the history of food safety in America? Part 1

The Poison Squad: How Harvey Washington Wiley Fought for Food Safety in America

• In 1901, Harvey Washington Wiley aimed to prove that Americans were being poisoned by chemical preservatives added to their food.

• Wiley had been advocating for government regulation of the food manufacturing industry for two decades.

• He conducted human trials to determine the effects of consuming large amounts of chemical preservatives.

• Wiley's experiments raised public awareness and led to questioning of large corporations adding chemicals to food.

• At the turn of the century, the American food industry was unregulated and any producer could get away with adding whatever they wanted to food.

• Wiley became the face of the pure food movement, which mobilized activists and led to the passage of the first consumer protection laws in American history.

• Wiley's volunteers, known as the Poison Squad, helped make the first federal attempt to regulate food quality and adulteration.

• Wiley's interest in food chemistry coincided with a moment of unprecedented change in the American diet and food manufacturing industry.

• Industrialization led to consolidation in food manufacturing, and companies began adding chemicals to preserve food for mass distribution.

• By 1901, companies like Dow and Monsanto had introduced a host of new chemicals to the food supply, including formaldehyde and copper sulfate.

• Wiley was determined to investigate the American food industry and raise public awareness about fake food and chemical adulterants.

• Wiley's findings of fraud in the honey and syrup industry outraged food manufacturers and awakened powerful forces against him, but he remained a lone voice fighting for food safety in America.Harvey Wiley's Battle for Pure Milk

• Harvey Wiley, a chemist, angered honey producers and scientists with his stands before enacting his plan to study American food manufacturing.

• Wiley's first target was the dairy industry, which was vulnerable to widespread adulteration and corruption.

• Milk had a strong association with purity and wholesomeness in the United States due to the country's agrarian economy.

• Dairy manufacturers had already learned that they could make money by adulterating their product, with the standard formula being a pint of warm water for every quart of milk.

• To rid the remaining liquid of its bluish tint, producers would add whitening agents such as plaster of paris or chalk, and to give it a layer of cream on top, they might add something yellowish, like pureed calf brains.

• Milk purveyors were often selling a product laden with deadly bacteria due to tenement houses packed with millions of laborers, lack of proper sewage and sanitation, and unrefrigerated milk sold in the streets in open buckets.

• Outbreaks of scarlet fever, tuberculosis, and cholera were common due to the consumption of spoiled milk.

• The government's testing of milk revealed problems nationwide, with one sample containing worms wriggling in the bottom of the bottles.

• To cover up spoiled milk, the industry routinely turned to the deadly chemical formaldehyde, which was also used as an embalming fluid during the Civil War.

• Thousands of children were dying every year due to the lack of regulation and corrupt inspectors being paid off by dairy owners.

• Wiley was angered by corporate misbehavior in the sphere of milk, which was heavily marketed for children.

• Wiley's battle for pure milk led to the Pure Food and Drugs Act of 1906, which established the FDA and set standards for food and drugs.