Editing Harvey Washington Wiley (section)

==Government career==
Wiley was offered the position of Chief Chemist in the [[United States Department of Agriculture]] by [[George B. Loring|George Loring]], the Commissioner of Agriculture, in 1882. Loring was seeking to replace his chemist with someone who would employ a more objective approach to the study of sorghum, whose potential as a sugar source was far from proven. Wiley accepted the offer after being passed over for the presidency of Purdue, allegedly because he was "too young and too jovial",<ref name="Bourbon Empire">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=8VYBDAAAQBAJ&pg=PT96|title=Bourbon Empire: The Past and Future of America's Whiskey|author=Reid Mitenbuler|isbn=9780143108146|year=2016|publisher=Penguin }}</ref> unorthodox in his religious belief, and also a bachelor.<ref name="Harvey W. Wiley-An Autobiography">{{cite web|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=FcRCAAAAIAAJ&pg=PA162|title=Harvey W. Wiley-An Autobiography|last1=Wiley|first1=Harvey Washington|year=1930}}</ref>  Wiley brought to Washington a practical knowledge of agriculture, a sympathetic approach to the problems of agricultural industry and an untapped talent for public relations.<ref>Suzanne White, "Chemistry and Controversy: Regulating the Use of Chemicals in Foods, 1883–1959, unpublished dissertation, Emory University, 1994, pp. 4–5.</ref>

After assisting Congress in their earliest questions regarding the safety of the chemical preservatives then being employed in foods, Wiley was appropriated $5,000 in 1902 to study the effects of a diet including various [[Food preservation|preservatives]], on human volunteers. These tests were called Hygienic Table Trials. The subjects received $5 a month and free food to be systematically poisoned. 12 volunteers were chosen. One additive was added per trial but he struggled to find non-adulterated products to add the poisons to. First to be tested was [[borax]] which tightened old meat which was starting to decompose. The borax was fed to the men in meat and dairy products. Some were given borax and some were not in order to control the study.<ref>PBS America: The Poison Squad</ref> These "poison squad" studies drew national attention to the need for a federal food and drug law. 

Wiley was originally aiming just to get foods labelled to correctly show their additives. However, he concluded that certain chemicals should be banned. The food industry rose in protest. The proposed Food Bill of 1902 failed to even register a vote, being defeated by lobbyists. He sought the support of female groups, not due to their direct political influence (as they still had none) but due to the domestic pressure which they could exert. The campaign spilled into wider community health and welfare, calling for public (municipal) control of all water supplies and sewer systems. His campaign gained weight when [[Fannie Farmer]] joined and paralleled the call for "pure food".

Heinz were one of the first companies to join the push for pure food and changed their recipe for tomato ketchup in 1902 to replace chemical preservatives with vinegar and introducing very hygienic practices into their factories.

In 1905, the Poison Squad was set to work on [[salicylic acid]] which was used in multiple products. It was found to cause bleeding of the stomach.

In December 1905, Wiley organized a meeting of more progressive food producers (including Heinz) plus female activists with [[Theodore Roosevelt]] to lobby for safe food legislation. [[Upton Sinclair]]'s book ''[[The Jungle]]'' revealed inside information from the slaughterhouses of Chicago which caused great consternation. This non-scientific expose of the canned [[meat industry]] reminded Roosevelt of his experiences with shoddy meat in Cuba in 1898. In June 1906 this led to the passing of the Meat Inspection Act (controlling slaughterhouses) and the Food and Drug Act (looking at prohibition of additives). 

The law allowed new chemicals to be added to the list of banned additives. The first one to target was [[Formaldehyde]] which in 1907 was found to be highly dangerous despite widespread use.

President Roosevelt brought one of his heroes, [[Ira Remsen]], in to monitor Wiley. This was bound to create conflict as Wiley had raised concerns regarding the president's use of [[saccharin]] which had been invented by Remsen. This was intended to curb Wiley who had been having large shipments of food and additives condemned.

Wiley soon became a crusader and coalition builder in support of national food and drug regulation. His work, and that of [[Alice Lakey]], spurred one million American women to write to the White House in support of the [[Pure Food and Drug Act]].<ref name="Alice Lakey (1857-1935)">{{cite web|url=http://www.cranfordnj.com/visiblewoman/past.html|title=Alice Lakey (1857–1935)|website=Alice Lakey|publisher=Outstanding Women of Cranford, NJ|url-status=dead|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110708201004/http://www.cranfordnj.com/visiblewoman/past.html|archive-date=July 8, 2011}} [https://lolweb.archive.org/web/20110708201004/http://www.cranfordnj.com/visiblewoman/past.html Alt URL]{{Dead link|date=December 2022 |bot=InternetArchiveBot |fix-attempted=yes }}</ref>

Wiley was nicknamed "Father of the Pure Food and Drugs Act"<ref>{{Cite web |title=Harvey W. Wiley |publisher=FDA |date=2016-07-28 |url= https://www.fda.gov/aboutfda/whatwedo/history/centennialoffda/harveyw.wiley/default.htm |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171114232227/https://www.fda.gov/aboutfda/whatwedo/history/centennialoffda/harveyw.wiley/default.htm |archive-date=2017-11-14|language=en}}</ref> when it became law in 1906. He wrote two editions of ''Foods and Their Adulteration'' (1907 and 1911), which described for an audience of non-specialists the history, preparation and subsequent adulteration of basic foodstuffs. He was a founding father of the [[AOAC International|Association of Official Analytical Chemists]], and left a broad and substantial legacy to the American pure food movement as its "crusading chemist".

Wiley targeted [[Coca-Cola]] in 1909, not because of its use of [[cocaine]] which had ceased a few years before, but because of the excessive use of [[caffeine]] which was proven to be addictive. The fears were particularly regarding children. This went to trial in 1911 where Coca-Cola argued it could be drunk with no ill effects whether addictive or not. The courts decided that Wiley had gone too far and Coca-Cola were found not guilty of breaching the Food and Drug Act: see ''[[United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola]]''. President Taft was pressured into firing Wiley but the press supported his continuing.

The enforcement of the federal Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was assigned to the [[Bureau of Chemistry]], instead of the [[United States Department of Commerce|Department of Commerce]] or the [[United States Department of the Interior|Department of the Interior]], which was a tribute to the scientific qualifications that the Bureau of Chemistry brought to its studies of food and drug adulteration, and misbranding. The first food and drug inspectors were hired to complement the work of the laboratory scientists, and an inspection program was launched which revolutionized the country's food supply within the first decade under the new federal law.

Wiley's tenure generated controversy over his administration of the 1906 statute. Concerns over chemical preservatives, which had not been specifically addressed in the law, continued to be problematic. The [[United States Secretary of Agriculture|Secretary of Agriculture]] appointed a Referee Board of Consulting Scientists, headed by [[Ira Remsen]] of [[Johns Hopkins University]], to repeat Wiley's human trials of preservatives. The use of [[saccharin]], bleached flour, [[caffeine]], and [[benzoate of soda]] were all important issues which had to be settled by the courts in the early days under the new law.

Under Wiley's leadership, however, the Bureau of Chemistry grew significantly in strength and stature after assuming responsibility for enforcement of the 1906 Act. Between 1906 and 1912, Wiley's staff expanded from 110 to 146. Appropriations, which had been $155,000 in 1906, were $963,780 in 1912. The Bureau moved into its own building and used the healing symbol of [[Rod of Asclepius|Aesculapius's staff]], or [[Ophiuchus]]. In 1911, his enemies urged his dismissal from the Department of Agriculture over the technicality that an expert in his department had been paid above the legal rate. But later in the year, President [[William H. Taft|William Howard Taft]] wrote a letter that fully exonerated Wiley.<ref name="eb"/>

On March 15, 1912, Wiley resigned his leadership of the Chemistry Bureau because, from nearly the beginning, he had been antagonized in the enforcement of the Pure Food And Drugs Act, and he had seen the fundamental principles of that act either paralyzed or discredited.<ref name=resign>{{cite news| title = Harvey Wiley Explains Resignation| url= http://theprince.princeton.edu/princetonperiodicals/cgi-bin/princetonperiodicals?a=d&d=Princetonian19120316-01.2.2#| format = PDF| agency= Associated Press| newspaper = The Daily Princetonian| date = March 16, 1912| page= 1| quote = President Taft expressed his regret at the resignation. Secretary Wilson said that Wiley had been a "valuable man." Wiley thanked Wilson for the "personal kindness and regard shown him."}}</ref> Taft expressed his regret at Wiley's resignation and Agriculture Secretary [[James Wilson (Secretary of Agriculture)|James Wilson]] spoke highly of how "valuable" Wiley had been, and in turn, Wiley thanked Wilson for the "personal kindness and regard shown him."<ref name=resign/>