Editing Pure Food and Drug Act (section)

==History of passage==
An 1882 article in [[Scientific American]] describes "New Laws for Analyzing Food and Drugs" and highlights historical aspects.<ref name=":0">{{Cite book|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=zoE9AQAAIAAJ|title=Scientific American|date=January 7, 1882|publisher=Munn & Company|pages=2|language=en}}</ref> Part of the draft stated:<blockquote>"An article shall be deemed to be adulterated within the meaning of this act.<br /><br />A.-In the case of drugs:<br />* If, when sold under or by a name recognized in the United States Pharmacopeia, it differs from the standard of strength, quality, or purity laid down in such work.<br />* If when sold under or by a name not recognized in the United States Pharmacopeia, but which is found in some other pharmacopeia or ether standard work on materia medica, it differs from the standard of strength, quality, or purity laid down in such work.<br />* If its strength or purity fall below the professed standard under which it is sold<br /><br />B.-In the case of food or drink:<br />* If any substance or substances has or have been mixed with it as to reduce or lower or injuriously affect its quality of strength<br />* If any inferior or cheaper substance or substances have been substituted wholly or in part for the article<br />*If any valuable constituent of the article has been wholly or is part abstracted<br />* If it be an imitation of or be sold under the name of another article<br />* If it consists wholly or in part of a diseased or decomposed, or putrid or rotten, animal or vegetable substance, whether manufactured or not, or in the case of milk, if it is the produce of a diseased animal<br />* If it be colored, or coated, or polished, or powdered, whereby damage is concealed, or it is made to appear better than it really is, or of greater value"<br /><br />―[[Scientific American]], 7 Jan 1882<ref name=":0" /></blockquote>

It took 27 years to adopt the 1906 statute, during which time the public was made aware of many problems with foods and drugs in the U.S. [[Muckraker|Muckraking]] journalists, such as [[Samuel Hopkins Adams]], targeted the [[patent medicine]] industry with its high-alcoholic content patent medicines, soothing syrups for infants with opium derivatives, and "red clauses" in newspaper contracts providing that patent medicine ads (upon which most newspapers of the time were dependent) would be withdrawn if the paper expressed support for food and drug regulatory legislation.

The Chief Chemist of the Bureau of Chemistry, Dr. [[Harvey Washington Wiley]], captured the country's attention with his hygienic table studies, which began with a modest Congressional appropriation in 1902. The goal of the table trial was to study the human effects of common preservatives used in foods during a period of rapid changes in the food supply brought about by the need to feed cities and support an industrializing nation increasingly dependent on immigrant labor. Wiley recruited young men to eat all their meals at a common table as he added increased "doses" of preservatives including borax, benzoate, formaldehyde, sulfites, and salicylates. The table trials captured the nation's fancy and were soon dubbed "The Poison Squad" by newspapers covering the story. The men soon adopted the motto "Only the Brave dare eat the fare" and at times the publicity given to the trials became a burden. Though many results of the trial came to be in dispute, there was no doubt that formaldehyde was dangerous and it disappeared quickly as a preservative. Wiley himself felt that he had found adverse effects from large doses of each of the preservatives and the public seemed to agree with Wiley. In many cases, most particularly with ketchup and other condiments, the use of preservatives was often used to disguise unsanitary production practices. Although the law itself did not proscribe the use of some of these preservatives, consumers increasingly turned away from many products with known preservatives.

The 1906 statute regulated food and drugs moving in interstate commerce and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of poisonous patent medicines.<ref>{{cite journal |last=Ayers |first=Edward A. |date=August 1907 |title=What The Food Law Saves Us From: Adulterations, Substitutions, Chemical Dyes, and Other Evils |journal=[[World's Work|The World's Work: A History of Our Time]] |volume=XIV |pages=9316–9322 |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=sojNAAAAMAAJ&pg=RA1-PA9316|access-date=July 10, 2009 }}</ref> The Act arose due to public education and exposes from public interest guardians such as Upton Sinclair and Samuel Hopkins Adams, social activist [[Florence Kelley]], researcher [[Harvey W. Wiley]], and President Theodore Roosevelt.