The FDA - a little background

We all love to hate the FDA. I mean they are the people that take food off the market, have all these rules and things that make food cost more, delay the acceptance of new medications, and cause pharmaceutical companies to have all these years of research driving up their 'costs' (which get paid by patients in the end, one way the other).

So why do we have an FDA? How did that happen? I never really knew or thought much about it. I just thought it was another one of those big Washington based alphabet agencies making rules and spending the public's money.

I try to assume that people are going to do the right thing and not rob, steal, or corrupt. People generally do mean to do their best and help others. But this is not always true,  hence the reason for all the government and policing.

Meat packing plants were a wealth of horrors. Its surprising more did not die from food from them.
It is a well known fact that the nineteenth, and probably earlier, centuries were full of patent medicines where you might kill yourself thinking you were healing yourself. Who knew what was in them. These were exposed in an article called "The Great American Quackery" which ran in Colliers Magazine in 1905. This resulted in the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906.

Finally in 1938, after over 100 people died from taking a patent medicine full of a toxin, the Pure Food and Drug Act was passed which required manufacturers to prove their products were safe. This lead to the creation of the Food and Drug Administration.

So that is your little history lesson for the day. I am heading out for a dentist appointment on this rainy morning....