Pure Food and Drug Act
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- This is an article about the United States Food and Drug Act; for the Canadian version see Food and Drugs Act.
The Pure Food and Drug Act of June 30, 1906 is a United States federal law that provided for federal inspection of meat products, and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transport of adulterated food products or poisonous patent medicines. The Act arose due to public education and propaganda from people such as authors Upton Sinclair and Samuel Hopkins Adams, researcher Harvey W. Wiley, President Theodore Roosevelt.
As is common of laws regulating business, the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 was as much an attempt by businesses to improve revenue as it was the product of a public outcry against fraudulent practices. For example, the Coca-Cola Company, which pushed for the 1906 Act, advertised that its soft drink was "Guaranteed under the Pure Food and Drug Act" after 1906.
Though the Pure Food and Drug Act was initially concerned with making sure products were labeled correctly (habit forming cocaine-based drugs were not illegal so long as they were labeled correctly), the labeling requirement gave way to efforts to outlaw certain products that were not efficacious. Ironically, Coca-Cola Company's earlier advertising behind the Act was rewarded by an attempt to outlaw the soft drink in 1909 because of its excessive caffeine content as well as its cocaine content, albeit minuscule. Although the judge found that Coca-Cola had a right to use caffeine as it saw fit, excessive litigation costs caused Coca-Cola to settle out of court with the United States Government. The caffeine amount was reduced.
The 1906 Act paved the way for the eventual creation of the Food and Drug Administration (FDA).