Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

Food and Drugs are regulated by the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). In 1837 the patent commissioner, Henry Ellsworth, made the first call for national center for science to support the agricultural industry.

Over the next thirty years his successors Edmund Burke, Thomas Ewbank and Charles Mason repeatedly asked Congress to appropriate funds to support scientific investigations, particularly of the food industry.

Commissioner Thomas Ewbank in 1850 established an Agriculture Division within the Patent Office, and somewhere between 1858 and 1860 the first analytical chemist was hired. In1862, President Lincoln appointed chemist Charles M. Wetherill to head the Chemical Division in the new US Department of Agriculture.

Wetherill’s successor as chief chemist of the USDA, Peter Collier, began working on the ubiquitous problem of food adulteration.

Harvey W. Wiley was names to replace Collier in 1883, leading the division as it grew into the Bureau of Chemistry in 1901. He campaigned for Congress to draft a law to regulate food and drug products.

On 30 June 1906 President Theodore Roosevelt signed the Food and Drugs Act, simply known as Wiley Act.  Prior to the act, states set their own domestic regulations with regard to food and drug commodities.

This act, which the Bureau of Chemistry was charged to administer, prohibited the interstate transport of unlawful food and drugs under penalty of seizure of the questionable products and/or prosecution of the responsible parties.

In 1927 Congress authorized the formation of the Food, Drug and Insecticide Administration from regulatory wing of the Bureau of Chemistry; the name of the agency was shortened to the Food and Drug Administration in 1930.

The mission of the US Food and Drug Administration is to protect public health by ensuring the safety and security of the products that regulates – foods, drugs, cosmetics, biologics, veterinary products, medical devices and products that emit radiation.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)

US Food and Drug Administration in history

The origins of the Food and Drug Administration can be traced back to 1862, when President Lincoln appointed chemist Charles M. Wetherill to head the Chemical Division in the new US Department of Agriculture.

In 1883, Harvey W. Wiley became the chief of the division as it grew into the Bureau of Chemistry in 1901. He focused his attention and efforts on chemically altered foods and food additives and their impact on health, which he believed was a greater public health threat than fraudulent or misbranded drugs.

The bureau modern regulatory functions began with the passage of the 1906 Pure Food and Drugs Act. The act was a response to revelations of false claims for adulterated and dangerous patent medicines.

In 1927 Congress authorized the formation of the Food, Drug and Insecticide Administration from the regulatory wing of the Bureau of Chemistry; the name of the agency was shortened to the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 1930.

Pesticide residues began to be problem in the 1920s. In 1938, the stronger Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act – still the nation’s governing statue – replaced the 1906.

In 1940 FDA moved from Department of Agriculture to the Federal Security Agency then to the Departments of Health, and Welfare and Health and Human Services.
US Food and Drug Administration in history

History of Food Safety

History of Food Safety
Before manufacturing traditional, farming practices and preserving techniques were used to ensure safe food.

During industrial revolution, food began to be processed and packaged. Lacking regulation, manufacturers were free to add whatever they liked to their products. Sweeping from the floor were included in pepper, lead salts were added to candy and cheese, textile inks were used as coloring agents, bricks dust was added to cocoa, and copper salts were added to peas and pickles.

In the 1880s, women started organizing groups to protest the conditions at slaughterhouses in New York City and adulterated foods in other parts of the country.

In 1883, Harvey W. Wiley, chief chemist of the U.S Agricultural Department’s Bureau of Chemistry, began experimenting with food and drug adulteration.

Meanwhile, Upton Sinclair spent several weeks in a meat packing plant investigating labor conditions and turned his discoveries into a book, The Jungle, published in 1906. Although the focus of that book was the conditions immigrants experienced in the early twentieth century, there were graphic descriptions of the filth and poor hygiene in packing plants. It caught the public attention.

People began complaining to Congress and to President Theodore Roosevelt. Pressure was also mounting from foreign governments that wanted some assures that food imported from United States was pure and wholesome.

Two acts were passed in 1906, the Pure Food and Drug Act and the Beef Inspection Act, to improve food safety conditions.

In 1927, U.S Food, Drug and Insecticide Administration (shortened to Food and Drug Administration) or FDA was created to enforce the Pure Food and Drug act.


The Pure food Act was later superseded in 1938 by Pure Food, Drug and Cosmetics Act. This act prohibited any food or drug that is dangerous to health to be sold in interstate commerce.

In 1958, concern over cancer led to the adoption of the Delaney Amendments, which expanded the FDA’s regulatory powers to set limits on pesticides and additives. Manufacturers had to prove that additives and pesticides were safe before they could be used.

The Fair Packaging and Labeling Act of 1966 standardized the labels of products and required that labels provide honest information.

The next major act was the Food Quality Protection Act of 1996. It set new regulations requiring implementation of Hazard Analysis and Critical Control points (HACCPs) for most food processor.

The Food quality Protection Act also changed the way acceptable pesticide levels are calculated. Now total exposure for all sources must be calculated.
History of Food Safety