The Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906 (34 Stat. 768) was the first federal law prohibiting the interstate transportation and sale of adulterated food enacted by Congress pursuant to its power under the commerce clause. Scandals concerning the purity and quality of food sold to the U.S. public became widespread as the unsanitary methods used by the food industry were disclosed. One notable example was a novel written by Upton Sinclair entitled The Jungle, in which he exposed the dangerous working conditions as well as the unsavory products created by the Chicago meat-packing industry of the early twentieth century. Dr. Harvey W. Wiley was instrumental in the passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act, which was subsequently amended in 1912, 1913, and …show more content…
§ 301 et seq.), which superseded the provisions of the Pure Food and Drug Act of 1906. President Theodore Roosevelt began the process by ensuring the passage of the Meat Inspection Act of 1906, which was followed by the Pure Food and Drug Act, passed in 1906 to become effective at the start of 1907. It was to be applied to goods shipped in foreign or interstate commerce. The purpose was to prevent adulteration or misbranding. Adulteration was defined in various ways. For confectionary, adulteration would be the result of any poisonous color or flavor, or of any other ingredients harmful to human health. Food was adulterated if it contained filthy or decomposed animal matter, poisonous or deleterious ingredients, or anything that attempted to conceal inferior components. Provisions included ending its 27-year stranglehold on proposals for federal pure food and drug legislation, Congress passed the Pure Food and Drug Act and its companion bill, the Meat Inspection Act, on June 30, 1906. An unprecedented convergence of consumer, scientific, and industrial support in 1906 prompted such action; most industries even planned for it, hoping regulation would restore the competitiveness of their products on weak foreign and domestic markets. The ways in which these interests converged, and the reasons therefore, suggest a change in their relationships to each other and with the federal