Pure Food And Drug Act Of 1906 Essay

The Pure Food and Drug act of 1906 was the 1st consumer protection law by the Federal Government, this act was passed by President Theodore Roosevelt. The main purpose of the Pure Food and Drug act was to prohibit transportation of contaminated, poisonous, and misbranded foods, drugs, medicines and liquors. Without the pure food and drug act our food, medication, and other product would be filled with dangerous chemicals that would have harm in our health and potentially cause death. Before the 20th century, there were no laws or regulations that protected Americans from hazardous foods and medicines. This meant that there were no restrictions of what chemicals could be put in one’s food or medicine, leaving the open to mass deaths of contaminated or poisonous products. For

After this act was passed, the government was locking down on products that were exposed to the public, preventing producers from contaminating our products, but contamination was not the only problem the government faced. In 1910, the American government seized a fairly large quantity of a product called Johnson’s Mild Combination Treatment for Cancer, this case brought up one major issue of the act. The medication that the government took was not polluted with any poisonous chemicals, but the producers labeled the product with false advertisement. The medication label stated that it was a suppresser of cancer progression, which it was not. The Supreme Court ruled against them “finding that the product 's false claims of effectiveness were not within the scope of the Pure Food and Drugs Act, Congress enacted the Shirley Amendment in 1912 to overcome the ruling in U.S. v. Johnson” (FDA Consumer Magazine, 2009). The Shirley