- Pure Food and Drug Act
dablink|This is an article about the United States Food and Drug Act; for the Canadian version see
Food and Drugs Act . For the band seePure Food and Drug Act (band) .Infobox U.S. legislation
name= Pure Food and Drug Act
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effective date=January 01 ,1907
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passedbody2= Senate
passeddate2=June 30 ,1906
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signedpresident= Theodore Roosevelt
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amendments= The Pure Food and Drug Act ofJune 30 ,1906 is aUnited States federal law that provided federal inspection of meat products and forbade the manufacture, sale, or transportation of adulterated food products and poisonouspatent medicine s. The Act arose due to public education and exposés from authors such asUpton Sinclair andSamuel Hopkins Adams , social activistFlorence Kelley , researcherHarvey W. Wiley , and PresidentTheodore Roosevelt .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 safe, followed by efforts to outlaw products which were safe but not efficacious. Ironically, Coca-Cola Company's earlier advertising behind the Act was rewarded by an attempt to outlawCoca-Cola in 1909 because of its excessivecaffeine content as well as its cocaine content, albeit minuscule. In the case "United States v. Forty Barrels and Twenty Kegs of Coca-Cola ", the judge found that Coca-Cola had a right to use caffeine as it saw fit, although excessive litigation costs caused Coca-Cola to settle out of court with theUnited States Government . The caffeine amount was reduced.The 1906 Act paved the way for the eventual creation of the
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) and is generally considered to be that agency's founding date. The law itself was largely replaced by the much more comprehensiveFood, Drug, and Cosmetic Act of 1938.See also
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Biologics Control Act , a 1902 act that dealt with drug purity
* "The Jungle ", Upton Sinclair's 1906 novel that generated concern over adulterated meat
*Food safety
*Meat Inspection Act
*Quackery
* [http://www.thecrusadingchemist.com "The Crusading Chemist"] ,Amanda Read 's historical drama screenplay that retells the story of Harvey Wiley and the Pure Food and Drug ActExternal links
* [http://www.fda.gov/opacom/laws/wileyact.htm The Wiley Act on FDA]
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