FDA Celebrates Hundred Years of Pretense

Today marks the one-hundred-year birthday of the FDA. To celebrate, the FDA plans a gala event at the Harvey W. Wiley federal building. The FDA is touting Dr. Wiley as the “Father of the Pure Food and Drugs Act,” inviting his decedents to attend their event. The FDA is quite proud of the heritage Dr. Wiley has bestowed upon them.

Apparently, the FDA would like to forget what Dr. Wiley actually believed. He was an adamant supporter of a true organic food supply for the entire American public. It was the food industry that did not want this legislation, as they were more interested in foods adulterated with colorings and preservatives, a lower quality of food that posed health risks. Dr. Wiley believed that preservatives in food posed a serious health problem. He thought the regular intake of preservatives over the course of a lifetime was certain to be toxic and contribute to ill health. As he stated in his 1905 Congressional testimony:

“I think that the use of preservatives in food may be and often is overdone and that great harm may come from their excessive use….I say, as a plain business proposition, that the men who put preservatives in food had better stop for their own good and for the good of their business; and they will.”

In the ensuing years Dr. Wiley worked to stand by his words. He sought to implement the food law to create his vision of a truly healthy food supply for America. He was undermined every step of the way, forced out of his job seven years later by politicians and food industry shenanigans. In 1929, at the age of 85, he decided to tell his story of how he was prevented by the food industry, “science for hire,” and various government officials from creating a wholesome food supply for America.

He saw that the food law had been hijacked by the forces it was supposed to regulate, for the greed and benefit of a few at the cost of health for Americans. His book: The History of a Crime Against the Food Law. Subtitle: The amazing story of the national food and drugs law intended to protect the health of the people perverted to protect the adulteration of food and drugs.

After detailing four hundred pages of government and industry corruption, Dr. Wiley's book concludes as follows:

“If the Bureau of Chemistry had been permitted to enforce the law as it was written and as it tried to do, what would have been the condition now? No food product in our country would have any trace of benzoic acid, sulphurous acid or sulphites, or any alum or saccharin, save for medicinal purposes. No soft drink would contain any caffeine, or theobromine. No bleached flour would enter interstate commerce. Our foods and drugs would be wholly without any form of adulteration and misbranding.

The health of our people would be vastly improved and their life greatly extended. The manufacturers of our food supply, and especially the millers, would devote their energies to improving the public health and promoting happiness in every home by the production of whole ground, unbolted cereal flours and meals. The resistance of our people to infectious diseases would be greatly increased by a vastly improved and more wholesome diet.

Our example would be followed by the civilized world and thus bring to the whole universe the benefits which our own people had received. We would have been spared the ignominy and disgrace of great scientific men bending their efforts to defeat the purpose of one of the greatest laws ever enacted for the protection of the public welfare. Eminent officials of our Government would have escaped the indignation of outraged public opinion because they permitted and encouraged these frauds on the public. The cause of a wholesome diet would not have been put back for fifty or a hundred years. And last but least, this History of a Crime would never have been written.”

In hindsight, the cause of a wholesome diet has indeed been put back a hundred years. The FDA protects and allows numerous adulterations of the food supply, including: preservatives, chemicals like MSG, chemical-derived food coloring, highly refined grains, synthetic sweeteners, junk food, genetically modified food that expresses toxins in every cell, and synthetic bovine growth hormone.

The FDA tolerates animals and chickens raised under horrendous conditions of abuse and poor health, requiring irradiation to kill germs because the animals are so pathetically ill and easily infected. The FDA is now considering allowing cloned animals into the food supply. The FDA refuses to label food in a way that a consumer can judge important issues. For example, no person would eat genetically modified food if they had a choice.

Every step of the way the FDA protects the chemical companies, multi-national food companies, and large agri-business companies that produce this trash the American public is supposed to eat. The FDA stands woefully lacking compared to the integrity of Harvey W. Wiley, M.D.

In my new book, Fight for Your Health, it is easy to understand the reason for the subtitle, “Exposing the FDA's Betrayal of America.” The food quality issue is one of many issues. Americans are sick and tired of government defending the profits of industry at the expense of human health and well being. It is high time we set a course to correct the problems of one hundred years of fraudulent propaganda and bullying enforcement that serves only the interests of the wealthy and powerful elite.