3.7.8: Nutrition and Food Safety in The United States
Cigarettes are not the only products that have labeling requirements. In 1906, the Pure Food and Drugs Act was passed by Congress, setting governmental regulations and oversight over the food industry. This first iteration of what eventually became the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) oversight was quite simple and required accurate labeling of foods. Any food or medicine that contained certain psychoactive drugs (like caffeine, morphine, cocaine or cannabis), had to be accurately labeled with amounts and dosage. At the time, medicines and “cure-alls” containing these ingredients were often sold as proprietary formulations (Contributors to Wikimedia projects, Pure Food and Drug Act, 2023c). The USDA also began inspecting meat transported between states thanks to a new law in the same year. Later, in 1938 the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic act was passed, and amendments were made afterward, which provided federal oversight on drug testing and approval, and further established the role of the FDA in ensuring safety and quality of foods, medicine, and cosmetic products (Boston University , n.d.). Nutritional supplements like vitamins and herbal remedies have some FDA oversight to ensure appropriate labeling but are not tested for efficacy and side effects in the same way that pharmaceutical drugs are.