The food industry is not a social service or a public health agency. The manufacturers association was joined by the dairy industry, which depended on formaldehyde to salvage sour milk; the baking industry, which relied on aluminum in baking powder; the bleached flour industry; and the increasingly powerful chemical products manufacturers. Together Lakey and Wiley ignited a nationwide letter writing campaign in favor of food regulation, with a message aimed squarely at members of congress and the president. Mark Mandler Getting the bill passed is only the first step. And the laws that were being passed locally, inspectors were just being paid off by the dairy owners. Narrator: Wiley’s controversial experiments captivated and even entertained the country and his volunteers earned the nickname the poison squad. Corby Kummer, Journalist: America was definitely the Wild West for putting all kinds of chemicals into food. Kathleen Dalton, Historian:  But he was leading a Republican Party with very entrenched opposition to any kind of food regulation, and his best friend was Senator Henry Cabot Lodge, who was in the manufacturer’s back pocket. Narrator: At the time, Americans consumed more than 10 million gallons of  coca cola every year.The company marketed the beverage as an “ideal brain tonic, ”that “invigorated the fatigued body and quickened the tired brain,” all of which Wiley saw as fraud. He worried about that as an unregulated stimulant. Bruce Watson, Journalist: When it gets down there, one army medic opens one of the cans and says it smells like a human body that’s rotted and putrefied but had been preserved with formaldehyde. On October 31st, a group of readers from multiple disciplines including pharmacy, medicine, and history gathered to discuss the book. Corby Kummer, Journalist: Good Housekeeping was, for at least 50 years, what women relied on. The Academy Film Archive Anything that needed to look bright and fresh, copper sulfate went into it. Sarah Lohman, Writer: Fannie Farmer really promoted the domestic science movement. Deborah Blum, Author: He gets a lot of letters and telegrams and messages of support. Narrator: when it came time to publish his findings of fraud in the honey and syrup industry, Wiley learned quickly how his work had touched a nerve within the industry and awakened powerful forces allied against him. She included nutritional information in her book. Transcription Services His father clearly realized that education was important. Marek Machač, Actors Narrator: By the time Wiley began his study in 1885, dairy manufacturers had learned that there was money to be made by adulterating their product. Previously, Bellows served as senior producer for the Peabody and Emmy Award-winning series Africans in America. Book Discussion Guidelines for Facilitators Narrator: Wiley’s professional life and his pursuit of food regulation would get an unexpected boost in 1898 after American troops were sent into Cuba during the Spanish American war. Deborah Blum, Author: It’s an amazing moment in American history for the feds to finally say, yes, we’re here to protect you in your everyday life. And whispers of fields that are green,  Recently Viewed . INT: Dining hall in the basement of the USDA second Poison Squad study. Mark Bittman, Journalist: In the 19th Century, most food was still real, and then the 20th Century saw the process of food going from real to something that no one had ever seen before. Eventually he asks her to marry him and she says no. And finally it was accomplished to the great benefit of the people of this country and to the protection of our health, which is the most valuable asset we have, and our lives.”, Narrator: When he died in 1930at the age of 85, Harvey Washington Wiley was buried in Arlington cemetery. Pavel Brejcha, Sfx/Construction Standby I mean he wants attention to it, but he wants the right kind of attention. Achetez et téléchargez ebook The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century (English Edition): Boutique Kindle - 19th Century : Amazon.fr Deborah Blum, Author: One of the experts on caffeine that Wiley brought in was an eminent US scientist. Industry cried foul, portraying Wiley as irrational and out of control, and calling for his ouster. In 1911,the 67-year-old bachelor married his one true love, Anna Kelton, the woman who had turned him down over a decade earlier. Narrator: Almost immediately poison squad members selected to receive the preservative began reporting its ill-effects. Wiley wrote about the fact that, you know, women couldn’t vote but they were still able through organization and industry to have important political power. One study on pepper revealed fillers of charcoal and coconut shells. Why should government get in my way? James G. Kenan Research Center at The Atlanta History Center Kathleen Dalton, Historian: If you think of women as the angels of the house, which Victorians did, I think it’s legitimate that women got into the political sphere as advocates of their, protecting their children, protecting their home. Corby Kummer, Journalist: Wiley was enormously helped by his scientific backing of his studies that gave this kind of mantle of authority. British Society for the History of Pharmacy Virtual Annual Conference, People, places and things - a compendium of talks on pharmacy history. To everybody’s surprise, the judge agreed. Suzanne Junod, Historian: Wiley started out cautiously optimistic that he would find some levels of safety. 68-year-old Wiley was not out of the public eye for long. He read a lot. Granger John E. Allen Inc. Narrator: On march 15th, 1912, Dr. Harvey Washington Wiley officially resigned from the USDA after nearly 30 years as its chief chemist. Narrator: Wiley’s findings about other dairy products turned up widespread fraud and deception. People would buy jam and it was usually corn syrup. He talks to the actual milk producers, cheese producers, butter producers, so all of these ingredients are coming in and they’re super pure so that to the extent possible he can absolutely control for just the thing he’s testing. Deborah Blum, Author: If what you want to do is have your science make a difference then you’ve got to move it out into the larger community. It was flamboyant. Alamy Stock Photo Jack High, Economist: The biggest purely economic development is the rise of big business. The consumers are completely in the dark about their food. The walls are scummy, with rotting meat that has dried and blood spatter and germs are growing everywhere. Two weeks later, Coke’s lawyers tried a new tactic by questioning  whether the government even had standing to sue the company. Suzanne Junod, Historian: He was getting letters from all over the country. Bruce Watson, Journalist: So the first thing they have to do is that they have to get food that isn’t adulterated. It’s the first time that the US government says we’re in the business of consumer protection. People were outraged at the human hands and legs that got ground up into their food. Preservatives like formaldehyde in their pork, salicylic acid in canned fruit, borax in their country hams, and a host of other toxic chemicals could be found in almost every plate of food on dinner tables across the country. This is "Poison Squad part three" by the duplicates on Vimeo, the home for high quality videos and the people who love them. Deborah Blum, Author: His father was a farmer but was also an itinerant evangelical preacher, passionate about social justice. Joseph Gurney Cannon: The powerful and corrupt Speaker of the House opposed regulation and battled with Wiley over proposed pure-food legislation. There were like joke menus in the newspaper where every other course was borax, and Vaudevillian songs about them. Everyone gets that. A lot more American consumers realize that their canned meat is really horrible. Wiley was taking on a big corporation, but I don’t really think that that bothered Wiley. Deborah Blum, Author: Milk production was becoming increasingly corrupt because as you have the rise of industries which are clustered around big urban areas, you have people who are living on a very small budget and they can’t afford the wonderful farm fresh milk anyway. And they started drinking it a lot. Kirstin Butler  He planned to introduce one chemical additive in varying amounts to each meal, as he studied its physical effects on the volunteers over several weeks. Deborah Blum, Author: Now you have the American public wondering if they’re cannibals because of the shoddy meat production. . I think he hoped to make an example out of Coca-Cola. The “Poison Squad” and the Advent of Food and Drug Regulation By Carol Lewis U.S. Food and Drug Administration Consumer Magazine November-December 2002 "O, they may get over it but they'll never look the same, That kind of bill of fare would drive most men insane. So, Wiley’s approach to labeling had to be abandoned. Congress held hearings and focused its attention only on  regulating oleomargarine. But when the news broke in the New York Times on july 20th, 1911,it was not the story that Wilson or Taft had expected. Suzanne Junod, Historian: His family was very progressive. Deborah Blum, Author: He wanted to have Coca-Cola pull down the amount of caffeine in their Coke and they didn’t have to under the law and the only way that he could get them to do that was to take them to court. Academy of Managed Care Pharmacy, AMCP 2021, Organization of American Historians Annual Meeting, Virtual Conference on American History, International Society for the History of Pharmacy Virtual Symposium, Projects and Prospects in Pharmaceutical History, University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Pharmacy, Individual Subscription For $80/year ($100/foreign), Institutional/Corporate subscription For $160/year ($180/foreign), Pharmacy Education Fund (Schools or College of Pharmacy) For $330/year. Industry friendly congressmen argued that regulation would be the death knell for business. Narrator: It was this kind of corporate fraud that offended Wiley’s puritanical sense of right and wrong, and he was determined to use his science to raise public awareness. Sarah Lohman, Writer: What Wiley wanted to find out is if you eat enough of this, will it kill you? One very obsessive, determined person can change the world. Pharmacy Education Fund – Contribute Now! Watch a preview of The Poison Squad. But by 1912, the climate in Washington had turned decisively against food regulation and even more decisively against Harvey Wiley. “Our duty,” he wrote to secretary Wilson, “is clearly to protect the people of our country in every possible way.”. Particularly when you're talking about milk, butter, jam, things that seem so ordinary, to find out that they aren’t what they're advertised as being is shocking. You just keep pushing one more time and he does. Narrator: In 1881, 37-year-old chemist Harvey Wiley was working in relative obscurity in the lone laboratory on the campus of Purdue University. Tony Volante, Sound Designer/Re-Recording Mixer RECREATION INT:  Inside Wiley’s Laboratory in the basement of the USDA. Alfred P. Sloan Foundation Narrator: Wiley doubled down on his efforts to raise awareness about impurities and fakery, launching studies into everything from baking powder, spices, coffee and canned vegetables. Narrator: It was a portrait of an industry run amok, an extremely worrying depiction of America’s food supply that transfixed the country. Sarah Lohman, Writer: Sinclair went and did this research, and when you read it, just like the swill milk exposés, it sounds too horrific to be believed, but then Roosevelt sends people in to see what’s happening, and they come back, and their report says Sinclair was absolutely right. Bruce Watson, Journalist: This is the first federal attempt to regulate the quality and adulteration of food. Narrator: The passage of the 1906 food bill should have been a moment for Wiley to savor his victory, but he had little time to rest. The cumulative health effects of the preservative were definitive in Wiley’s mind. The idea of not having to pay for any of your food does sound a little bit attractive. But Wiley’s final poison squad study was his most definitive - his human experiments with formaldehyde - the chemical favored for embalming cadavers and used throughout the meat and dairy industry. And so you’ve got that tension there. Michal Karasek, Library of Congress/NARA Researchers INT: Dining hall in the basement of the USDA second poison squad study. ... 2021-01-28T19:00:00-06:00: Mid-American Gardener: 2021-01-28T19:30:00-06:00 He stayed on, but Wilson kept, you know, shutting him out of things and undermining him and he finally realized he couldn’t stay. Suzanne Junod, Historian: I mean, the beekeepers should have been delighted that he had exposed what they were trying to compete with, but instead all they could see was the bad publicity it was bringing to honey overall. Wiley’s findings about canned meat only added fuel to his crusade to hold industry accountable. Watch a preview of The Poison Squad. Jason Longo Eric Schlosser, Writer: I think he is very much of a part of a great many reformers of the Progressive Era who looked at the injustice and wanted to make the system live up to its own ideals. Book Discussion Toolkit. So it wasn’t as if he was just like you know, let me do my good deed for the day. The Poison Squad One Chemist’s Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century by Deborah Blum To request a complimentary examination copy of The Poison Squad for course-adoption consideration, please complete the form below and click submit. He thought that they could accomplish whatever they wanted to in the end. He really starts this transition from being a chemist who is arguing a point, to a political figure. Deborah Blum, Author: By the time he got to Washington DC, he’s already made people angry. Fortunately, a sense of outrage was building amongst american progressives, and wiley soon learned he had powerful new allies within the burgeoning women’s rights movement. The meatpackers struck back immediately, claiming the bill was "a campaign made out of a farmer's panic" and accusing congress of stifling scientific progress in food manufacturing. Parkland Book Discussion Toolkit . Narrator: The committee rooms of congress, Wiley wrote, "were jammed with attorneys for the industries - a formidable lobby of influential men who would stop at nothing to kill legislation.”. Upton Sinclair’s writing had been the final spark Wiley had been hoping for, igniting a truly national conversation on the critical need for food safety. While in Europe, Wiley saw firsthand the power of science to reform an unregulated food industry run amok. The nation’s efforts to feed them sparked a boom in the new field of industrial food manufacturing. We invite you to share your pharmacy stories, photos, videos, artifacts, and other documentation of the COVID-19 coronavirus pandemic. They want to be able to buy foods that aren’t going to contaminate their family, and they want power. Hagley Museum and Library, Archival Materials Courtesy of Prior to Wiley’s arrival, the office had conducted only small food fraud investigations. Narrator: In the back rooms of capitol hill, Wiley pounced on his congressional allies to hold hearings on the pure food bill. Can we detect it? The war was a test for the big meat packing companies like Armour and Swift who’d won lucrative government contracts to feed the military. A graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Samels holds honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degrees from Emerson College and Elizabethtown College. In January of 2018, his Into The Amazon opened the 30th season of American Experience and his latest feature, Panic: The Untold Story of the 2008 Financial Crisis, for HBO, recently won a 2019 Emmy Award. Apparently it’s slightly sweetish in taste. Sarah Lohman, Writer: People loved the concept of the Poison Squad, and I mean, who wouldn’t? Sarah Lohman, Writer: This man’s course in life was to make food safe. Signed in As. to cover up spoiled milk, the industry routinely turned to the deadly chemical formaldehyde. It hadn't been really determined how to preserve things in a way that would keep them marketable for a long period of time. Soon he was able to detect a host of chemical additives that manufacturers were routinely using to preserve their food. Narrator: But the problem with dairy products was not simply a lack of nutrients in swill milk. Though he was battle tested, Wiley was not prepared for what his enemies, including secretary Wilson, would do next to try to keep him quiet. So it would sweeten up the taste of souring milk, then they would sell this milk and so, you actually start seeing in newspapers around the country embalmed milk scandals because the milk starts killing people, mostly children, and the dairymen are never prosecuted. Charlotte Porter. Vlastimil Kostka They were absolutely miserable. Jaroslav Linhart Skip to Main Content. . Wiley was getting to a place where he was getting frustrated, his budget was getting cut. Nearly every member of the poison squad became ill after only a small dose of the preservative, and Wiley discontinued the experiments. Clk Transcription, Inc. Legal Services Eric Schlosser, Writer: One of the reasons that Teddy Roosevelt was so receptive to The Jungle, is he had personal firsthand memory of really disgusting food being sold to the US government and served to his troops, so he had a reservoir of anger at the meat packing industry, and reading The Jungle just seemed to confirm his own instincts about these shoddy business practices. The one pulls the other forward and both of them pass. Watch a preview of The Poison Squad. Narrator: Without alerting Wiley, Wilson and his allies raised the issue with president Taft, recommending that the chief chemist be fired. His first target would be the dairy industry, including the quality and healthfulness of milk- one of the most important foods in the American diet and one of the most vulnerable to widespread adulteration. They’re not just voters, they’re publicists, they’re lobbyists, they’re married to people who vote and they’re a moral voice. You know, all of these attacks turn out to be very personal. He’s talking to different public groups. Roosevelt had been prescribed saccharin by his doctor. Deborah Blum, Author: In the Civil War, people realize that formaldehyde is a great preservative. Narrator: Wiley was determined to use his education for good. Deborah Blum, Author: And the summary is so explosive that Congress does come back and they pass a Meat Inspection Act. He needed physiological data to show that there was an effect, and as a trained physician,  he was looking for the physical effects on people’s health, on their bodies, on their systems. As the roll was called, it was clear to  senators who had fought a bill for decades that the war was finally coming to an end. Narrator: By 1904,wiley was rethinking his approach to pure food regulation, after his defeat at the hands of big industry, and he realized that a meaningful food bill would not come by the shocking poison squad results alone. They used the word “pure” again and again. Writer, Director and Producer NPR coverage of The Poison Squad: One Chemist's Single-Minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century by Deborah Blum. In 1901, government chemist Harvey Wiley set out to prove that Americans were being harmed by chemicals in food. A fool would say saccharin is bad for you, and Wiley is pained by these moments in his relationship with Roosevelt, but also Roosevelt can be very unforgiving sometimes, too. Sarah Lohman, Writer: Up until the advent of soda, caffeine was something adults consumed. Sarah Lohman, Writer: Probably one of the most unwholesome ways to preserve was the use of borax. Harvard-Yenching Library, Harvard University Deborah Blum, Author: And these are industries that give a lot of money to very specific people in government to make sure that nothing does happen. Wiley defended the bill against its critics in two straight days of dramatic testimony. He felt sad when he was sent to the zoo. He needs to use more effective ways of getting this message out. He’s an evangelist. Deborah Blum, Author: He looks at the can it’s full of green slime and other, I mean, it was really a disgusting thing, and he ends up saying he would rather have eaten his hat than eaten these military supplies. Pure, pure, pure, pure. ... 2020-09-01T19:00:00-04:00: BBC World News America: 2020-09-01T19:30:00-04:00 “and by accident,  I hit it in the stomach.”. Wiley collected samples from across the state. The Poison Squad: One Chemist’s Single-minded Crusade for Food Safety at the Turn of the Twentieth Century. Science History Institute Also explore over 4 similar quizzes in this category. A sense that there is, you know, a right way and a wrong way. The story was picked up nationwide, painting the administration as industry-friendly sycophants. It was the number one embalming fluid during the Civil War. Wiley wasn’t so much bothered by the chemical preservatives themselves, but that the American public had no idea what they were eating, and manufacturers had no requirement to tell them. Sarah Lohman, Writer: Where is Wiley’s legacy today? A new food safety bill was up for debate and hearings were scheduled in the senate and the house, with Wiley to testify as the lead witness in both. Tom Staton “It was,” he wrote, “an organization of which to be proud.”. So that’s one way of retarding spoilage. Search PBS. Wiley embarked upon a series of bold and controversial trials on 12 human subjects who would become known as the “Poison Squad.” Aired: 01/28/20 Rating: NR The men who were sickened by the food were suffering from bacterial infections transmitted by rancid beef, made worse by the Cuban heat. Zdeněk Papírník Narrator: In america, powerful food manufacturers from j. Ogden armour,the leader of the massive Chicago meatpacking trust, to Asa candler, the head of the industry giant coca-cola, faced no such prohibitions on their use of chemical additives, nor any regulation on divulging ingredients on food labels.by the end of the 19th century, the american food supply was rife with chemicals and fakes. With a nod to his own darkly comic nature, Wiley propped a sign next to the entrance that read - “none but the brave can eat the fare.”, RECREATION: INT:  November 1902, Dining hall in the basement of the USDA. Some of them get borax, some of them don’t, and then they see what happens. It wasn't long before rumors about rancid beef and canned meat reeking of toxic chemicals began cropping up in newspapers. Narrator: Congress asked Wiley to investigate.he and his team of chemists gathered samples of canned beef from military rations and store shelves across the country. Narrator: It wasn’t long before Wiley’s proselytizing for pure food attracted the attention of enterprising industry marketers who, rather than fight against the movement, saw an opportunity to capitalize on its message. Suzanne Junod, Historian: To take on this project was ambitious and a little audacious frankly. Narrator: For President Roosevelt, the jungle confirmed suspicions of the canned meat industry, which he had held since his time in the spanish american war. Pavla Frýdová Kathleen Dalton, Historian: People lied in advertising just on a routine basis, and there was no regulation of that, and people didn’t even think it should be discussed.It was just a capitalist marketplace where the buyer beware, and consumers were completely unprotected. The spectacle of the trial had some reporters wondering if Wiley had finally reached too far in his crusade against the food industry, while others wondered whether he’d been set up to fail. Discussion was semi-structured and loosely guided by the sample questions provided by the Go Big Read initiative. He attended lectures of world-renowned scientists like August Wilhelm Von Hofmann, the inventor of formaldehyde. Narrator: In 1901, government chemist Harvey Washington Wiley set out to  prove that Americans were  being poisoned by an ever increasing number of new chemical preservatives secretly being added to their food. Mark Bittman, Journalist: You didn't even have refrigeration. Narrator: Wiley’s dining room officially opened in November, 1902. And so, he made enemies, but he was also extremely honest and frank.
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